Business & Environment Awards: Soitec wins a prize in the "Innovation in eco-technology" category

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Lyon, France, 30 November 2010— Soitec (Euronext Paris), the world’s leading supplier of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers and advanced solutions for the electronics and energy industries, received a prize today at the Business and Environment Awards¹handed out at the Pollutec industry fair. The group received a special distinction in the"Innovation in eco-technology"category for its CPV technology (concentrated photovoltaics), which provides a competitive solution to the growing demand for renewable energies.

Soitec’s CPV technology is a high-performance system converting sunlight into electricity. The concentrator modules use Fresnel lenses to concentrate sunlight 500 times and focus it onto small, highly efficient solar cells that convert the light into electrical energy. With this technology, Soitec is able to generate almost double the amount of energy per square metre of module than is possible with conventional photovoltaic technologies. Additionally, thanks to the use of two-axis tracking, the system produces constant power output throughout the day.

CPV technology is thus highly promising for utility-scale solar farms in very sunny regions. It has numerous benefits, including electricity generation costs that are 10% to 20% lower than with conventional silicon technology, better handling of peaks in energy consumption, more rapid energy payback times, a high level of durability, negligible water consumption, the use of recyclable materials, and scalability, which means that facilities ranging from one to several hundred megawatts can be designed.

Soitec’s technological expertise in innovative materials will play a key role in improving the performance of photovoltaic cells for CPV systems. It will complement the expertise developed by the teams of Concentrix Solar, a Soitec subsidiary since late 2009, in the design of highly efficient CPV systems for solar power plants.

About Soitec

Soitec is the world’s leading innovator and provider of the engineered substrate solutions that serve as the foundation for today’s most advanced microelectronic products. The group leverages its proprietary Smart Cut™ technology to engineer new substrate solutions, such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) semiconductor wafers, which became the first high-volume application for this proprietary technology. Since then, SOI has emerged as the material platform of the future, enabling the production of higher performing, faster chips that consume less power.
Today, Soitec produces more than 80 percent of the world’s SOI wafers. Headquartered in Bernin, France, with two high-volume fabs on-site, Soitec has offices throughout the United States, Japan and Taiwan, and a new production site in Singapore.
Three other divisions – Picogiga International, Tracit Technologies and Concentrix Solar – complete the Soitec Group. Picogiga delivers advanced substrates solutions, including III-V epi wafers and gallium nitride (GaN) wafers, to the compound materials market for manufacturing high-frequency electronics and other optoelectronic devices. Tracit provides thin-film layer transfer technologies used to manufacture advanced substrates for power ICs and microsystems as well as generic circuit transfer technology, Smart Stacking™, for applications such as image sensors and 3D integration. In December 2009, Soitec acquired 80 percent of Concentrix Solar, the leading provider of concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar systems for the industrial production of energy. With this acquisition, Soitec has entered the fast-growing solar market. Shares of the Soitec Group are listed on Euronext Paris. For more information, visit: www.soitec.com.

Soitec, Smart Cut, Smart Stacking and UNIBOND are trademarks of S.O.I.TEC Silicon On Insulator Technologies.

International Media Contact

Camille Darnaud-Dufour
+33 (0)6 79 49 51 43
camille.darnaud-dufour@soitec.fr

Investor Relations

Olivier Brice
+33 (0)4 76 92 93 80
olivier.brice@soitec.fr

French Media Contact

Marie-Caroline Saro, H&B Communication
+33 (0)1 58 18 32 44
mc.saro@hbcommunication.fr

¹Held by the French ministry for ecology, energy, sustainable development and the sea (MEEDDM) and the French environment and energy control agency (ADEME), in conjunction with

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and the Orée association, the Business & Environment awards have been given out each year since 1987 as a reward for best practices and eco-friendly achievements.
The 2010 edition features five categories: biodiversity and business, innovation in ecotechnology, ecoproducts for sustainable development, management and initiatives for sustainable development, efficient and clean technologies.

News Source : Business & Environment Awards: Soitec wins a prize in the "Innovation in eco-technology" category