Silevo brings together a strong team of innovators, disciplined semiconductor and solar factory operations talent, business executives, inventors and scientists with proven track records ramping products and revenues from the ground floor into billion dollar product lines and enterprises.
Dr. Zheng Xu
Dr. Zheng Xu is co-founder, president and CEO of Silevo. As one of the leading physical vapor deposition (PVD) scientists in the world, Dr. Xu is focused on making solar electricity more affordable through improved solar cell conversion efficiency and highly automated volume production technology at Silevo. His expertise in device physics and PVD for Transparent Conductive Oxides (TCOs) are core to Silevo’s groundbreaking Triex solar cell technology.
Dr. Xu has a rich history in the semiconductor industry. As a founding father and executive sponsor of the Endura Copper Barrier Seed PVD system, he helped semiconductor Integrated Circuit (IC) and Memory companies transition to copper-based interconnects in the late 1990s. This transition enabled rapid performance increases and cost reductions, and was influential in enabling the Internet and microelectronics age.
Dr. Xu spearheaded these developments during his 15-year tenure as corporate vice president and general manager of CPI products business group at Applied Materials, Inc. Under his leadership, the CPI business group significantly improved product differentiation, market momentum and business performance, and achieved more than $1.2B revenue with 73% market share in the metal thin film market and more than 55% gross margin.
Dr. Xu spearheaded the development, market penetration and manufacturing cost reduction of leading-edge thin film products, for instance, PVD, atomic layer deposition (ALD) and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) at Applied Materials. Dr. Xu also initiated new product development in Xi’an, China, and developed the first 300mm semiconductor equipment in that country.
Dr. Xu earned a Ph.D. in materials science from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Xu also holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Osaka University in Japan. He received his B.S. in semiconductor physics and devices from Zhejiang University in China. He holds 74 U.S. patents and has 13 pending U.S. patents.
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Dr. Jianming Fu
Dr. Jianming Fu is a co-founder of Silevo, vice president and chief technology officer. He is responsible for developing Silevo’s industry leading Triex cell and module technology. Dr. Fu is also a leading Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) scientist and innovator with extensive experience in product development.
Dr. Fu spent his early career driving PVD magnetron development, which is now embedded in nearly every semiconductor fabrication facility in the world. His in-depth knowledge and experience with magnetrons and PVD concepts is critical to Silevo’s unique technology, along with leveraging off-the-shelf proven production tools to enable new hardware modifications for solar innovation. At Silevo, he established device process capabilities, equipment, facilities and an experienced team of scientists to develop solar cells using tunneling junction with efficiencies over 20%.
Prior to his role at Silevo, Dr. Fu was heavily involved in product development in the PVD division at Applied Materials, Inc., where he served as general manager and managing director, as well as senior director of core PVD technology, a key R&D group focusing on new product and technology development for the division. Dr. Fu oversaw teams in China, India and the United States, and led the division to annual revenue of more than $400M with over 80% market share. In his 13 years at Applied Materials, he also launched multiple products as executive and inventor, including EnCoRe Ta/Cu, SIP Ti/TiN, Cu, ALPS Al, and successfully developed products for transition from 8” to 12” wafers. He is also one of the innovators who helped semiconductor IC & Memory companies transition to copper-based interconnects.
In addition, he revolutionized PVD deposition by inventing self-ionized plasma (SIP) deposition technology, a process which ionizes up to 80% of metal atoms. SIP was quickly accepted in the market in 1997, with more than 100 SIP Al chambers shipped in the first year to DRAM makers such as Samsung and Micron, with derivative SIP products developed for Al, TiN, Cu and TaN. Today, SIP is used in virtually every leading semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world.
Dr. Fu earned his Ph.D. in applied physics from Pennsylvania State University, his M.S. in semiconductor materials from the Institute of Semiconductors at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and a B.S. in physics from Wuhan University. He holds 63 U.S. patents.
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Christopher Beitel
Christopher Beitel is vice president of business development and marketing at Silevo, and is responsible for sales and marketing, market strategy, and key partner networks to enable industry leading solar system installation cost and performance with the company. Mr. Beitel brings his extensive experience in business commercialization to Silevo, having grown multiple products at Applied Materials, Inc. into billion dollar product lines.
Prior to this position, Mr. Beitel was managing director and general manager for the thin film solar business at Applied Materials, where he was responsible for a billion dollar product line in the renewable energy and solar PV sector. Mr. Beitel’s role in the solar thin film division included development, commercialization, business development, product marketing and support for a highly automated and advanced turn-key PV manufacturing line. Drawing from this experience, Mr. Beitel brings to Silevo a deep understanding of Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) equipment, which enables thin film passivation layers, a critical step and material for Silevo.
Mr. Beitel also held various positions within Applied Materials’ semiconductor product sector primarily focused on thin film metallization for both front-end and back-end integrated circuit development. Under Mr. Beitel’s product leadership, the Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) portfolio of equipment garnered more than 80% market share and delivered some of the highest contributed profits to the company. He was an early product manager of the Endura Copper Barrier Seed system, which enabled Cu for the industry and, successfully transferred from 200mm (8inch) to 300mm (12inch) tool sets, which significantly helped boost performance and productivity.
Mr. Beitel holds an M.S. in science and technology commercialization from the Red McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California at San Diego.
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Dr. Leo Zhang
Dr. Leo Zhang is chief operating officer and president of China operations for Silevo. In this role, Dr. Zhang is responsible for high volume manufacturing of the Silevo product line and factory management, as well as running the day-to-day operations of the company. Dr. Zhang brings to Silevo his rich background and leadership experience in semiconductor factory management, having led highly automated facilities of vast size and complexity in previous positions.
Dr. Zhang joined Silevo in 2010, following his position as general manager at Erdos Polysilicon Co. Ltd., a new operation tasked with enabling low cost and high performance silicon manufacturing in Inner Mongolia, China. There Dr. Zhang oversaw business operations, including employee hiring, finance planning, marketing and sales, equipment purchasing, process technology transfer and implementation, venture partner outreach and contract negotiation, site construction and government relations. As well, Dr. Zhang served as general manager of operations at Miasole Co. Ltd. where he was in charge of its Shanghai site operations, including system engineering, system assembly, PV production, technical marketing, customized product development and procurements, QRA, ESH and IT.
Also in Shanghai, Dr. Zhang was vice president of operations for Huahong Semiconductor International/Huahong NEC, as part of a state government sponsored joint venture program with Japanese NEC Corp in charge of its Fab II operation. He was also a leading operations executive at SMIC China, where he led the 300mm Fab 6 production facility and the 200mm Fab 3 – Fab 1 facilities. While at SMIC, Dr. Zhang was responsible for production line management, capacity ramp up, new product qualification, quality and reliability, as well as being a key point of contact for SMIC foundry customer technology transfer.
Dr. Zhang earned a Ph.D. in solid state physics at the Argonne National Laboratory from the Illinois Institute of Technology of Chicago, an M.S. in solid state physics from Shandong University in P.R., China, as well as his B.S. in physics
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