centrotherm

Our mission

Green | Smart | Efficient

Welcome to centrotherm

Thermal production solutions and coating technologies are among centrotherm's core competencies. For more than 70 years we have been developing and implementing production concepts for a constantly growing international customer base. In addition to growth sectors such as the semiconductor and microelectronics industry, as well as photovoltaics, our innovative solutions are also being applied in new future-oriented fields such as fiber or battery production. 

As a leading, globally active technology group, we work closely with partners from industry and research. We improve existing production concepts and set new trends. In this way, we generate valuable competitive advantages for our customers. More than 650 employees worldwide are working to shape the future - GREEN | SMART | EFFICIENT.

Facts and figures

70+
years of experience in thermal processes
650+
employees work for the Group worldwide
4300+
single process systems installed
50+
turnkey production lines implemented
Our locations at a glance

centrotherm worldwide

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Germany | Blaubeuren

centrotherm international AG
Wuerttemberger Str. 31
89143 Blaubeuren

+49 7344 918 0
info@centrotherm.de
HeadquarterProduction Site

Germany | Dresden

centrotherm international AG
Manfred-von-Ardenne-Ring 20
01099 Dresden

+49 7344 918 0
info@centrotherm.de
Sales & Service Subsidiary

Germany | Hanover

centrotherm international AG
Vahrenwalder Str. 269A
30179 Hannover


info@centrotherm.de
Sales & Service Subsidiary

China | Shanghai

centrotherm Technology Shanghai Co. Ltd.
Room 803, Building B3
No. 180 Yizhou Road
Xuhui District
200233 Shanghai

+86 21 61621018
service@centrotherm.cn
Sales & Service Subsidiary

China | Kunshan

centrotherm Machinery (Kunshan) Co. Ltd.
No. 665, Jiande Road
Zhangpu Town
215321 Kunshan
Jiangsu Province


service@centrotherm.cn
Production Site

Taiwan | Zhubei

centrotherm Asia Pte. Ltd. Taiwan Branch
13F-2, No 8, Ziqiang S Rd.
Zhubei City
Hsinchu County
30264, Taiwan

+886 3 667 6633
service@centrotherm.tw
Sales & Service Subsidiary

Korea | Suwon

centrotherm Korea Ltd.
102-812,Digital-Empire II Bldg.
88, Sinwon-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon-si,
Gyeonggi-do, 16681 

+82 31 695 8121
service@centrotherm.kr
Sales & Service Subsidiary

India | Bangalore

centrotherm India Pte. Ltd.
No. 3, 2nd Floor A.V.S. Compound
80 feet Peripheral Road, 4th Block, Koramangala
Bangalore 560034, Karnataka

+91 80 41666696
service@centrotherm.in
Sales & Service SubsidiarySoftware Competence Center

Singapore

centrotherm Asia Pte. Ltd.
Blk 18 Sin Ming Lane #02-11
Midview City
Singapore  573960 

+65 625 22331
service@centrotherm.sg
Sales & Service Subsidiary

USA | Durham, NC

centrotherm USA Inc.
3333 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd.
Suite D-200
Durham, NC 27707

+1 503 352 9458
service@centrotherm.us
Sales & Service Subsidiary

China | Shanghai

EII Semiconductor Technologies Co.,Ltd
Room 812.Eternal Asia Plaza, No.202 Jinyue Rd
Pudong New Area
Shanghai 201206

+86 21 6075 1826
charlie@eiitech.cn
www.eiitech.net
Sales Representative

China | Shenzhen

Unisource Semiconductor Technologies, Ltd.
RM426, Dongmin building
Minkang Rd
Baoan
Shenzhen 518131

+86 755 8526 9625
sales@unisource-semi.com
Sales Representative

Japan | Tokyo

Hakuto Co. Ltd.
1-13, Shinjuku 1-chome, Shinjuku-ku
Tokyo 160-8910
Japan

+81 3 3355 7645

www.hakuto.co.jp
Sales Representative

Incheon | Korea

IPT Corp.
#455-456, Incheon Industry Academy Collaboration Institute
Gaetbeol-ro 36, Yeonsu-gu,
Incheon, 21999

+82 70 4647 1933
hoon.shin@ip-t.co.kr
www.ip-t.co.kr
Sales Representative

France | Villard Bonnot

PTS - Puces Technologies Semiconducteurs
23 Rue Paul Héroult
38190 Villard Bonnot
France

+331 60 93 11 00
pts@pts.fr
www.pts.fr
Sales Representative

USA | San Ramon CA

TEC Associates Inc.
111 Deerwood Suite #198
San Ramon CA, 94583
USA

+1 925 831 1700
alexberlin@tecreps.com
www.tecreps.com
Sales Representative
Management of the centrotherm international AG

Board Members

Jan von Schuckmann | CEO

Jan von Schuckmann has been a member of the Management Board since May 2016, and CEO of centrotherm international AG since October 1, 2016. In addition to his activities as Chairman, he is responsible for the departments Production & Logistics, Purchasing, Finance, Service, Human Resources, Legal and Marketing.

Jan von Schuckmann was born in Darmstadt, Germany in 1968. He studied economics and has over 20 years of management experience. He initially held various management positions from 2002 to 2011, including CEO at office supplies company Herlitz AG. As a member of the Management Board from 2012 to 2014, he played a key role in the restructuring of centrotherm photovoltaics AG, and together with his former Management Board colleagues realigned the Group and successfully led centrotherm out of insolvency proceedings in self-administration at the beginning of 2013.

Dr. Helge Haverkamp | CTO

As Chief Technology Officer Dr. Helge Haverkamp has been responsible for centrotherm international AG's Technology, R&D, IT, and Quality Management divisions since September 1, 2021. He joined the company in 2019 as Head of Process Technology.

Dr. Helge Haverkamp was born in Salzgitter, Germany in 1974. After graduating in physics from the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 2003, he worked as research assistant in the industrial solar cell research group at the University of Constance, and as independent consultant for companies in the solar industry. In 2009, he completed his doctoral studies on the development of novel manufacturing processes for photovoltaics and moved to industry. While working, he completed an MBA distance learning program from 2015 to 2018. At the Schmid Group, a medium-sized company in the mechanical engineering and automation sector, he was initially a senior development engineer before taking over responsibility for Research & Development in 2014.

Supervisory Board

Board members

Robert M. Hartung
Chairman

Hans-Hasso Kersten
Deputy Chairman

Dr. Xinan Jia
Board Member

Suppliers

As a globally active provider of high-tech production solutions, we do not compromise on quality and reliability. We also set this standard when selecting and in our relationship with our suppliers.

Get to know our range of materials and learn more about our supplier and quality management here.

Suppliers

Our values

centrotherm attaches great importance to both familiar and professional cooperation. Together with our employees, we have defined what we stand for.

Download PDF

Compliance

With this Code of Conduct and other centrotherm compliance guidelines, we have defined the basic rules for daily cooperation.

Download PDF

Responsibility and quality

Satisfied customers

Our own success, as well as the success of our demanding customers, depends to a large extent on the performance of our production systems. Consequently, what drives our products and services is the quality concept of our customers. Our technology leadership and innovative power will offer our customers additional business advantages. Customer oriented delivery times and the quality of what we deliver paired with rapid response times, dependability and our international presence are all part of our comprehensive quality vision.

Conformity

Thanks to well organized and structured processes in our development, design and production departments, we achieve the highest possible product and operational safety for our plants and systems.

Continuous improvement processes

Preventative quality assurance measures and tools safeguard the quality of our products. The company wide recording and analysis of quality indices, in conjunction with a homogeneous quality management system (QMS), confirms and safeguards the high quality standards of our products and processes. As part of our continuous improvement process, we strive to consistently and sustainably improve our quality index system.

Quality as an Executive Responsibility

Our executives maintain and increase the quality of our processes, products and services in-house and externally by setting verifiable quality goals. The development, motivation and satisfaction of our employees as well as defined responsibilities and interfaces paired with their scope for decision-making foster quality conscious performance.

Download ISO 9001:2015 Certificate

Environment

Environmental protection is an important part of our corporate culture. For us, a consistently environmentally friendly and sustainable use of resources is mandatory. We want to live up to our social responsibility towards our employees, society and the environment and achieve even more beyond all relevant regulations and self-imposed targets. We are already making a valuable indirect contribution to climate and environmental protection with our products. By operating our own combined heat and power plant and PV systems, we reduce the CO2 emissions of our company and aim to further offset them.

We are ISO 9001 certified

Our claim is to maintain our high quality standard
and to improve it continuously.

Download certificate

We are ISO 14001 certified

We are permanently concerned with environmental and climate protection
and work permanently on our environmental performance.

Download certificate

From pioneer to technology leader

The founding Hartung family exemplified a tireless pioneering spirit and tinkering with production solutions. Both characteristics are the cornerstones of our success. Our roots are in the semiconductor industry and over the past decades we have applied our knowledge to new growth industries. Discover our history and milestones of technological progress.

Logo centrotherm international AG

Upscaling of wafer sizes

centrotherm offers process technology for solar cells up to 210 mm diameter. For the processing of silicon carbide, centrotherm supplies high-temperature furnaces for wafer sizes up to 200 mm to Europe's first pilot line for the production of next-generation power electronics as part of the EU-funded REACTION project.

R&D center in Yiwu, China

Foundation of centrotherm Solar technology (Yiwu) Co. Ltd. for cooperative research and development of high-efficiency solar cell concepts with customers and partners.

System generation X

With our new 10-tube process systems for diffusion and PECVD our customers achieve a significant increase in their production capacity.

1250 °C high-temperature process

The first horizontal system with high-temperature capability up to 1250 °C is introduced.

Launch of c.HORICOO 300

With the c.HORICOO 300 centrotherm launches a horizontal furnace cluster with 8 process tubes for highly efficient mass production of 300 mm wafers.

Solar energy cheaper than fossil power in Germany

According to Fraunhofer ISE, PV’s Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) ranges between €0.0371 and €0.1154 per kWh in Germany. This makes newly constructed PV systems cheaper than fossil power plants for the first time.

Production site Kunshan

With centrotherm Machinery (Kunshan) Co. Ltd. founded in 2018, centrotherm has expanded its production capacity and is able to act faster and more flexibly on the important Chinese market.

centrotherm international AG

New company name: centrotherm international AG

Process technology for PERC solar cells

With the triumphant success of PERC solar cells, we rise to become technology leader and industry standard for PECVD-AlOx coating.

First SiC Power MOSFET

CREE Inc. introduces the first fully qualified commercial silicon carbide power MOSFET for energy-efficient power electronics. This new benchmark for power switches makes it possible to develop high-voltage circuits with very fast switching speeds and ultralow losses.

India branch

Foundation of a sales and service branch in Bangalore

China and Korea branches

Foundation of sales and service branches in China and Korea

Taiwan and USA branches

Foundation of sales and service branches in USA and Taiwan

Singapore Branch

Foundation of centrotherm photovoltaics Asia Pte. Ltd. in Singapore

IPO

IPO of centrotherm photovoltaics AG

Turnkey solar cell production lines

By expanding its portfolio to include turnkey production lines, centrotherm becomes the most important initial equipment supplier for Asian cell manufacturers, and rises to become the global market leader in this business field.

centrotherm photovoltaics AG

Foundation of centrotherm photovoltaics

High-temperature SiC processing

centrotherm introduces high-temperature equipment for silicon carbide (SiC) processing. Due to their large band gap SiC switches operate stably in electrical applications up to 600 °C what makes SiC especially relevant for power electronics. Under harsh thermal conditions, SiC operates reliably and permanently and provides 10 times the mean time to failure (MTTF) compared to silicon.

Expansion of PV business

centrotherm expands its solar business with first joint research projects with the Fraunhofer Institute and enters the Asian market.

First vacuum soldering systems

centrotherm presents first vacuum soldering systems.

First RTP system

centrotherm launches first rapid thermal processing equipment

Invention of PERC solar cell

The PERC solar cell design was developed at the University of New South Wales. It took another three decades for PERC technology to account for at least half of the world solar cell manufacturing capacity.

First reflow soldering furnace

centrotherm launches the first conveyor furnace for reflow soldering which is todays most common technology for SMD components.

Entry into PV market

centrotherm enters the solar market and delivers the first products to the photovoltaics industry.

Foundation of centrotherm Elektrische Anlagen GmbH

centrotherm Elektrische Anlagen GmbH is founded.

First mobile phone

The advancements of MOS, large-scale integration technology, information theory and cellular networking led to the development of mobile communications. The first handheld mobile phone was demonstrated by Motorola using a handset weighing approximately 2 kg.

Start of automation

centrotherm introduces first equipment with automated loading system.

Moore's law and the first MEMS devices

With his brief article entitled "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", Gordon Moore predicts the future of the semiconductor industry over the following ten years. It says that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years. Moore's prediction has been used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set R&D targets. Harvey C. Nathanson invents the first Micro-Electro-Mechanical System of the type that is nowadays found in smartphones and vehicles. MEMS devices, composed of small moving mechanical elements that generally range from 1 to 100 micrometers in size, were developed for measuring physical, chemical, biological and environmental parameters.

First vertical furnace

The first centrotherm vertical tube furnace is launched

Mass production of solar cells

Sharp begins to successfully mass-produce solar cells, which brings solar practicality down from space shuttles and satellites to the general public.

First conveyor furnace

centrotherm develops first conveyor furnace for the electronics industry

MOS transistor

Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng successfully fabricate the first working MOSFET device. The advantage compared to planar junction transistors is that it is more compact and more suitable for mass production.

World's first silicon solar cell

Bell Labs announces the invention of the first silicon based solar cells with about 6% conversion efficiency. The New York Times headlines that solar cells will eventually lead to a source of "limitless energy of the sun."

First diffusion furnace

The first diffusion furnace is developed in Blaubeuren.

Foundation of K.C. Hartung Apparatebau

K.C. Hartung Apparatebau is founded by Karl Christian Hartung. The original company of centrotherm starts with special plant engineering for thermal processes.

First transistor

Bell Labs demonstrates a germanium point-contact transistor. William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain are credited with this invention and share the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement.