In addition, GT will also pay $20m of cash earn-outs upon the achievement of certain financial and technical targets through 2013.
Investors in Confluence Solar include Convexa Capital, OCI and Oceanshore Investors.
GT president and CEO Tom Gutierrez said Confluence’s HiCz technology is expected to drive down the cost of monocrystalline wafers below traditional Czochralski (CCz) methods while enabling flexible production of advanced materials used in next generation cell architectures.
"We expect to launch a commercial CCz mono equipment offering in our fiscal year 2013," Gutierrez said.
The company indicated that the acquisition will eliminate certain previously planned organic development costs in both fiscal 2012 and 2013 which, when netted against the costs incurred in the acquired business, will make the acquisition additionally accretive in fiscal 2013.
Confluence is the developer of HiCz, a continuously-fed CCz growth technology, that enables the production of high efficiency monocrystalline solar ingots, which is expected to lower production costs.
