California-based perovskite solar company Swift Solar announced it has acquired the manufacturing assets of Meyer Burger, including the former company’s advanced heterojunction technology (HJT) intellectual property portfolio. This would allow Swift Solar to scale tandem perovskite-silicon solar designs without risk of IP litigation.
Tandem perovskite-silicon designs by Swift Solar.
HJT pioneer Meyer Burger started in the solar industry as a manufacturing equipment developer. Its “SmartWire” designs were licensed by other manufacturing names. In 2020, the company ventured into direct solar cell and panel manufacturing and sales, first opening production facilities in Germany before looking at the U.S. market. Meyer Burger operated a 1.5-GW capacity solar panel factory in Goodyear, Arizona, for almost a year before filing bankruptcy in mid-2025.
In June 2025, former Meyer Burger CEO Gunter Erfurt joined Swift Solar’s advisory board, bringing “an intimate understanding of the challenges and opportunities in scaling breakthrough solar technologies.” It was announced today that Erfurt, Marcel Koenig (former Meyer Burger global head of R&D) and remaining manufacturing talent in Germany would join the Swift Solar team to ramp U.S. production.
Swift CEO Joel Jean stated in a blogpost that the Meyer Burger IP acquisition will allow Swift Solar to build a gigawatt-scale HJT cell and module factory in the United States. The next step would be to add perovskite tandems to the same factory.It was previously announced that Indian panel manufacturer Waaree was acquiring Meyer Burger’s building lease in Goodyear, Arizona, and the manufacturing equipment within. Waaree has been advertising open positions at the Arizona site and appears to be planning a restart of panel assembly operations. Space-focused solar company Solestial announced it was acquiring cell manufacturing equipment from Meyer Burger’s Germany facility.
