Mark Wu, who has a doctorate in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology, says that unlike semiconductors, which need "9N" purity silicon, Sun Materials manufactures "6N" purity polycrystalline silicon specifically for use in solar cells. The raw material they use is sodium fluorosilicate, a byproduct from processing wastewater from the fertilizer industry, which is then turned into polycrystalline silicon using the "reductive combustion" process.
擁有加州理工學院化學博士學位的吳以舜表示，不同於半導體原料需要「9N 級」純度，山陽生產的「6N 級」純度多晶矽專供太陽能電池使用，他們採用的原料是由肥料工業廢水處理後的副產品中的「氟矽酸鈉」，以「還原燃燒法」還原成多晶矽。