Chandra Khattak, Ph.D, To Lead Silicon R&D & Product Development at GT Equipment
Merrimack, New Hampshire, United States April 17, 2006

Expert in Crystalline Silicon Joins GT Equipment & GT Solar

GT Equipment Technologies, Inc. and its division, GT Solar Technologies, announced today that an international expert in crystalline silicon, Chandra P. Khattak, Ph.D, has joined its growing team of experts as Senior Vice President of Technology. Dr. Khattak will manage the company's R&D, product development, and new business activities related to crystalline silicon. GT is an industry leader in the design and manufacture of photovoltaic equipment sold word-wide for making solar wafers, cells and modules.

Dr. Khattak has been actively involved in PV since 1977. He is recognized for his numerous technical contributions in the directional solidification area, which led to commercialization of silicon ingot production technologies. He adapted the Heat Exchanger Method (HEM) for growth of silicon ingots from concept to commercialization, which was licensed to GT in 1997. Dr. Khattak carried out pioneering work toward development of low-cost, solar grade silicon, including the upgrading of MG silicon, utilization of silicon scrap and fine powder.

GT President and COO, Tom Zarrella, said: "Chandra Khattak brings to GT a high level of expertise in crystalline silicon development and a lustrous international reputation. He has joined a growing team of experts at GT who are committed to growing both GT and the photovoltaic industry."

Dr. Khattak is the former Executive Vice President of Silicon Operations and R&D at Crystal Systems, Inc. in Salem, MA where he spent 29 years. Prior to that assignment, he was a physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York where he worked on the development of materials for fusion reactors and adapted a neutron scattering data program for x-ray data analysis to solve structures of complicated materials, which became an industry standard.

He has authored over 150 technical papers, two books, many technical reports, and has been granted eighteen U.S. patents and numerous foreign patents. Dr. Khattak has been an invited speaker at international PV conferences and at solar silicon conferences organized by Photon International. Dr. Khattak received his Ph.D and M.S. in materials science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, NY.

GT Equipment Technologies, Inc. is a privately held company and an industry leader in the design and manufacture of semi-custom and specialty equipment for the solar and materials processing industries, particularly for photovoltaic and semiconductor applications.