SEMI formally announced the conference program for the fourth annual SEMI North American PV Fab Managers Forum to be held at Intersolar North America 2013 in San Francisco, California on July 8, 2013. The Forum focuses on addressing shared supply chain challenges and improving customer-supplier relations across the photovoltaic supply chain. New this year at the SEMI North American PV Fab Managers Forum is the "Foundation Market Maker" session led by representative experts from residential, commercial and utility scale solar sectors. This session will explore the present and desired future state of the industry. Companies presenting at the Forum will include: Solexel, Alta Devices, McKinsey & Company, College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, SolarCity, SunEdison, U.S. Department of Energy, MEMC Solar Materials, Lazard Capital, GCL Solar, Bay Area PV Consortium, Integrated Photovoltaics, and Solar PV Market Research. The New and Emerging Technologies Session will examine Solar 2.0/3.0 where new companies will enter the market and how game changing innovations, technologies, and products will drive down costs while increasing system performance. "The SEMI North American PV Fab Managers Forum serves the fast-growing U.S. solar market by bringing together senior manufacturing and supply chain executives to provide both perspective and actions needed to identify and support the transformative technology, manufacturing and business models required to support a sustainable global and regional manufacturing supply chain," said Bettina Weiss, vice president of business development at SEMI. Additional manufacturing- and technology- focused programs at Intersolar North America include: SEMI PV Materials and Reliability Expert Forum (Tuesday, July 9 at Intercontinental Hotel) which explores how materials impact system performance/cost and how innovation roadmaps, new technologies and advances in efficiency and lifetime help mitigate risk to drive lower levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Agenda and registration: VDMA delivers fresh content and perspectives at the PV ENERGY WORLD Stage (Thursday, July 11 at Moscone West) on PV production equipment for high-efficiency, organic and printed solar cells, new machine concepts, innovative materials, automation, laser concepts and integration solutions, as well as energy and resource efficiency (organized by SEMI.) Intersolar North America 2013