[clarification needed] LONGi[2] the world's largest solar monocrystalline silicon manufacturer and GCL,[3] the world's largest solar poly crystalline silicon manufacturer, both joined the SMSL in mid-2016.
[4] As of February 2019, PVTech added First Solar and Risen Energy to the list of SMSL manufacturers.
[4] Chinese solar engineers at Trina Solar hold the record for a 22.61% PV efficiency in mono-PERC-cells with Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) technology developed at its State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology of China [5] That one-third efficiency improvement was achieved in four years of PV research in China.
Again, in July 2016, Trina Solar claimed that its production lines were able to produce the same kind of PERC cells in large volume with an average efficiency of 21.12%.
This new, later higher cell efficiency which surpasses Trina Solar's record, has been independently confirmed by the Fraunhofer ISE CalLab in Germany.