Following years of major expansion and the announcement of the intent—which eventually fell through—to acquire the residential-rooftop solar company Vivint Solar in 2015, SunEdison's stock plummeted, and its more than $11 billion in debt caused it to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 21, 2016,[3][4][5] eventually emerging in December 2017 as a restructured, smaller, private company.

[7] In February 1960 MEMC started production of 19mm silicon ingots at its location in St. Peters, Missouri, 30 miles west of Monsanto's headquarters in St.

[8] As one of the first companies to produce semiconductor wafers, MEMC was a pioneer in the field, and some of its innovations became industry standards into the 21st century.

[9] Despite its success and increasing revenues, MEMC had to account for losses for a few years, leading to the decision of Monsanto, which was refocusing on chemicals, agriculture, and biotechnology products, to sell the electronic materials division.

[9][24][25][26] DNS already operated silicon wafer plants in Merano and Novara, Italy and integrated them within the new MEMC Electronic Materials.

[9][33] E.ON wanted to focus on its core business of electric utilities, and assigned Merrill Lynch to sell MEMC.

[18] Having returned MEMC to a foundation of profitability and having helped it enter the solar market, CEO Nabeel Gareeb resigned in November 2008.

[54] In November 2009 MEMC acquired the privately owned company SunEdison LLC, North America's largest solar energy services provider.

[55] Founded by Jigar Shah[56] and Claire Broido Johnson[57] SunEdison had been developing, financing, building, operating, and monitoring large-scale photovoltaic plants for commercial customers, including many national retail outlets, government agencies, and utilities, since 2003.

"[64] SunEdison was purchased for $200 million, 70% in cash and 30% in MEMC stock, plus retention payments, transaction expenses, and the assumption of net debt.

[55][63][65] Following its acquisition of SunEdison, MEMC also began to focus on developing and acquiring advanced technologies used in the production of low-cost, high-performance solar panels.

[66] The acquisition included Solaicx's high-volume proprietary "continuous crystal growth" manufacturing technology, which produces low-cost monocrystalline silicon ingots for high-efficiency solar cells.

[67][68][69][70] In February 2011 Samsung Fine Chemicals and MEMC announced a 50/50 joint venture to build a polysilicon production plant in Ulsan, South Korea.

[73][74][75] By October 2014, the plant began producing the world's first high-pressure fluidized bed reactor (HP-FBR) polysilicon, enabling sizeable reductions in the cost of solar energy.

[79][80][81] Axio Power, founded in 2007, developed, financed, and constructed large-scale solar projects, and had more than 500 MW of utility-scale photovoltaic power projects in Canada and the western U.S.[79][80] In July 2011, MEMC established a joint venture with Korea-based Jusung Engineering, to combine its proprietary Solaicx CCZ monocrystalline wafers with Jusung's high-efficiency cell manufacturing equipment to provide low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells.

[85] In December 2011 MEMC undertook restructuring measures in reaction to a cyclical downturn in its semiconductor business and a slump in the whole supply chain of photovoltaic modules.

With 1,000-volt UL certification, the modules created considerable overall energy-production and systems savings on solar projects due to the ability to be more efficiently wired.

[92] SunEdison launched a second yieldco subsidiary, TerraForm Global, in 2015, to manage renewable-energy projects in emerging markets like Brazil, China, and India.

The review characterized SunEdison as "Aggressively expanding its renewable energy products and building a business to provide electricity to the developing world.

[106] SunEdison Semiconductors was acquired by GlobalWafers Co., Ltd on December 2, 2016 and subsequently had its name changed back to MEMC LLC.

Internally, SunEdison's board completed its own investigation, concluding that the company's leaders were "overly optimistic" but did not make "material misstatements" or commit any fraud.