At present, crystalline silicon materials (including polysilicon and monocrystalline silicon) are the most important photovoltaic materials, accounting for more than 90% of the market, and will still be the mainstream material of solar cells for a long time in the future.

The production technology of polysilicon material has been controlled by 10 factories of seven companies in three countries including the United States, Japan and Germany for a long time, forming a technological blockade and market monopoly.

Demand for polysilicon comes mainly from semiconductors and solar cells. According to different purity requirements, it can be divided into electron level and solar level. Among them, electronic grade polysilicon accounted for about 55%, solar grade polysilicon accounted for 45%.

With the rapid development of photovoltaic industry, the growth rate of solar cell demand for polysilicon is higher than that of semiconductor polysilicon. It is expected that the demand for solar polysilicon will exceed that of electronic polysilicon in 2008.

In 1994, the world's total production of solar cells was 69MW, but in 2004 it was nearly 1200MW, a 17-fold increase in just 10 years. Experts predict that the solar photovoltaic industry will surpass nuclear power as one of the most important basic energy sources in the first half of the 21st century.