3S Industries

3S Industries AG was a Swiss industrial company based in Lyss, founded in 2001. It operated as a supplier of production equipment and process technology for the photovoltaic industry, and it became one of the better-known Swiss solar-equipment names of the 2000s. The company was listed on the BX Berne eXchange from 2005, giving it access to public capital during the first major expansion wave of the solar sector. 3S Industries built its business around machines and turnkey production solutions used in the manufacture of solar cells and modules. Its competence centres covered different steps of the photovoltaic value chain, and these units were regarded as sufficiently established that they could be continued as operating divisions after the company itself disappeared as an independent entity. In 2010, 3S Industries merged with Meyer Burger, a Swiss group that had grown from a 1950s watch-industry toolmaker into a supplier of saws and production systems for the semiconductor and solar industries. The merger was part of a broader consolidation in which Meyer Burger expanded along the photovoltaic value chain — wafer, cell and module — through acquisitions between 2010 and 2012. After the transaction, the former 3S Industries competence centres became business segments of Meyer Burger Technology AG, and 3S Industries ceased to exist as a separate listed company. The 3S Industries story is therefore closely tied to the fortunes of the Swiss and German solar-equipment industry. It represents the first-generation supplier base that equipped solar factories before the sector's later crises and restructurings. Its parent, Meyer Burger Technology AG, subsequently shifted away from equipment manufacturing toward its own solar-cell and module production, and in September 2025 entered provisional debt-restructuring moratorium proceedings in Switzerland.

3S Industries AG was founded in 2001 and headquartered in Lyss, Switzerland. It emerged during a period when the photovoltaic industry was beginning to scale, and it positioned itself as a supplier of production equipment and process technology rather than as a maker of solar panels itself. Its customers were manufacturers that needed machinery and integrated production solutions for solar cells and modules. In 2005, 3S Industries was listed on the BX Berne eXchange, a Swiss regional exchange. The listing gave the company a public profile and capital access at a time when solar manufacturing capacity was expanding rapidly, particularly in Europe and later in Asia. Over the following years, 3S Industries developed competence centres covering different parts of the photovoltaic production chain. The global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and the subsequent consolidation of the solar-equipment sector reshaped the competitive landscape. In 2010, 3S Industries merged with Meyer Burger, a Swiss company with a much longer industrial lineage. Meyer Burger had been founded in 1953 in Hünibach and initially supplied drilling machines for the watch industry; from the 1970s it produced saws for silicon wafers used in the chip industry, and in 1999 it launched its first band saw for the solar industry. Meyer Burger had reorganised under a holding structure in 1999, renamed itself Meyer Burger Technology AG in 2006 and listed on the stock exchange in November 2006. The 2010 merger with 3S Industries was part of Meyer Burger's strategy to broaden its offering across the photovoltaic value chain. Between 2010 and 2012, Meyer Burger made further acquisitions covering wafer, cell and module production, aiming to supply complete production machinery for photovoltaic manufacturing. The former 3S Industries competence centres were integrated as business segments of Meyer Burger Technology AG, and 3S Industries ceased to operate as an independent company. After the merger, the combined group continued to expand internationally, with subsidiaries in China and Japan and production sites in Germany, including Hohenstein-Ernstthal in Saxony, where Meyer Burger took a majority stake in Roth & Rau in 2011. The solar-equipment business later came under severe pressure. In 2019, Meyer Burger sold its entire sawing and separation technology division to Precision Surfacing Solutions and shifted focus toward its own solar-cell production, specifically heterojunction cell coating and SmartWire Connection Technology. The company subsequently built cell and module production in Freiberg and Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany, but faced recurring financial difficulties. In 2024 it announced the closure of the Freiberg site, and in 2025 it shut down its US operation in Goodyear, Arizona, suspended trading on the SIX Swiss Exchange, and entered provisional debt-restructuring moratorium proceedings. The 3S Industries legacy thus sits within a corporate group that ultimately struggled to sustain the solar-equipment and solar-manufacturing business it had assembled.

• 2010

  Merged with Meyer Burger; former competence centres became business segments of Meyer Burger Technology AG.

• 2005

  Listed on the BX Berne eXchange.

• 2001

  3S Industries AG founded in Lyss, Switzerland.

Swiss supplier of production equipment and process technology for the photovoltaic industry, later absorbed into Meyer Burger Technology AG.

Product categories. Production equipment for photovoltaic manufacturing · Process technology for solar cell and module production

1. 1Wikidata: 3S Industrieswikidata.org
2. 2Meyer Burger Technology – Wikipedia (German)de.wikipedia.org