SunEdison, Inc. (formerly MEMC Electronic Materials) is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, the company was sold by Monsanto in 1989. It is one of the leading solar-power companies worldwide, and with its acquisition of wind-energy company First Wind in 2014, SunEdison is the leading renewable energy development company in the world. In 2015, SunEdison sold off its subsidiary SunEdison Semiconductor, marking the completion of SunEdison, Inc.'s transition from a semiconductor-wafer company to a dedicated renewable-energy corporation. 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 $11billion in debt caused it to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 21, 2016, eventually emerging in December 2017 as a restructured, smaller, private company. History Foundation The establishment of Monsanto Electronic Materials Company (MEMC), a silicon wafer–manufacturing division to serve the emerging electronics industry, was announced on August 6, 1959, as an arm of the U.S.-based multinational corporation Monsanto. 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. Louis. 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. MEMC used the Czochralski process (CZ process) of silicon crystal production, and developed the Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) process of wafer finishing. In 1966 MEMC installed its first reactors for the production of epitaxial wafers, and developed zero-dislocation crystal growing, which made large-diameter silicon crystals possible. Expansion In the early 1970s, MEMC opened a production plant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and sent its St. Peters–produced 2.25-inch ingots there for slicing and polishing. In 1979, MEMC became the first company to manufacture 125mm (5-inch) wafers; in 1981 the first to produce 150mm (6-inch) wafers; and, in partnership with IBM, in 1984 the first to produce 200mm (8-inch) wafers. In 1986 MEMC opened its production and R&D facility in Utsunomiya, Japan to serve