Solar Tiers

Chinese Tier 1 (According to Digitimes)

Canadian Solar - 1323 MW
Hanwha - 844 MW
Jinko - 761 MW
LDK - 646 MW
ReneSola - 280 MW
Suntech - 2096 MW
Trina - 1512 MW
Yingli - 1604 MW

Non-Chinese Tier 1

Aleo Solar
Bosch Solar
First Solar
Kyocera
Panasonic (Sanyo)
REC
Schott Solar
Sharp
SolarWorld
SunPower

Note 1. Jinko and Canadian Solar graduated up to Tier 1 status in 2011 - GTM still rates these two as Tier 2. If it were up to me I'd categorize Hanwha, LDK and ReneSola as Tier 2 but am following Digitimes' lead here.

Note 2. "Tier 1 manufacturers are characterized by economy-of-scale and low cost. They satisfy cell/module market requirements, and – most importantly – have sales pipelines/backlogs. Today, 21 manufacturers fall into the Tier 1 grouping."

Note 3. My list looks a little short compared to Colville's. He suggests there are 21 GW of Chinese/Taiwanese Tier 1 capacity for 2012 and 5 GW of non-Chinese capacity. 

Tier 2 (Determined by volume unless otherwise noted)

Aide Solar - 497 MW
Astronergy - 550 MW
Changzhou Eging PV - 525 MW
China Sunergy - 411.5 MW
Hareon Solar - 855 MW
Jiawei SolarChina - 598 MW
LG*
Samsung*
Solar Frontier*
Tianwei New Energy - 938 MW
TSMC*

Tier 3 (Based on sales offers seen in the last few months unless otherwise noted)

BYD
Hengji Solar
Luxra - made in China, one supplier is Jinko, rebranded
Mage - made in China, rebranded
MiaSole*
Neo Solar*
Ningbo Qixin Solar
Perfectenergy
Real Force
Risen
Sun-Earth*
Sunneeg
Sunowe
Topray
Xinyou Solar

*Judged so by GTM