
The Chip Shots blog channels the observations of Fabtech's and PV-Tech/Photovoltaic International's Senior Contributing Editor--USA, Tom Cheyney, a 20-year veteran of semiconductor, advanced micro/nanoelectronics, and solar manufacturing trade journalism. For 15 years, Tom was editor in chief of MICRO (the original home of Chip Shots) until it ceased publication in July 2006. Tom calls Los Angeles home.
View MICRO Magazine archive.
10 September 2008

The news has been grim
for Lehman Brothers today, but one part of the giant investment bank
that's doing yeoman work is its solar energy equity research group, led
by analyst Vishal Shah. His daily email newsletter and periodic reports
are some of the most informative and cogent in the space.
Read more >>
09 September 2008
Since its inception, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., better known as
SMIC,
has pursued an aggressive plan to join the elite chip foundry
companies. During the Chinese firm's chase of the big two--TSMC and
UMC--it passed Chartered to ascend to the number-three slot a couple of
years ago, although it has been nip and tuck with the Singaporean
concern since then, alternating between third and fourth place. But the
one cornerstone of SMIC's gameplan where it has failed miserably is one
of the most basic to any business model--profitability.
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08 September 2008

National Semiconductor may have seen net income slip a bit in
its latest quarterly results,
but Brian Halla and his team have shown no erosion in their excitement
over the company's initial product foray into the photovoltaics market
space, launched in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008: SolarMagic.
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29 August 2008
The semiconductor industry has long had its eye on improving yields
in the fabs, developing an ever-more sophisticated array of software
and hardware tools to detect defects and faults, monitor and analyze
process and design variations, zero in on the root causes, and crunch
the giga-reams of resultant data to try and make sense of the
perturbations of the production flows. As the solar photovoltaics
manufacturing industry ramps up and seeks ways to improve its own best
practices on the factory floor while reducing costs, the need for a
comprehensive, PV-specific yield enhancement strategy has become more
acute. One company familiar to the design and yield communities in the chipmaking realm,
Magma Design Automation,
announced earlier this week that it is developing a new solar-specific
software system based on its proven YieldManager platform.
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21 August 2008
Spun out of the Georgia Institute of Technology's Center of Excellence in Photovoltaics (UCEP) last year,
Suniva
has emerged as one of the most intriguing start-ups in the solar PV
space. Over the past six months, the Atlanta-based company has raised
$50 million in Series B funds; started to build, outfit, and ramp its
first solar-cell production line; and struck big-ticket, nine-figure,
multiyear deals with its supply chain (REC for wafers) and customer
base (Solon for modules). Suniva's goal is not to bring yet another "disruptive" thin-film or
concentrator PV technology to market, but to harness the
high-efficiency, low-cost potential of solar's workhorse starting
material--crystalline silicon.
Read more >>