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.
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Jul 24, 2008 at 04:50 PM |
Anyone who's been driving yield enhancement in a chip fab, conversion efficiencies in solar cells and modules or productivity improvements in either sector knows that a few percent here, a few percent there can add up to millions of dollars in savings or improved bottom-line margins.
A few years ago Michael Harvey, Paul Meredith and a team of researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia discovered a relatively inexpensive, single-layer, liquid antireflective coating (ARC) that could be deposited on the glass superstrate of a photovoltaic panel and permit about 99% of the sun's rays to reach the cell.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 23, 2008 at 03:52 PM |
Although the Solar World 1 photovoltaic-powered car driven by the University of Bochum (Germany) team finished a very respectable third in the just-completed Dallas-to-Calgary North American Solar Challenge race, the company itself has the number-one position in terms of vertically integrated crystalline silicon-based solar manufacturing on the continent.
At last week's Intersolar show in San Francisco, company chair/CEO Frank Ausbeck said the new 100-MW capacity, fully automated monocrystalline module-production line in Camarillo, CA, has been completed.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 22, 2008 at 04:32 PM |
Several times since early May, when Chip Shots carried the inside scoop that First Solar had been awarded the bid for the first installation in Southern California Edison's 250-MW, $875-million five-year project to install photovoltaics modules on a couple of square miles of commercial rooftops in the region, I had tried without success to get the Edison people to confirm my information.
Last week, when I was swept up in the hurly-burly of Semicon/Intersolar in San Fran, the official news came out from both Edison and First Solar that the cadmium-telluride thin-film PV kingpins had won the job.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 22, 2008 at 08:14 AM |
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One of my regrets from last week's Semicon West/Intersolar North America event was not being able to go on a winery tour.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 21, 2008 at 12:29 PM |
What may be the largest copper indium gallium (di)selenide--based photovoltaic-module field in the US will be sending electricity within a few months to the manufacturing plant of the company that made the flexible CIGS "stringer" cells powering the array.
Global Solar's Tim Teich told me at Intersolar North America in San Francisco last week that the several acres of desert scrub designated for the field, located across the parking lot from the company's South Tucson factory, have been "plowed, fenced, and racked" over the past six weeks.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 21, 2008 at 08:48 AM |
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As last week's Semicon West/Intersolar North America colocated extravaganza wore on, several people asked me why I wasn't blogging every day--or several times daily--during the events.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 15, 2008 at 08:30 AM |
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The materials revolution in the semiconductor industry since the turn of the century has been well documented, and SEMI's just-released midyear forecast numbers underscore the economic realities of this megatrend.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 14, 2008 at 04:38 PM |
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For many of those attending the colocated Semicon West and Intersolar North America trade shows this week in San Francisco, one of the most important events in the solar industry is taking place on the other side of the country in Washington, DC.Write Comment (3 comments) |
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Jul 14, 2008 at 02:35 PM |
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Perusing the front section of Friday's Los Angeles Times as I munched my lunch salad, I turned to page 6 and saw something remarkable.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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Jul 14, 2008 at 09:00 AM |
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The folks at SVTC have been very busy these past few months, getting the "virtual fab" up and running over (and wafers smoothly running between) the San Jose and Austin fabs, launching their solar business unit and starting to fit out a PV development center, and enhancing their carbon nanotube capabilities with Nantero.Write Comment (0 comments) |
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