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You got your thin wafers, your very thin wafers, and soon your ultrathin wafers. Read more >>

The copy flow has slowed here this week, due to a combination of laptop software problems (thanks, Microsoft Vista!) and a deadline for a print feature in the first edition of Photovoltaics International (if you haven't signed up for a free subscription at pv-tech.org, please do!). Read more >>

Although its name conjurs connections with the dinosaur realm, fallen Roman (or Romulan) Empire heroes, or fabled half-human/half-horse creatures, Synopsys' Sentaurus has more in common with virtual reality than paleontology, ancient history, or Greek mythology. Read more >>

During our Tuesday (July 29) chat at the company's modest global headquarters in Menlo Park, Signet Solar's founder-CEO Rajeeva Lahri and VP of manufacturing Bijan Moslehi updated me on the company's latest news and future plans, including the status of the ramp of their first production facility in Mochau, outside of Dresden. Read more >>

A cloture motion on an eight-year extension of the 30% solar energy investment tax credit failed yet again on the US Senate floor today (July 30), by a largely party-line vote of 51-43, the legislation still needing an additional nine votes to get to the senior chamber's floor for debate. Read more >>

Although I haven't finished with my post-Intersolar North America/Semicon West-inspired blogging yet, I'll be on the road again the beginning of this week, visiting a mostly solar PV cast of companies in the anachronistically named Silicon Valley. I also have a backlog of interviews and coverage to plow through that I collected before the recent double-banger event, including interviews with execs from Suniva and Skypoint Solar, as well as a report about my recent visit to Cymer's extreme-UV lithography source project. Read more >>

The impending closure of Hynix Semiconductor's Eugene, OR, 200-mm fab and resultant layoff of more than 1400 employees and contract workers announced last Thursday has sent shockwaves through the community--but the story may end up having a silver lining, or at least a sunny outcome. The local Register-Guard newspaper ran an extensive feature in Friday's edition, with the headline "Hynix, solar company talk: State, local officials report negotiations but say it's not sure thing." Read more >>

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. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

One of my regrets from last week's Semicon West/Intersolar North America event was not being able to go on a winery tour. What does a press junket to wine country have to do with chipmaking or photovoltaic manufacturing, you might ask? Cline Cellars, located in the Sonoma region north of San Francisco, is trying to go 100% solar for its electricity needs, and a recently installed Advanced Energy 333-kW Solaron grid-tie inverter is helping the organic viticulturists in their quest for sustainability and carbon footprint elimination. Read more >>