Online information source for semiconductor professionals

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. Read more >>

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. Although there were moments when I did experience blogger's withdrawal, I came to San Francisco with the intent of information-gathering (the data dump) and network-building (the shmooze), not chasing story after story down and trying to match my peers in a meaningless race to see who could file more copy or shoot more video interviews. Read more >>

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. Read more >>

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. It also doesn't hurt that the solar materials market, especially in the polysilicon sandbox, will soon absorb a profound growth spurt. Read more >>

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. The US Senate is again discussing and likely voting on whether or not to extend the 30% solar energy investment tax credit (ITC)--which expires at the end of 2008--for another eight years. Read more >>

Two of the leading semiconductor industry market research groups have issued new reports, and the numbers are going in opposite directions. But a certain dollar amount from the dissimilar forecasts shows up on both. Read more >>

The news that the US Display Consortium (USDC) has fully embraced the emerging flexible and printed electronics technologies and changed its name to the FlexTech Alliance came as no surprise. As head honcho Mike Ciesinski said in a Webcast earlier today, "the transition had been under way for a long time....it's not much of a shift for us." Read more >>

Few pieces of photovoltaic manufacturing equipment have nicknames as endearing as DayStar Technologies' Big Baby deposition megasystem. But don't let the cute sobriquet distract you from a central truth about the copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) start-up's plight: if the oversize, multichamber production-development system doesn't measure up and perform as expected, DayStar has no future as a volume PV manufacturer. By the tenor of CEO Stephan DeLuca's comments during Tuesday's midyear update conference call, Big Baby has made its parents proud of late. Read more >>

Solar energy has seen its stock rise in popular culture, not just in the marketplace. The latest photovoltaic penetration showed up in this weekend's Sunday comics section, courtesy of the sociopolitical satire strip, Opus, inked by Berkeley Breathed. Read more >>

While some observers of the nanoscale have lamented the impending final chapter of scanning electron microscopy's scalability, FEI has been busy pushing the workhorse analytical tool's capabilities. The roll-out of its Magellan family of "extra-high-resolution" (XHR) SEMs marks a huge milestone for the Hillsboro, OR-based company, a product launch of such magnitude that the firm's lawyers insisted I sign a multipage nondisclosure agreement last week before they'd allow me to conduct any prelaunch interviews. Read more >>