With all the IEDM coverage of late, Chip Shots has a backlog of developing stories that need some updating and comment; refreshingly, no 45-nm semiconductor tech coverage will be included.
First off, First Solar stayed true to its corporate word with the announcement of the acquisition of Turner Renewable Energy a couple of weeks ago.
The company's CFO Jens Meyerhoff said during the last conference call (reported in the Nov. 12 Chip Shots, which has become one of the blog's most popular postings yet, btw) that it plans to "play a 'more active role in what happens beyond the module,' especially in the U.S. utilities sector---First Solar's main developing-market target."
Turner, which has been run under the name DT Solar since January 2007 when Ted (yes, that entrepreneurial/philanthropic one) invested in the company, will now become First Solar Electric. The acquired firm has "designed and deployed commercial solar projects for utilities and Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. since 2004," as First Solar's PR states. "The acquisition brings to First Solar a team of people experienced in the development of independent power projects, marketing of energy, and operation of commercial power plants in the United States." Sounds like the thin-film PV darlings have indeed moved "beyond the module."
In another corner of the thin-film PV (TFPV) realm, CIGS-centric start-up Nanosolar says it's finally shipped product. I spoke with the company's CEO Martin Roscheisen a few months back for my TFPV-related feature story in the November/December issue of Small Times and found his answers vague, boiler-platey, and self-serving. I had heard doubts and skepticism from several in-the-know solar experts when the topic of Nanosolar came up, as to whether the company would really get panels out the door, as promised, by the end of 2007.
So the news that the company scored some modest business with a utility-scale 1-MW project in eastern Germany offers at least preliminary validation for several years of hard work by Nanosolar. Whether the more grandiose claims of Martin and his Merry Band come to pass about the company offering "the world's lowest-cost solar panel," in high volumes and at consistently high quality, remains fodder for the market watchers and prognosticators. (TC note: Check out Mark Osborne's Editor's Blog for the eBay twist on the Nanosolar news.)
Perhaps the most acquisitive company playing in Chip Shots' coverage areas, Evans Analytical Group (EAG), elicited blog fodder about its rampant M&A activities in a November 27 posting. The analysis/characterization/FA conglomerate has bought about a dozen indie labs, parts of labs, and support/service outfits on three continents over the past 18 months or so and has indicated that it's by no means done with the spending spree.
Last week's news that it snapped up White Mountain Labs came as no surprise then, especially given EAG's recent propensity to build an FA/reliability lab business practically from scratch. Phoenix-based WML specializes in electrostatic discharge and latch-up testing, which fits nicely with EAG's announced determination to dominate what it calls the "release to production" and failure analysis spaces. Don't expect this most recent acquisition on the road to hegemony to be EAG's last.
Finally, X-Fab's news that it will start fabbing 0.6-micron, 150-mm analog/mixed-signal wafers for CEITEC, a Brazilian government-backed microelectronics concern, brought back some saudade-redolent memories. Two years ago, MICRO reported that a Brazilian outfit named Companhia Brasileira do Semiconductores (its three-letter acronym "CBS" bearing no relation to the US broadcast giant) would build a 200-mm fab producing 0.35/0.25/0.18-micron mixed-signal products to go with multiple design houses in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state, by the end of 2007. The thought of a business trip to Brazil propelled more than a few of us into pleasant fantasies of tropical chip fabs, caipirinhias, and samba, bloco, and forro grooves.
Since then, I've heard nothing and been unable to find out squat about the progress of the alleged project. (If that CBS fab is really happening, someone please let me know, because it appears to have fallen under the banner of bad deals and broken promises.) Last week's word from X-Fab, a company which usually plays it pretty close to the vest in the public announcements realm, came as a nice surprise in the ongoing "Brazilian semiconductor industry" reverie. CEITEC's pilot fab will be built in Porto Alegre (which translates as "joyous port") in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and should be running silicon under license from X-Fab by 3Q08, to go along with the foundry wafers emanating from the contract manufacturer's own facilities in Texas and Germany.
To that I say, abrigado!
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Comment by GUEST on 2008-01-02 14:53:16
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