GreenVolts and NREL to Collaborate on Commercialization of IMM Multi-Junction Solar Cell Technology
CompoundSemi News StaffMarch 16, 2009...The U.S. Department of Energy has committed $500,000 to GreenVolts to co-develop and help commercialize inverted metamorphic (IMM) advanced multi-junction solar cell design based upon NREL patents, which GreenVolts licenses. GreenVolts announced that it has entered into cooperative research and development agreement with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to produce IMM multi-junction solar cells with higher efficiency, improved manufacturability, and lower cost. GreenVolts says that the purpose of the two-year agreement is to transfer NREL's IMM solar cell technology to GreenVolts so that the company can develop a customized cell tailored to its optical system, and accelerate the widespread commercialization of the technology through its high volume manufacturing partners. The company notes that the development agreement will be completed in multiple phases, which will each build towards GreenVolts delivery of a customized, reliable IMM device that can be cost effectively fabricated at high volume.
According to GreenVolts, the NREL will provide necessary technology specifications and process information as well as advice and assistance in the device optimization and technology transfer. Also, the NREL will provide test and measurement services to qualify the results of the transfer process, including its reliability. The NREL IMM technology has reportedly demonstrated one of the world's highest reported solar cell efficiencies of 40.8 percent.
"We believe this new IMM technology is key to a tremendous leap forward in solar cell efficiency," NREL Director Dan Arvizu said. "We are pleased to be working with GreenVolts to both refine these advancements and provide for a viable way to bring them to market."
Bob Cart, founder and CEO of GreenVolts. "We look forward to working closely with NREL to develop a quality high volume, low cost manufacturing process to ensure that this next generation technology will be readily available."
Company News Release
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March 16, 2009...The U.S. military has awarded Ratheon a phase-two contract to develop a more portable, non-lethal raygun weapon.
The Defense Department's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) awarded Raytheon the contract to develop a gallium nitride (GaN) solid-state source for use in non-lethal weapons. According to Raytheon, work on the contract will be conducted at the company's Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) semiconductor foundry located at the Integrated Air Defense Center in Andover, Massachusetts USA.
The U.S. military already has the famous, and somewhat controversial Active Denial System, which is a fairly large device designed to control rioting mobs. It uses a gallium arsenide. The use of gallium nitride instead will decrease the size of the device. The device's propoenents contend that it is less harmful than plastic or rubber bullets or bean bag launchers.
Ratheon's IDS business is reportedly a leader in compound semiconductor technology development, products and services for military and homeland security applications. Foundry capabilities include design, development and manufacturing of gallium arsenide and GaN monolithic microwave integrated circuits and modules for advanced radar, electronic warfare, communications and weapon systems.
Raytheon's GaN technology already goes into defense applications including radar, electronic warfare, and communications.
"Our support of the JNLWD is for very high frequency, millimeter-wave GaN to provide the warfighter with a lower-cost, lighter-weight, non-lethal engagement alternative," said Michael Del Checcolo, vice president of Engineering for Raytheon IDS.
Ratheon News Release
Global Solar and Dow Partner on Roof Shingles
CompoundSemi News StaffMarch 13, 2009...Global Solar, a maker of flexible thin-film copper indium gallium diselenide solar cells has reportedly been working with Dow, the chemical manufacturer.
The purpose of the partnership is to produce roof shingles that efficiently turn sunlight into electricity, according to an article in the Arizona Daily Star, Tuscon. The companies have been collaborating for a year. At a Dow facillity in Midland, Michagan, a massive machine creates thermoplastic shingles with integrated CIGs solar cells. Dow says that the shingles with CIGs solar cells reduce installation costs. Instead of installing arrays of cells on top of roof shingles. The arrays of solar cells are in roof shingles.
Global solar said in the article that its solar cells have achieved 10 percent efficiency. This is still not as high as the more conventional silicon solar cells that have reached 14-15 percent efficiency, but the company expects the efficiency to continue to improve.
Charles Gambill, corporate product director for Global Solar said in the article, "The target and the business opportunity is to make this product the same price as the traditional electricity from your local power facility."
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Oxford Instruments TDI to Work on Mass Producing Semi-Polar GaN for Devices Such as LEDs
LIGHTimes News StaffMarch 12, 2009...Researchers have known for some time that devices grown on the conventional c-plane oriented polar substrate suffer undesirable spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization. This results in band bending in the quantum well and ultimately reduces the internal quantum efficiency (in this case specifically radiative recombinate efficiency). Thus, the resulting device has lower performance. While some researchers have been able to produce semi-polar and non-polar nitride materials, the materials have been difficult to produce for use in optoelectronic devices.
A technical team at Oxford Instruments TDI, led by Dr. Alexander Usikov have reportedly made significant progress in growing nitride crystals with an m-plane orientation on a larger scale. These researchers are working with a leading LED maker to fabricate the semi-polar gallium nitride (GaN) layer for optoelectronic devices. According to the researchers, using the semi-polar GaN layer should increase the radiative recombinate efficiency and device performance. Oxford Instruments TDI News Release Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members... TriQuint Supports Northrop Grumman in Developing Phased Array Radar for F-35 Aircraft
CompoundSemi News StaffMarch 9, 2009...
TriQuint Semiconductor, an RF product manufacturer of Hillsboro, Oregon USA, says it has fulfilled initial production orders from Northrop Grumman Corporation to support the F-35 Lightning II fire control radar system. The F-35, known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), is being developed by Lockheed Martin Corporation with help from Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. It is designed to replace the U.S.'s highly successful F16 aircraft. The program is forecast to deliver several thousand aircraft by the mid-2030s.
TriQuint reports that it has fabricated, tested, and delivered power amplifiers, other gallium arsenide (GaAs) devices and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters for the aircraft’s phased array radar system. TriQuint will support Northrop Grumman to develop the aircraft's radar system. TriQuint points out that the JSF program is past the mid-point of a 12-year-long system development and demonstration (SDD) phase that includes a variety of application and flight readiness tests.
The products supplied by TriQuint are part of the overall program’s low rate initial production (LRIP) phase to produce working prototypes that that will be developed and demonstrated in the SDD phase that runs concurrently. TriQuint says it has shipped an assortment of GaAs integrated circuits for LRIP Phases I and II.
The F-35 / JSF development program is an international project whose participants include: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Israel, and Singapore.
TriQuint News Release
Veeco Enters Partnership with Daiyang Metal of Korea to Provide CIGS Solar Cell Production Equipment
CompoundSemi News StaffMarch 9, 2009...Veeco Instruments of Plainview, New York USA, reports that Daiyang Metal Co., Ltd., a maker of rolled stainless steel based in Korea, will partner to build a then film copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar cell production line in Yesan, Korea. As the first part of the partnership, Daiyang placed a multi-million dollar purchase order for Veeco's FastFlex Web Coating systems.
According to Veeco, the order includes: one Mo (Molybdenum) deposition system, one TCO (Transparent Conductive Oxide) deposition system, and two CIGS deposition systems. Veeco says it expects these systems to ship in the fourth quarter of 2009; After which, Veeco says it will set terms for a follow-on order.
Chan Ku Kang, Chief Executive Officer of Daiyang, commented, “Daiyang Metal has an aggressive multi-year, multi-site plan to become a leading worldwide manufacturer of CIGS solar cells. Our short term goal is to aggressively ramp to 200MW capacity during 2010 and 2011, which will entail the purchase of additional Veeco systems. Ultimately it is our goal to achieve one gigawatt of CIGS production capacity by 2013.” Veeco News Release First Solar to Acquire Multi Gigawatt Utility Scale Photovoltaic Pipeline
CompoundSemi News StaffMarch 4, 2009...First Solar, Inc. of Tempe, Arizona USA announced it has entered into an agreement to purchase OptiSolar's solar project pipeline. The acquisition includes: A 550 megawatt (MW) AC solar development project under a power purchase agreement with PG&E; A project pipeline of additional 1,300MW AC which are in negotiation with Western region utilities for solar development projects; Strategic land rights of approximately 136,000 acres (approximately 210 square miles) with the potential to deploy up to 19 gigawatts (GW) AC of utility-scale solar power projects; In addition, First Solar says that the core development team responsible for assembling and executing on the Optisolar' project pipeline will join the First Solar development team.
First Solar says it expects to construct solar power plants developed under the acquired solar power project pipeline over the next several years and sell them to regulated utilities, diversified energy companies, and other independent power producers.
First Solar predicts that at least 400 new green collar jobs will be created in California through its efforts. Company News Release
Strategy Analytics Predicts Streamlining and Consolidation of Compound Semi Industry in 2009
CompoundSemi News StaffMarch 4, 2009...Strategy Analytics' GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies (GaAs) service released its regular analysis of compound semiconductor industry news. The company says that the compound semiconductor industry is faced with tough choices in order to ensure at least some form of viability going into a very challenging 2009.
Strategy Analytics points out that workforce reductions, streamlining of operations, and manufacturing costs have been the main strategies for the industry as it moved into 2009. The Strategy Analytics predicts that companies in the industry will continue with these measures through the second quarter. SA forecasts that industry consolidation will also feature through the year, with Sumitomo Electric and Fujitsu coming to an agreement related to Eudyna Devices, while Avanex and Bookham announced a merger of their operations.
“Early financial analysis shows the consistent trend of sequential drops in revenue for the final quarter of 2008 coupled with further downward adjustments in the first quarter of 2009,” Asif Anwar at Strategy Analytics said. “While streamlining operations and maximizing efficiency will be important, the industry should not lose its focus on innovation in 2009 if it is to capitalize on the emerging opportunities from next generation devices and networks.” Company News Release Our news features are reported
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