MIT Team Integrates GaN with Si on Single Chip
CompoundSemi News StaffSeptember 16, 2009...An MIT research team has successfully integrated gallium nitride HEMTs with silicon MOSFETs into a single hybrid chip. The team led by Tomás Palacios, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, did what many have tried for decades.
"We won't be able to continue improving silicon by scaling it down for long," Palacios says, so it's crucial to find other approaches.
Palacios and his student Will Chung reportedly made the new hybrid chip by embedding a gallium nitride layer into the same type of silicon substrate that is used by the silicon electronics industry. The integrated chip produced is faster and is highly efficient.
He indicated that in addition to microprocessor chips, the new technology might lead to more efficient cell phones manufacturing with a single chip replacing four our five, or it could be used to combine lasers and electronic components on a single chip, or create energy-harvesting devices that can harness the pressure and vibrations from the environment to produce enough power to run the silicon components.
"With this technology, you could potentially integrate all these functions on a single chip," Palacios says. Standard silicon chip manufacturing technology can produce the hybrid chips.
So far the new technique has been used to make chips that are about one square inch in size. Conventional chip manufacturing processes typically use larger wafers, 8 or 12 inches in diameter, so the research now is focused on scaling up the process. MIT News Release
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September 16, 2009...Global Solar Energy Inc., (Global Solar) reports having achieved 15.45 percent total area efficiency with production level copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) material. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) confirmed the achievement. Global Solar also reports achieving peak efficiency of 11.7 percent for production CIGS solar cell strings manufactured at its 35-megawatt German and 40-megawatt U.S. plants.
Global Solar notes that it has produced its CIGS thin film solar cells on flexible materials for more than five years. Global Solar contends that it has been able to bring the low cost, high efficiency and high-performance of CIGS technology to a variety of applications ranging from portable solar chargers, to traditional glass modules, to next generation building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) products.
“The 15.45 percent total-area conversion efficiency, independently verified by NREL for a thin film CIGS solar cell fabricated by Global Solar Energy, is a significant achievement for such rapid deposition on a metal foil substrate in a manufacturing environment,” says Dr. Harin S. Ullal, National Center for Photovoltaics, National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO. This research was partially supported by Thin Film PV Partnership Program at NREL.
Global Solar Energy News Release First Solar to Build 2GW Solar Power Plant in China
CompoundSemi News StaffSeptember 14, 2009...First Solar of Tempe, Arizona USA reports that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chinese government to build a 2 gigawatt cadmium telluride (CdTe)-based solar power plant in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China.
Under the terms of the MOU, the solar project in Ordos will be built over a multi-year period. According to the MOU, Phase 1 will be a 30 megawatt demonstration project that will begin construction by June 1, 2010 and be completed as soon thereafter as practical. Phases 2, 3 and 4 of the project will be 100 megawatts, 870 megawatts, and 1,000 megawatts respectively. Phases 2 and 3 will be completed in 2014, and Phase 4 will be completed by 2019.
The MOU stipulates the company will investigate the possibility of setting up module and supplier manufacturing sites in Ordos along with other considerations. The company says that a feed-in-tariff which will guarantee the pricing of electricity that the power plant produces over a long-term period.
First Solar CEO Mike Ahearn said at the signing ceremony, “The Chinese feed-in tariff will be critical to this project.” Ahearn continued, “This type of forward-looking government policy is necessary to create a strong solar market and facilitate the construction of a project of this size, which in turn continues to drive the cost of solar electricity closer to ‘grid parity’ – where it is competitive with traditional energy sources.”
Company News Release
Skyworks Secures Multiple EDGE and WCDMA Smart Phone Design Wins from Samsung
CompoundSemi News StaffSeptember 14, 2009...Skyworks Solutions Inc., reports that Samsung is leveraging both quad-band GSM/EDGE and next-generation WCDMA front-end solutions to power a variety of new 3G smart phones including the Pixon12, the world’s first 12 megapixel touchscreen camera phone.
Skyworks has also secured EDGE and WCDMA power amplifier design wins for more than 15 additional Samsung smart phones currently in production. These new models include: the GT-I8000 Omnia2 featuring an AMOLED touchscreen; the GT-S8000, Samsung’s first Android phone; the GT-M6710, or new Beat Disc Edition handset; the GT-M7600 Beat DJ, which is the world’s only mobile phone with music playback software; and the affordable GT-S5600 touchscreen phone.
The Samsung phones take advantage of Skyworks' power amplifier modules, the SKY77186 (1920-1980 MHz), the SKY77187 (1850-1910 MHz), the SKY77188 (824-849 MHz), the SKY77189 (880-915 MHz), and the SKY77336 PAM. Skyworks says that the modules are fully matched 10-pad surface mount 3 x 3 millimeter (mm) devices that help deliver unsurpassed talk-time advantages.
“Skyworks is pleased to be further expanding its relationship with Samsung, particularly as they develop innovative platforms to support growing consumer demand for high-end smart phones with touchscreen and camera capability,” said Liam K. Griffin, Skyworks’ senior vice president of sales and marketing.
Skyworks News Release
Nanosolar Completes European CIGS Panel Assembly Factory; Unveils Technology
CompoundSemi News StaffSeptember 9, 2009...Nanosolar completed its European panel-assemplby factory and held an inauguration event.
Germany's Minister of the Environment, the Governor of the State of Brandenburg, and several leading public officials were on hand.
The new factory based in Luckenwalde near Berlin, Germany, is a fully automated panel-assembly factory which processes copper indium gallium diselenide cells into finished solar panels using high throughput manufacturing techniques and tooling developed by the company and its partners.
According to the company the factory is designed to have a peak annual capacity of 640 MW per year or one panel every ten seconds when operated 24x7.
The company also announced that its San Jose facility began serial panel production earlier this year.
The factory in Germany is currently set at a sub-capacity baseload runrate of about one MW per month. The company says it will ramped production in accordance with the company's market-introduction plan.
The company says it has contractual customer commitments totaling $4.1 billion to date. Company News Release.
The company also unveiled the technology behind the Nanosolar Utility Panel, a solar electric panel for utility scale solar power deployment.
The company boasts that the panel effectively eliminates the “balance-of-system penalty” that thin film often carries relative to higher-efficiency (yet far more expensive) silicon panels.
Nanosolar says TUV certified the system for 1500V, or 50% higher than the previously highest certified. This reportedly enables savings on utility-scale panel deployment. The U.S. NREL has certified the panels at 16.4 percent foil efficiency. Nanosolar News Release CIGS Solar System Maker Selects Veeco Deposition Equipment
CompoundSemi News StaffSeptember 9, 2009...GroupSat of Hong Kong, a maker of CIGS solar systems reportedly selected deposition equipment from Veeco for planned production ramp.
Veeco Instruments Inc. reported that it has received a multi-million dollar order from GroupSat Limited for its suite of FastFlex Web Coating Systems for GroupSat’s factory in Suzhou, China. Veeco says the order is comprised of one Mo (Molybdenum) deposition system, one TCO (Transparent Conductive Oxide) deposition system, and two CIGS (copper, indium, gallium and selenide) deposition systems. Veeco currently expects to ship these systems in early 2010.
Veeco notes that its FastFlex platform features flexible architecture with high uptime that can be configured to specific needs. It has a choice of rotary or planar magnetrons for high throughput, high temperature effusion sources, and substrate sizes up to one meter wide.
Nasir M. Ameriar, CEO of GroupSat, commented, “As a provider of flexible solar products, we will cater to markets in China, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, and have chosen Veeco’s FastFlex Web Coating Systems because we are convinced that their technology and process support will help us achieve our goals.”
David Bruns, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Veeco Solar Equipment, commented, “Our FastFlex systems feature the industry’s only fully integrated thermal evaporation sources, which we believe provides our customers a high throughput, low cost manufacturing solution. Ultimately the success of CIGS technology is tied to increasing cell efficiency and driving down manufacturing cost per watt.”
Veeco News Release
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