The Sandbox
What's happening behind the scenes in the semiconductor manufacturing industry? Read this blog by Senior Editor Ann Steffora Mutschler to find out - and chime in with your thoughts and questions.
Capital spending: can it get worse?
After last week’s Wall Street plunge, it was a relief to receive word that all was not lost at least at Lehman Brothers as C.J. Muse, semiconductor equipment/display technologies analyst there continued to send out his reports. With word of a number of fab closures, sales and cutbacks as well as floundering equipment sales, Muse said in a report Friday that in terms of semiconductor ma ...... Read More
Comments (3)Buy a house, get a free solar roof
These people need an award or something. How cool is Shea homes? So cool that if you buy one of their homes in California, Arizona, Florida and Washington, they will give you a free solar roof. Seems like a creative and innovative way to boost the solar market. Hopefully they can find buyers that can get mortgages. In another interesting solar development, Tokyo-based Sanyo Electric Co Ltd reporte ...... Read More
Comments (17)ST selling 8-inch Phoenix fab to Chartered?
Last year at about this time STMicroelectronics disclosed that it would close three of its manufacturing operations over the next two to three years, which followed the decision to spin-off its flash memory business in December 2006. The plants set to close were a 6-inch (150-mm) wafer fab in Carrollton, Texas, an 8-inch (200-mm) fab in Phoenix, Arizona and its back-end packaging and test facility ...... Read More
Comments (7)Canadian province investing in solar-grade silicon maker
Ontario, Canada is jumping on the green bandwagon. The province is seeking to create new jobs in green industries by investing nearly $8 million in solar-grade silicon maker 6N Silicon in order to create sustainable solar energy industry jobs for skilled workers. The investment comes as part of 6N’s $50 million expansion that includes a new manufacturing plant in Vaughan, Ontario, which wil ...... Read More
Comments (7)Industry says ‘no’ on 450-mm wafer size, but no pushback on Intel
I’m starting to wonder what the real story is behind all the talk on the 450-mm wafer size. I’m here at Semicon West in San Francisco this week, where ‘450’ is the buzz everywhere you turn, with most equipment vendors saying they won’t go down that path. SEMI recently released a report on the economics of a 450-mm wafer transition and concluded that for now, ...... Read More
Comments (6)Non-US solar market may hold more promise due to US economy
Given the poor state of the economy in the US, and with the situation likely to get worse for the semiconductor industry, companies supplying to customers located outside the US may have a better likelihood of business growth. Clearly, Germany leads the world in its acceptance and implementation of solar energy with although other big solar-supporting countries such as Spain and Italy, are working ...... Read More
Comments (13)Procuring energy from a solar power tower
California’s largest electric utility Southern California Edison (SCE) is getting onboard the solar train as today it inked a deal with Pasadena, Calif.-based eSolar to help it secure an additional 245 megawatts of solar power by 2013 for its customers in what the companies say is the nation’s first commercial effort using power tower solar thermal technology. What exactly is power t ...... Read More
Comments (4)Solar City roundup, Abu Dhabi heats up
Highlighting the news from Solar City this week was the announcement that Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates-based Masdar PV plans to invest more than $2 billion in thin-film photovoltaic solar technology in a three-phased strategy to produce thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules, and inked a deal (possibly $600 million) with Applied Materials for three of its SunFab thin film lines. In other PV news, ...... Read More
Comments (4)Life is good in Solar Valley
In just some of the solar activity for the week, I was impressed to see this story in The Hindu Business Line that the government in India wants to establish 60 cities as “Solar Cities,” which calls for a minimum 10% reduction in projected total demand of conventional energy at the end of 5 years in each of the cities through energy-efficiency measures and generation from renewa ...... Read More
Comments (6)SunPower touting full-scale solar cell prototype at 23.4% efficiency
The week is starting out bright for the solar industry as SunPower Corp is saying that it has produced a full-scale, five-inch prototype solar cell with an efficiency of 23.4%, which it claims is a world-record for a large area solar cell. The company reminded in its statement that it reported improvements of its cell efficiency in the laboratory and in mass production since its first all-back con ...... Read More
Comments (2)Photovoltaic industry pushed to realign biz, seek alternative raw materials
According to market researchers at iSuppli Corp, the explosive global demand for solar energy has driven such a significant shortage of polysilicon used in the manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) cells that PV suppliers are being forced to realign their business structures and strategies and to seek alternative raw materials. With global revenue for PV cells projected to reach as much as $22.1 billio ...... Read More
Comments (4)What say you on semi equipment, process timing?
Following up on its first survey last year that found 40% of respondents did not believe 450-mm wafers would ever happen, productivity management software and consulting services company Wright Williams & Kelly Inc (WWK) said this week it is starting its 2008 survey on equipment and process timing in the semiconductor industry, which can be found here. WWK reminded that last year’s sur ...... Read More
Comments (2)