subject: Solar panels also have Moore's Law? [print this page] Solar panels also have Moore's Law? Solar panels also have Moore's Law?
Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, one of the participants hope that the cost of solar panels to finally be able to lower subsidies can not compete with fossil fuels. As the semiconductor industry by Moore's Law (Moore's law) was inspired, so that computer chips become smaller, more powerful, omnipresent, and it was felt that technology and competition may also be able to light photovoltaic impose the same magic. In fact, the semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials has begun to enter the field of thin-film solar energy equipment. Last week the world's largest chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Outsourcing (TSMC) to 193 million U.S. dollars subscribed for shares of solar energy companies Motech (Motech Industries) 20% of the shares. These two incidents show that the cross-hatching process may be about to begin.
However, the chip and solar panels only on the surface there are similarities. Both involve the silicon and electricity, some processing techniques are the same. However, the production process of solar panels to be much simpler, but also high yield. A plant capable of producing 3,000 per hour, usually silicon wafers, each wafer would constitute a solar cell. By contrast, the modest size of a semiconductor plant may be a year to produce 200,000 chips. This is a high precision industries, because each chip can be made 100 thousand chips.
Ways to improve efficiency between the two is not the same. In the chip industry, to improve efficiency largely depend on optimal design. While in terms of solar panels, usually the more low-cost raw materials, the higher the efficiency. Solar panels manufacturer's profit margins so low that one of the reasons is that many companies last year, when the lock of the high price of silicon supply.
Chip production requires a substantial capital expenditure. Since few companies have the allocation of capital to create value, they are solar panel for greater chances of success are not great.
Two kinds of products in the market of their own. The former CEO of the airline industry Alan Mulally (Alan Mulally) could save Ford (Ford) on the edge of bankruptcy have demonstrated good. But this does not mean that manufacturing cars can become a Boeing (Boeing) to strengths.
