Applied Materials getting into Solar-production gear in a big way

[n2doc]

Big machines, big aspirations
Applied Materials bets its solar-production gear will reshape market

By Matt Andrejczak, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:16 AM ET Mar 5, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- For over 40 years, Applied Materials Inc. has helped electronics makers cut product costs. It's done it for computer-chip makers, flat-panel TV makers and consumer-electronics providers. Now, it's taking the same playbook to the growing solar market.

Charlie Gay, who runs the company's solar machine group, likes to tell this analogy between the solar machine market and semiconductor-equipment: Due to the costs of transistors and the equipment that made them, it would have cost $1 billion to make an iPod 30 years ago.
"We're going to make a huge impact on cost reduction for solar," bets Gay, who Applied Materials plucked from nearby solar firm SunPower Corp. to run its show. "We're on a very predictable learning curve."
This would be good news for homeowners that shell out at least $25,000 in states such as California and New Jersey to install solar panels in their homes. The expensive price tag is due to the machine designs, installation costs, government incentives and other factors.
Applied Materials, of Santa Clara, Calif., stepped into the solar market last summer when it made a surprising $464 million acquisition of Applied Films, which made solar machines.

As the world's largest producer of machines that make microchips in consumer-electronic devices, Applied Materials aims to apply the engineering techniques it's crafted over the decades for chip-equipment to the solar industry.

The company is starting with similar designs its engineers have used for machines that churn out glass sheets the size of garage doors for flat-panel TVs. The kind of solar machines Applied Materials has started to sell to factory owners are known as thin-film.

They are enormous. Watch a video report on the process at the link.
Weighing in at 50 tons, it takes two Boeing 747-400 planes to ship them. All together, it takes factory hands one month to assemble, disassemble, reassemble and test them for leaks.

The machines, raised and supported by industrial metal platforms, consist of five rectangular-shaped, vacuum-tight chambers that can crank out 20 solar panels in one hour, or upwards of 450 panels a day. They are the biggest pieces of solar equipment on the market.

Size and speed matter in the solar market, according to industry experts. Larger solar panels churned out at faster rates can help drive down factory and installation costs.

More at link:


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/big-machines-big-aspirations-applied/story.aspx

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[phantom power]

1. Moore's Law does not apply to energy production. Not even to PV.

[nebenaube]

2. perhaps not, but it does apply to the chips that produce it. n/t

[One_Life_To_Give]

3. Only the controls

Moores Law won't work on a PV panel. We could make the junction smaller but the area of the panel is the area of the panel. It's not the same as trying to fit 2000 transistors into the space that formerly held 200.

[jpak]

4. So - as long as the price declines, who cares???

We will see PV modules at $1.00/Wp or less in the near future.

If a 3 kW PV array costs $3000 (before state and federal tax credits or rebates) - who cares about Moore's Law???

[phantom power]

5. I contend that predictions about $1/Wp are based on "moore's-law" analogies.

If the future proves me wrong, then it will be a pleasant surprise.