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One of the original purposes of blogs, once known as Weblogs, was to offer links to interesting tidbits all over the World Wide Interweb (sic), something Chip Shots does from time to time in addition to the usual onslaught of rants, musings, analyses, and news coverage. Here are a few interesting reads from the first days of the new year.

If you haven't already seen it already, I strongly suggest reading---and studying---the cover story from the January 2008 issue of Scientific American, titled "A Solar Grand Plan." Cowritten by Ken Zweibel, veteran photovoltaicist and president of cadmium-telluride thin-film PV startup PrimeStar Solar, the article offers a compelling argument for a strategy to put the US on a renewable energy path. "By 2050 solar power could end US dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions," the subheadline boldly states, to the tune of solar supplying 69% of the country's electrical requirements and 35% of its total energy.

The central concepts include plans to erect "a vast area of photovoltaic cells" in the American Southwest, where "excess daytime energy would be stored as compressed air in underground caverns to be tapped during nighttime hours." There would also be "large solar concentrator power plants" constructed, as well as a "new direct-current power transmission backbone" capable of delivering "solar electricity across the country." Then there's the cost: the authors guesstimate that it will take "$420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050" to "fund the infrastructure and make it cost-competitive." As a bonus, check the scores of comments, including lots of give and take between Zweibel and the readers, which make for a fascinating complementary thread to the article.

The launch of Chinese semiconductor equipment concern AMEC received extensive coverage in Chip Shots about a month ago. News of another sort involving AMEC appeared on Christmas Day, when details of Applied Materials' trade-secret misappropriation lawsuit against the upstart company were reported in a curiously unbylined piece in EETimes. As with many legal wranglings in the chipmaking world, details on the ground are a bit thin, beyond the usual lawyers' pronouncements full of carefully crafted legalistic quibblishness.

But the semi tool sector's little guy vs. big guy battle also caught the attention of the wider media world, when Salon.com's Andrew Leonard weighed in last week. The writer of the site's "How the World Works" column penned a piece with the provocative headline, "Betrayal: A Silicon Valley way of life," in which he offers several thoughtful, balanced insights on the companies' staredown. Should the squabble be seen as yet-another sign of growing US-China trade tensions? Or maybe AMEC is just another part (albeit a Chinese version) of "Silicon Valley's... wide diffusion of intellectual property propelled by wave after wave of start-ups," something which academics and SiVal watchers see "as essential to understanding how the region continues to prosper"?

If nothing else, the timing of Applied's legal assault (apart from the relative merits of the case), just as AMEC ratchets up its involvement with customers and increases its foray into the marketplace, provides fodder for beaucoup speculation by the industry's chattering classes. One final note: The column also marks the first time that Chip Shots has been hyperlink-referenced on that prestigious site (!), but it would still be well worth reading---even if my writer's ego had not received a nice triple-W caress.

Speaking of EETimes, fellow journalistic traveler Mark LaPedus, never known for his strong opinions or an ability to get under industry players' skins (yeah, right!), ponied up his "predictions" of the top 10 stories for 2008 last week. After offering his own gloomy 2008 forecast for both the chip (zero growth) and equipment (negative growth) sectors, Mark's other prognostications mostly discuss various scenarios of mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, and private equity buyouts. Companies like Novellus ("ripe for a takeover"), IBM (spins off semi unit? takes over part of AMD?), and SMIC (also a prime takeover target? merges with Chartered?) all get caught in his crosshairs.

One of the most provocative bits on Mark's hitlist deals with advanced litho: "...Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography will die a slow and painful death in 2008." Ouch! Whether his prediction represents pain in a "the truth hurts" kind of way remains an open question, one that might get some conversational, maybe even actionable, traction at next month's SPIE Advanced Lithography event.