Your daily dose of photovoltaic technology developments and solar news

Although plenty of companies developing and manufacturing copper-indium-(di)sulfide/copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide (CIS/CIGS) thin-film PV have chosen to use flexible materials as their substrates of choice, only one employs copper metal tape--Odersun. Chinese firm Advanced Technology & Materials has been along for the ride with the German firm as a strategic investor and research partner since 2004.

Charlie Gay has been thinking about the thinness of solar wafers since his days as a PhD researcher at Spectrolab. When he was offered the job to run the research group at Arco Solar nearly 30 years ago, Gay told Bill Yerkes that he needed a few months to finish a job involving a particular kind of thin silicon cell for the space program before he could join the new company. At least that’s how Yerkes remembers it in an archival video interview I have a copy of, a small part of many hours of conversations with PV pioneers compiled by the late Mark Fitzgerald, the founding editor of the original Photovoltaics International journal.

Rudolph Technologies' acquisition of Adventa Control Technologies for an undisclosed wad of cash has immediate implications for those trying to keep their semiconductor manufacturing processes, equipment, and factories under tight control. ACT's software lurks in some 80% of those fabs, with somewhere upwards of 18,000 of its systems installed. The buy certainly won't hurt Rudolph's bottom line either, as the addition of ACT should double the revenues of the company's data analysis and review biz unit. But the move by Rudolph, which launched its own photovoltaic-specific Solar Discover process control and yield management package earlier this year (and which is already an option on Spire's turnkey cell lines), may also end up benefitting the PV production crowd.