According to NanoMarkets newest report “Thin Film Photovoltaics Markets: 2008 and Beyond”, thin-film photovoltaic (TFPV) market will grow from almost $2.4 billion ($US) in revenues in 2008 to over $12 billion in 2013. By 2015, NanoMarkets expects that TFPV will have a market opportunity of over $22 billion (Ref). The explosive growth is unfathomable a few years ago when TFPV was just a tiny niche area of photovoltaic’s business and was associated with low-margin products such as calculators. However, the advances of TFPV technology and the perennial shortage of crystalline silicon have driven TFPV technology to become the mainstream for PV market. In addition, TFPV technology shows great potential for low-cost, low-weight and flexible solar cells.

The current TFPV technology is still largely based on amorphous silicon (a-Si) which is well understood. However, non-silicon TFPV technologies, such as Copper Indium Gallium Deselenide (CIGS), cadmium telluride (CdTe), and GaAs etc, are gaining traction and may soon replace a-Si TFPV technology. In particular, GICS seems to offer all the virtues of TFPV with energy conversion efficiencies comparable to conventional PV of about 20 percent. One interesting development of CIGS TFPV technology is the possibility of building a flexible PV panel, such as CIGS on foil technology (Ref). A recent report from Lux Research claimed that TPFV build on flexible surfaces will make up 28 percent of the solar market by 2012 (Ref).

Below is a video on the manufacturing of solar panel from Q Cells:

iPhone 3G was launched over the last weekend. Within 3 days, more than a million iPhone 3G have been sold (Ref). The iPhone 3G manic is simply amazing and Apple has demonstrated once again its unbeatable marketing prowess. Minutes after the launch, the Internet has published a couple of articles on the teardown analysis of iPhone 3G handset. Based on these articles, we list a summary of the components used by iPhone 3G over here (Ref1, Ref2, Ref3):

• ARM Processor: Samsung
• 3G Communication: Infineon (previously Broadcom)
• GPS: Infineon
• NAND: Toshiba (previously Samsung)
• Baseband NOR: Numonyx
• Audio Codec: Wolfson Microelectronics
• Power Amplifier: TriQuint
• Power Control: NXP
• Battery and USB: Linear Technology
• Touchscreen: Broadcom, NXP, TI
• Others: Skyworks

The clear winner is obviously Infineon which has four design wins in the iPhone 3G, including the 3G communication chip. Below is a two part teardown anaysis by Semiconductor Insight.