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:

The world’s second largest microprocessor maker, AMD, has announced their earnings this morning. The company reported a revenue of $1.35 billion, and a net loss of $1.19 billion, in the quarter that ended June 28. A substantial chunk of the loss is the result of a goodwill impairment charge the company took on its now-defunct handheld and DTV products. AMD has classified these business segments as discontinued operations.The company’s financial reporting pales largely against its archrival Intel which reported a record second-quarter revenues of $9.5 billion and profits of 28 cents per share (Ref).

This morning, AMD also announced that Dirk Meyer will succeed Hector Ruiz as the company’s chief executive officer with immediate effect. Ruiz will become executive chairman of AMD and chair of the board of directors. His future role is on driving the company’s asset smart strategy to completion, and assisting with high-level government and strategic partner relations. The new CEO of AMD, Dirk Meyer, 46, joined AMD in 1995 and made his mark as part of the design team responsible for highly successful Athlon processors. In 2006, Meyer was appointed president and COO, and in 2007, he was elected to AMD’s board of directors. Prior to AMD, Meyer spent nearly a decade at Digital Equipment Corporation, where he was co-architect of the Alpha 21064 and 21264 microprocessors. Meyer graduated from the University of Illinois, where he received a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. He also received a master’s degree in business administration from Boston University (Ref). He is the third CEO of AMD, after Hector Ruiz and Jerry Sander.