SEMI Discovers the 'Perfect Industry'

SEMI, the semiconductor manufacturing equipment trade body, has found the 'perfect industry', able to sustain growth and profitability over 50 years into the future, on a price decline learning curve, global, with open markets and open standards, green, ethical and generally welcomed by the public.

This paragon of an industry is the photovoltaic generating equipment manufacturing industry, says SEMI, in a white paper announced recently. The paper, The Race to Excellence in PV Manufacturing (PDF), can be found online.

The PV learning curve has delivered price reductions from over $6 per Watt in 10990 to under $3 per Watt in 2005, says the SEMI white paper. Future reductions will be affected by the adoption of new materials.

'Technology diversity will increase in the industry with the mass production of III-V-based and dye sensitized solar cells anticipated by 2010 and organic and hybrid technologies later on', reads the SEMI white paper, 'these technologies will have a unique learning curve comprised of the unique characteristics of their cell technology and manufacturing process.'

The ultimate objective is 'grid parity' i.e. comparable generating costs to conventional power stations. No one knows when this will happen.

SEMI argues that the PV industry should be kept free from the problems that bedevil other industries.

'A fractionated world market with competing standards, conflicting industrial regulation, protective government policies are also threatening the PV industry and exacerbating the global warming crisis.'

Electronics Weekly, a sister publication of EM Asia