Solar panels have been around for a long time. How long I am not exactly sure but certainly for as long as I can remember. Many Taiwanese companies have jumped on the solar panel bandwagon. Yesterday the news from accross the Pacific was that Intel are jumping into the production of photovoltaic cells. They will do this through a spin-off with an initial investment of US$50 milllion. The Wall Street Journal says:
Intel's move is the latest in a scramble among Silicon Valley companies to jump on the clean-energy bandwagon. Applied Materials Inc., for example, is branching beyond machines for making chips to sell equipment for use in making photovoltaic cells. Chip maker Cypress Semiconductor Corp., by contrast, spun off a maker of solar cells called SunPower Corp. that now boasts a market capitalization of about $7 billion.
Intel jumping into this industry will change the landscape. They have the engineering expertise, the manufacturing expertise and the money. Taiwan's solar companies will battle to keep up.
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