One hope of those talking about climate change in Copenhagen is that solar panels will eventually be cheap enough to compete unsubsidised with fossil fuels. As the semiconductor industry was inspired by Moore's law to make computer chips tiny, powerful and ubiquitous, it's thought that technology and competition might work a similar magic for photovoltaic cells. Indeed, semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials has started pushing into thin film solar equipment. And last week Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's biggest contract chipmaker, took a 20 per cent stake in solar company Motech Industries for $193m. Both suggest that industrial cross fertilisation might be about to begin.
哥本哈根气候变化会议参与者的希望之一，就是太阳能电池板的成本最终能够低廉到无须补贴也能与化石燃料竞争。由于半导体行业受到摩尔定律(Moore's law)的启发，让计算机芯片变得更小、更强大、无所不在，人们认为，科技与竞争或许也能对光生伏打电池施以同样的魔法。事实上，半导体设备制造商Applied Materials已开始进军薄膜太阳能设备领域。而上周manbetx app苹果 最大外包芯片制造商台积电(TSMC)以1.93亿美元认购了太阳能企业茂迪股份(Motech Industries) 20%的股权。这两件事都表明，跨行业的孵化过程可能即将开始。