AQT to Bring CIGS Solar Production Facility Online
Source/Type: News - Staff reports

Author: CompoundSemi News Staff

August 16, 2010... Applied Quantum Technologies (AQT) announced that it plans to bring its CIGS solar production facility online this month. The company is going ahead with the new facility despite hard times in the solar industry. The facility will be located in aptly named Sunnyvale, California. AQT got the money for the new facility from its recent $10 million funding round. AQT indicated that it would begin fulfilling the $30 million in orders in its order pipeline.

Other companies such as Miasole, Nanosolar, and Solyndra already occupy the copper indium gallium diselenide market that began to grow just as prices for silicon, the main material in CIGS solar's chief thin-film rival, amorphous silicon, rose to precarious heights.

AQT revealed that it will be using the same equipment used to make computer hard drives to make small CIGS solar cell in sizes and with structures similar to crystalline silicon. According to AQT, this will allow it to sell its cells to solar module makers who are already equipped with crystalline silicon machinery. AQT says that this lowers costs overall.

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