Intel becomes solar cell manufacturer

Intel has founded an independent company for the development and production of solar cells, called SpectraWatt. The new company's CEO is Andrew B. Wilson, the former head of the New Business Initiatives Group at Intel that spun off SpectraWatt. Intel Capital has invested $50 million, partly with funding from Goldman-Sachs subsidiary Cogentrix Energy, the PCG Green Energy and Technology Fund and Berlin's Solon AG. According to a press release, the German company holds some 16  per cent of SpectraWatt.

SpectraWatt plans to begin construction of a plant in Hillsboro, Portland, near Intel's current production plant in the second half of 2008. SpectraWatt is expected to start shipping its first products in 2009.

The market for solar cells is currently booming, but demand could rise even higher if prices fall. IBM has also increased its investments in solar power. In the autumn of 2007, IBM presented a process to recover rejected wafers and test wafers from semi-conductor production for solar cell production

Hillsboro is home to Fab D1D, one of Intel's most modern plants, where 300 mm silicon wafers are made into 45 nm processors. Intel employs some 16,000  people in several production plants and development centres at its campus in Hillsboro. Intel is the largest employer in the sparsely populated State of Oregon – some 3.6 million people spread across 255,000 square kilometres on the northwest coast of the US. Intel has promoted itself in Oregon as an ecologically responsible company purchasing large amounts of green power. By 2010, Intel plans to reduce its global carbon emissions by 30 per cent below 2004 levels.

(trk)