NanoMarkets TOP Blog

Transparent Conductor Markets; ITO Remains Dominant....

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:58:00 -0700

NanoMarkets has released a new report, "Indium Tin Oxide and Alternative Transparent Conductor Markets". The following is an excerpt from the report.

The transparent conductor industry is dominated by a single material-indium tin oxide (ITO). Manufacturers of flat panel displays (the largest users of ITO) have relied on this material for years but have always griped about ITO's inability to meet their requirements. When used as a conductor, ITO is not very conductive, and as a transparent layer, it is not very transparent. Beyond this fundamental shortcoming is the fact that ITO is generally difficult and expensive to apply as a thin film of sufficient quality. Once it is applied, it is brittle, and therefore can easily wear out or crack when used in applications where bending is involved. The price for this mediocre performance is quite high, since ITO is dependent on indium, which has been priced at $350 to $1,000 for the last several years.

ITO's many faults would seem to create a ripe environment for competition-new transparent conductor materials offering improved performance in the areas where ITO falls short, and different methods of using and applying ITO to address these issues. [More]

Innovation in Thin-Film Silicon PV

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:50:00 -0700

NanoMarkets has just released a new report on thin-film silicon photovoltaics. See here for details.

Amorphous silicon (a-Si), a type of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology, is experiencing a dramatic growth curve worldwide and offers a compelling business opportunity in power generation, building- integrated solutions and consumer applications. Thin-film PV solutions are the most rapidly growing portion of the PV landscape with approximately 23 percent of the overall PV market in 2008 and a-Si represents the largest component at over 50 percent of the overall TFPV market production in 2008. Amorphous silicon is well positioned to become low-cost PV solution of choice for many applications in the eight-year time frame covered in this report. Lower cost per kWh is the main driver for the shift from crystalline silicon PV to thin-film PV, as well as the increasing acceptance of a-Si thin-film PV for new applications. Cost, product maturity, excellent reliability, and availability of product in high volume are all reasons a-Si has become the most popular of the thin-film technologies; other TFPV technologies include CIS/CIGS and organic PV, which have product maturity issues, and CdTe, which suffers from government regulatory issues at end of life disposal/recycling.

The economics of all photovoltaics involve a high upfront cost to pay for the solar panels, but free feedstock in the form of light from the sun and relatively low operating costs because of the relatively low, periodic maintenance costs compared to traditional methods of power generation. The PV technology that is able to provide the quickest path to lowering these upfront costs and deliver product in high volume is likely to become the dominant PV solution. Amorphous silicon thin-film PV is well positioned to be the PV solution that can provide both large volumes quickly and a roadmap to low cost faster than competing TFPV technologies.

Amorphous silicon solar cells were introduced initially in the late 1980s, with expectations that they would dominate the PV market and be competitive with fossil fuels by the mid-1990s. This did not come to pass as the efficiency was less than 5 percent and initial cell reliability was less than 10 years. These drawbacks coupled with the pullback in fossil fuel prices in the late 1980s, off of peaks in the early 1980s, eliminated almost all demand for a-Si PV except in low-cost/low-power applications such as solar calculators, watches, etc.

Despite a lack of large-scale commercial applications, research continued on a-Si, which resulted in a much better understanding of a-Si PV physics. This research resulted in the development of tandem a-Si/Si:Ge alloy and a-Si/µc-Si cells that had efficiencies nearing 10 percent and field reliability of over 20 years. This positioned the a-Si PV to capture market share when renewed interest in PV energy emerged in the early 2000s.

Several events occurred starting in the early 2000s that accelerated the adoption of PV in general and that of a-Si in particular. First was the spike in fossil fuel costs that increased interest in all PV solutions. With this increased interest, the PV demand exceeded supply. Because crystalline silicon dominated the market, the increased need for silicon combined with the robust demand for silicon in the semiconductor industry caused silicon prices to skyrocket and resulted in a silicon shortage. These high prices spurred companies to invest in capital to expand capacity for a-Si (<2 percent silicon consumption of c-Si) and CdTe-based thin-film PV, as well as accelerated research and development into CIGS and organic PV. Fortunately for a-Si, the renewed interest in PV solutions happened at the same time the industry was transitioning to tandem and multi-junction architectures with much more attractive overall efficiency and reliability than the single-junction designs, which were the dominant products available in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In addition to the demand for alternative energy sources strictly due to cost of fossil fuels, the global warming/climate change movement helped drive demand for PV solutions as they have a zero carbon footprint. Government subsidies for PV solutions (especially in Germany and Spain where such subsidies can be viewed as either jump starting the PV industry or distorting the marketplace, depending on your point of view) have made it economically feasible to build large PV arrays. Amorphous silicon is very competitive for these applications and this has created demand for more capacity.

By the end of the period covered by this report, the roadmap for thin-film silicon PV cells will most likely transition from the a-Si/µc-Si cells, which are now becoming the mainstream a-Si product, to tandem-junction cells that most likely will be tandem- or triple- junction cells based on combinations of amorphous silicon, microcrystalline silicon and nanocrystalline silicon. The roadmap by the end of the reporting period will see the introduction of silicon-based quantum dots or silicon nanowire-based architectures ramping to high-volume manufacturing. This a-Si PV materials roadmap predicted in this report provides a path to 15-16 percent cell efficiency leveraging the cheap SiH4 as a feedstock, no changes to the TCO or reflector materials (although there are certainly improvements in materials processing that can improve efficiency), and most likely will use much of the equipment infrastructure of the current tandem cell factories that are currently coming on line. This reuse of capital equipment and infrastructure represents an excellent value proposition to constantly increase efficiency, aggressively driving down costs, while not being saddled with heavy capital costs to improve efficiency with the exception of those to satisfy increased capacity.

Another Thought On Start-Ups

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:25:00 -0700

An interesting blog entry caught my eye this morning on the impact of start-ups on jobs and by default, industry. (see here) The author points out that start-ups are not the panecea for economic growth (or by default, recovery) given their inefficient use of capital and other resources and how government involvement will spur a rush of companies into a segment that simply cannot support them.

That's not to say that start-ups are not a viable concept by any means but when we consider all of the money that has been thrown at printed, organic and thin-film electronics markets by government agencies, just how far have we collectively come?

As an aside, last month we were approached by a company who would be classified as a start-up that was looking for assistance in advancing their manufacturing operations. They were going to be relying upon an EU grant in order to become the next "(name deleted)". The market doesn't need another company to offer the technology but regardless, the firm was in line for several million Euros so why not take the chance? After all, it isn't as if the business has to succeed......

Especially when the bids are shall we say, rigged?

OPERA Organic Electronics Entrepreneur Training Day and Venture Forum

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:03:00 -0700

Passing this on......

The OPERA Organic Electronics Entrepreneur Training Day and Venture Forum May 18-19 2009 at the Novotel Brussels Centre Tour Noire in Brussels, Belgium. Organised by the EU-funded project OPERA, which aims to strengthen the position of Europe in the field of organic electronics, especially start-ups and SMEs.

Organic Electronics Entrepreneur Training Day
The objective is to enroll a maximum of 10 individuals or small teams with a preliminary business idea that they want to evaluate and develop further. In the morning we will have two real-life business case presentations and a presentation of what is required from a good business plan. In the afternoon the participants will work on their own ideas in small workshop settings. Workshops are facilitated by experienced mentors. The objective of the workshops is to produce a refined, business-plan-like version of each business idea plus a set of concrete action points to continue the process.

Note: Registration is complimentary, there is no participation fee.

Organic Electronics Venture Forum
The OPERA Venture Forum will bring together ventures seeking new capital and private capital firms seeking investment opportunities. The objective is to enroll 15-20 presenting companies to present their business cases in front of 15-20 VCs. Start-ups are encouraged to participate although early stage companies are welcome. Presenting companies can represent any part of OLAE value chain - from materials to commercial applications.

Note: there is no participation fee for presenting companies.

Details: http://opera-project.eu/index.php?id=13&lang=EN.

Contact: victoria.plompen@Plastic-electronics.org

Who Will Lead?

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:17:00 -0700

Interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal about the role of entrepreneurs in getting the economy back on sound footing. You can debate the merits of the proposals but one thing that sticks out is the need for technology, investment and leadership to come to the forefront.

We believe that materials, manufacturing and product innovation will be crucial elements of the story.

Activism, Economics and Technology

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:28:00 -0700

An article in Investors' Business Daily yesterday (see here) brings to light the trade-offs between environmental activism (and really, government interference in the market) and economic reality. Everyone thinks that going green is a good thing but what happens when pursuing those policies mean that people lose their jobs, prices increase and/or competition is stifled? How about when politicians see these initiatives as a way to generate cash flow instead of sound economic and fiscal policy making? Can anyone really expect to have a sustainable business or develop new technologies that rely on inefficient uses of capital as the justification for a company's existence? Or how about taxes and fees that make the "next big thing" a non starter? Sure, government mandates (i.e. interference) can provide a spark for innovation but how can anyone raise capital for speculative technologies when concepts like risk, ROI and market driven capitalism have been distorted by non market forces? How does the consumer gain access to the solutions that best meet their needs from a cost or utility basis when policy makers want to appease special interest groups?

ITO Research Progress Report

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:57:00 -0700

I am in the midst of my interview program for the annual NanoMarkets study on the indium tin oxide(ITO) market. So a few brief observations on the ITO market . . .

No surprises in the fact that no one is talking about $10,000 per kilo for Indium anymore as they were a year ago; Indium is about $380 per kilo at the moment. Also, as we predicted in our study last year, display makers will do everything they can to make to make ITO work for them, without moving to alternatives; for the time being there is nothing that can match ITO when it comes to optimizing all the things that a good transparent conductor needs.

And, according to my sources, ITO is getting better at least at the manufacturing level and it is even finding new markets (and I am not talking about everyone's favorite technology, PV!). While sputtering ITO has its limits, particle based ITO manufacturing seems to have taken a leap forward in the past year, making it more acceptable for touch-screen and flexible displays. In this sense, ITO may be thought of as being a good substitute for itself. Also, while ITO has often been seen as facing major price barriers to entry in the general coatings market, at the current price, ITO firms are seeing opportunities for antistatic and IR coatings.

(NanoMarkets believes that antistatic coatings has good growth prospects; static is a growing issue in the electronics world as the features on a chip get ever tinier.)

This isn't especially good news for the ITO replacement business, although we still hold out considerable hope for nanomaterials on the grounds that they are new materials with the potential for engineering remarkable transparency/conductivity combinations. (Compare non-ITO TCOs, where we have seen no real performance improvements since the 1980s.) Eikos, which has long garnered considerable mindshare in the carbon nanotube coatings stakes, seems to have gotten pretty quiet recently. But, in a recent interview with a major European chemical company, I heard some very positive things about Cambrios, which uses some kind of metallic nanomaterial in its formulation.

Of course, at the present time, all our futures hang on the return of growth in the world economy. In all my interviews these days, especially with large multinationals, I ask what the internal thinking is on this issue. In talking with my European chemical company, I was told that the majority view was that growth would return in six months and that the firm is planning accordingly. But, my respondent also told me that there was a minority at his firm who thought that economic problems and especially a collapse in the value of the Euro would cause problems for well beyond 2009.

Hard times are sometimes good for emerging technologies, such as the nanomaterials mentioned above as they are when desperate engineers and entrepreneurs are driven to hunker down and make the new stuff. The lack of investment money along with forward visibility and confidence and their effect on creating the "next big thing" bears watching though.

Why Zinc Oxide (ZnO) Electronics May be Commercialized Quickly

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:50:00 -0700

The following is an exceprt from the first chapter of NanoMarkets' upcoming report, Markets for Zinc Oxide in Electronics

While the history and current levels of interest in Zinc Oxide (ZnO) electronics provided above show the potential for ZnO as an electronics material, a similar story could be told about a number of other materials, especially exotic nanomaterials. But that is exactly the point. What makes ZnO so ready for commercialization is that it is not an exotic nanomaterial, but rather a material that is inexpensive, plentiful and well understood. (Even ZnO's potential to build spintronics devices and therefore compete in the nanoelectronics space is based on well-understood ferromagnetic properties of ZnO.)

ZnO is also chemically stable, easy to prepare and non-toxic. Most of the doping materials that are used with ZnO are also readily available. (Gallium may be considered somewhat of an exception here.) In addition, ZnO can avail itself of time-tested manufacturing approaches including Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) or Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) techniques, which offer good coverage and deposition rates. The bottom line is that the commercialization of ZnO is very different in terms of the challenges presented when compared to (say) some of the new nanomaterials or even organic materials that are targeting the electronics markets. These more exotic materials are often costly, available only in laboratory quantities and require exotic machinery to create structures and devices. With such materials there are often major problems when scaling up from the lab to the fab. Obviously, ZnO is nothing like this, which is not to say that there aren't challenges.

One of the biggest issues for ZnO electronics at the present time-and one of the major areas for research-is the development of p-type ZnO semiconductors. [More]

Green Energy Bubbles and Troubles

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:01:00 -0700

The NY Times has an article on how credit and banking issues are impacting the green tech market. (See here). While access to credit facilities is an issue for most businesses any industry that reliant on tax credits (i.e. subsidy) and borrowing has to be seen as suspect. Solar will still be a favored technology for years to come but companies scrambling for new markets to address have to consider that solar is yet another government and social policy influenced sector that someday will have to make it on its own.

When elected officials are forced to make hard choices on spending and resource allocation in an era of declining tax revenues it will also be interesting to see what happens with renewables. A few years from now when the pendulum swings back to more fiscally conservative thinking either by choice or necessity these businesses have to make money or they are done.

CIGS Based Photovoltaics in Today's Economic Environment

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:56:00 -0700

CIGS PV is coming to be known as the rising star of the TFPV world. More than ten companies were already commercially producing megawatt volumes of CIGS PV modules by the end of 2008. CIGS PV has achieved the highest efficiency of any thin-film PV technology; as of the writing of this report NREL was preparing to release certification for a 20.0 percent efficient champion cell created in its lab. Although this falls below the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells (barely below that of multicrystalline cells at 20.3 percent efficiency), CIGS cells can be substantially cheaper because of their reduced material usage and the ability to manufacture them using low-cost processes.

The high efficiency of CIGS PV cells is due to their very high absorption rates that allow 99 percent of available light to be absorbed in the first micron of the material. As an alloy system, the bandgap of CIGS can be tailored to maximize efficiency given the expected illumination conditions. Generally, this means optimizing the bandgap to around 1.3 or 1.4 eV to match the solar spectrum. This can be done by varying the ratio of indium to gallium and/or by substituting sulfur for some or all of the selenium. [More]

CES and New Realities for Consumer Electronics

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:32:00 -0700

Caught the news release about the 2009 CES show taking place in Vegas this week. The release is what you might expect for an event that is trying to put on a happy face when most of the news points to something rather dour.

A few random thoughts...

The trade show is where companies announce and demo new products, they are used as a venue to blitz the media and meet with customers and suppliers. Do it right and you can generate a lot of buzz for the products. They are also a good gauge of what's going on in an industry.

When I see a lead off of 20,000 new products helping lead the way to economic recovery I have to laugh. More so when I see "Innovation will restart the world's economic engine". Unless the innovations are going to significantly reduce costs or offer up a productivity proposition that warrants someone ponying up scarce money then take this one with a grain of salt too. (The only caveat for that I would offer is if you work for a PR firm or in the Marcom department then said innovations will likely keep you employed for a while) Supply is not our collective problem. It's all about demand and that is becoming harder and harder to find. See Mish Shedlock's blog.

I don't consider CEOs attending a trade show worthy of mention in a press release. Of course CEOs should be at major shows. In addition to meeting with press and analysts these people should be out walking the floor, visiting other booths and yes, talking to your average consumer.

However, if you are a CEO (or anyone in electronics) you should be gravely concerned about what is coming down the pike. Consumer electronics are in for a really rough stretch, business spending is falling rapidly and deflation is the current condition. The frantic discounting and panic selling of Q4 has not only destroyed margins but promoted buying of stuff today that manufacturers and retailers would have been able to count on a few quarters down the road. Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Blog nails it in this entry where he touches upon what happens when we borrow against future demand. The writing style is a tad bit dramatic but the point is rather clear; how many more TVs, displays, iPod/MP3s, smart phones or other gadgets do people want and need right now?

Other issues:

There is talk of large scale reductions in the amount of retail outlets in 2009 and 2010. Clearly we have too many places to shop for goods and while it won't help unemployment numbers the contraction simply has to happen. For newer technologies though that means shelf space is going to be much harder to come by. Best Buy and Circuit City (in Chapter 11 right now) are places where people go to look at what's new then search on-line for the best price. If you get lucky you might actually find someone who can answer some product specific questions. If they go who is there to educate the consumer on why the next generation of tech is worth paying for? Companies cannot underestimate the effectiveness of retail outlets in the success of consumer technology. As retail stores dies off and competition for shelf space increases companies are going to have to come up with new means of promoting and selling products. That's why I found the mention of attempts at about trying to restrict attendance and making sure the "right" people come to the show the most outrageous of all.

Outlook for Thin Film Photovoltaics in 09

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:52:00 -0700

By far the biggest issue is how the market will fare in 2009. The success of PV-and of all alternative energy sources-is based not so much on the cost of these alternative energy sources, but on the narrowing of the price gap between alternative energy and conventional energy. With the price of oil at the extraordinarily high levels it reached in mid-2008, PV of all kinds apparently had an unprecedented opportunity, especially since PV brings very low pricing risks as an advantage. The cost of sunlight will remain the same; namely zero. No one really knows what the future holds for the cost of oil!

Much of the impact of high oil prices on the PV market was due in part to perception. Coal and natural gas account for the majority of fossil fuel-fired electricity generation. Though costs of these fuels are also rising, their growth is less dramatic and less visible than the rising cost of oil. Nonetheless, high oil prices contributed to a favorable climate for alternative energy, and serve as a proxy for worries about energy costs.

Based on the attractive business climate earlier this year we had upgraded our forecasts for PV as a whole. At the time, we noted that there was (and still is) a large addressable market available for PV. In a recent report, the European Photovoltaics Industry Association (EPIA,) has shown that if all of the roofs in the OECD countries were fully equipped with rooftop solar, 16 percent or so of the need for electricity could be supplied. This does not seem an extravagant scenario in the long run, but it would take many times the current planned capacity for PV production to achieve it.

While such bullish analysis would still seem to apply in the long run, we have taken a different view of the short-term prospects for PV. There was always going to be some overcapacity in the PV market in 2009 which could have been dismissed as the result of building for the future. However, with construction down and both housing and energy prices falling around the world, the immediate prospects for PV are not good since sales are still strongly concentrated in the U.S. (especially California), Japan and Germany all of which are dealing with rather nasty recessions now and likely throughout next year.

Faced with downturns in the industrialized nations, many firms are looking to growth in both China and India to save them. However, while these countries may well be huge markets for PV in the future, don't expect much from them in 2009. First, although they are huge countries geographically and in terms of population, combined their economies are still 1/3rd that of the US. Both countries are also facing challenges given the decline of the US and EU based economies. Another item to consider is that rapidly industrializing countries are not known for their sensitivity to environmental matters so PV installations are limited in their appeal in this regard.

TFPV has some specific marketplace advantages and disadvantages as we enter 2009. It may in certain cases be less expensive than crystalline silicon PV, although that case is arguable. In addition, its ability to be fabricated on flexible substrates makes it especially suitable for novel BIPV products, such as solar tiles and cladding. Installation of such products may be used to give additional selling features to new homes. On the other hand, some of the TFPV technologies may be considered a more risky prospect than the longer established crystalline silicon PV technologies. This can result in reduced willingness to fund investment in TFPV materials, both at the level of the solar panel manufacturer and the ultimate customer. However, the degree to which that is important will vary with the type of TFPV.

For many TFPV firms, the best that may be hoped for in 2009 is a holding pattern. The firms best able to weather the storm will be those that have cash in the bank, a proven low-cost manufacturing solution and good management. With regard to the management issue, we note that management issues have arisen at a number of TFPV firms in the not too distant past.

We are predicting a $2.7 billion (US) thin-film pv market in 2009.

P-OLEDs and Plextronics; Progress?

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:31:00 -0700

The announcement today by Plextronics of improved P-OLED operating voltages and voltage stability is important stuff. It moves the cause of printed OLEDs a little bit further towards true productization. It is just as Plextronics and CDT say; low voltage HILs mean lower power usage and this is critical in the mobile display business.

Mobile is an important addressable market for P-OLEDs. This is because, mobile displays have already seen some penetration by OLEDs and - compared with OLED TVs anyway - performance requirements in the mobile space are fairly relaxed.

But the announcement also needs to be seen in historical context.

Printed OLEDs have a long way to go before they can claim a real victory. CDT, the source of so much of the thinking about printed/polymer OLEDs, cannot really point to a marketplace success as yet. It has been talking about how great P-OLEDs are for several years, but the OLED market is stubbornly still 98 percent small-molecule vapor-deposited devices. Meanwhile, CDT itself has gone through several ownership changes and apparently also changes in where it believes P-OLED applications will really take off.

Such changes are hardly signs of strength for CDT or P-OLEDs.

Today, I talked with someone who had a strong commitment to "old way" of doing OLEDs and he thought that printed polymer OLEDs without a future. This seems a little extreme. At NanoMarkets we think that printed OLEDs actually do have a future.

All the fuss about OLED lighting only really makes sense if an OLED replacement for common light bulb isn't orders of magnitude more expensive than the lighting it replaces. Printing seems like a believable way to get the cost of OLED lighting down. (Stories about ultra-long lifetimes, only get you so far in your marketing pitch.) And as far as I can tell, large flexible OLED displays for TV and signage applications could better be manufactured using a low temperature process.

But the current financial climate injects a new sense of urgency into the equation.

In a better financial climate, new technologies can take a decade or more to evolve at the start-ups formed to support them, but in tighter economic climates, time and funding gets shorter. As an industry analyst in the telecom space earlier in my career I saw first hand what a boom and bust can do to interesting new technologies. It's not pretty!

OPV Lives!!

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:31:00 -0700

I was very pleased to see this morning's announcement that Total , the oil and gas giant, had just invested $45 million, in the organic photovoltaics (OPV) developer, Konarka. Quite frankly, in the current financial environment, any investment activity looks mighty good.

But - leaving aside doom and gloom - the 20 percent or so stake that Total now owns in Konarka is really a credibility booster for OPV as a whole, not just Konarka.

For the past two or three years, OPV has been carried along by the passion of investors for all things cleantech. The meltdown of the past two months has meant that investors have very little passion left. Meanwhile, in an environment in which traditional energy prices are declining, the arguments for all forms of PV weaken. But the business case for OPV has always been a little difficult to make, because of the low conversion efficiencies, because of encapsulation issues, and because some of the most attractive applications for OPV (e.g., solar curtains) are a little on the futuristic side.

With all this working against OPV and given the early stage of technological development at which OPV finds itself, OPV could easily have become a victim of the recession; one of those exciting new technologies that ultimately ends up in the dustbins of technological history.

It should be remembered that Total is already active in the PV business and also in the organic electronics business (through Sartomer.) And with Konarka being able to tap into the enviable resources of Total's chemical subsidiaries - Atotech, Bostik, Hutchinson, Sartomer and Total Petrochemicals and with access to the Total distribution chain, OPV may prove a winner after all.

BASF--A Great BFF Indeed

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:08:00 -0700

The recent announcement of NanoMas receiving a $3.2 million ($US) infusion from BASF and Earthrise Capital Partners, LLC and NanoMaterials Investors, LLC, is a great sign for the materials business.

BASF is the right type of investor for small companies looking to capitalize on their IP and German company's sheer size and the resources it brings to the table makes for interesting possibilities. We are familiar with NanoMas and thought that they would be worth a look from a larger company with capital to invest.

Who's next?