Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 71
Panel III
National and International Consortia:
Lessons and Best Practices
Moderator:
Clark McFadden
Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP
COLLABORATION FOR SUCCESS IN SEMICONDUCTORS
John E. Kelly
IBM
Dr. Kelly began by referring to earlier discussions about market incentives
and enhancement of manufacturing productivity. Like Dr. Freilich, he emphasized
that the industry’s success will depend primarily on technical achievement. “I
would argue that this industry has no future if it does not understand that it has
to tackle this through technology,” he said. “It has to be driven by R&D.” He said
that efficiency cannot be raised fast enough “through larger slices of glass or more
efficient equipment; it has to be closed by technology. And then once that gap is
closed, you cannot assume you can stand still there.” He added the second point
that the United States cannot compete against companies and countries outside
the United States by relying primarily on lower labor costs or larger, more pro-
ductive equipment. “You fight that through innovation,” he said. “You innovate
faster than anyone else.”
Dr. Kelly said he would “draw a few analogies and some lessons learned
from the semiconductor industry.” The semiconductor industry had experienced
many of the same challenges as the PV industry over the past three to four de-
cades. He listed four fundamental pressures felt by the industry on a continuing
basis, “all of which have caused the industry to remake itself several times”:
• Foreign competition: “We are under constant competition from low-cost
entities for governments and government subsidiaries.”
71
OCR for page 72
72 FUTURE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS MANUFACTURING
• The equipment and materials ecosystem.
• Highly skilled workforce: “As soon as you decide to compete based on
innovation, you need the best work force, and that is a pipeline statement begin -
ning with K-12 education.”
• Research and development: Creating a leading node of logic technology
now, he said, costs approximately $1 billion. “And you need to be doing three
or four nodes at any given time—a big, big investment.” This ongoing expense,
coupled with the slowing of semiconductor revenue increases from the high teens
to the mid-single-digits, has “put industry under extreme pressure,” he said. “This
has caused the industry to do things we might otherwise not have done.”
Strength in Collaboration
The solution, Dr. Kelly said, is collaborations of many kinds between indus -
try, government, and academia. Among examples in the semiconductor industry,
he began with the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), which is at the
intersection of industry and academia. The second example is SEMATECH, which
is at the intersection of industry and government. The third and fourth examples,
he said, are new: the Nanotechnology Research Initiative and the Focus Center
Research Programs. These are successful partnerships of all three sectors, he said.
“Most recently, we have aligned those efforts with those of NIST and NSF, which
are represented here today. We want to leverage this further into pure government-
university research that is aligned with where industry needs to go. There is also
extraordinary collaboration between industry players who you might think are
severe competitors, but have managed to pull together to a degree which I think
is probably unique in the world.”
SEMATECH, he said, originated in the mid-1980s and gained momentum
with government funding in 1988 during what was judged to be a national crisis.
“We were seeing loss of share in the U.S. semiconductor industry,” observed Mr.
Kelly, “but we were also seeing the entire equipment and materials base leaving
the United States. That was a disaster to companies like Intel and IBM, who felt
that our supply lines and the security of our own systems could be in jeopardy.”
SEMATECH received $100 million from both industry and government, he said,
“which I think at that time was unique.” Based on that experience, he gave his
personal opinion that it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year to
advance solar R&D and close the competitiveness gap “if we want to get off the
subsidies and keep the United States in a leadership position.”
SEMATECH itself broadened its focus from R&D to address industry stan-
dards for equipment, wafer size, packaging, “and other things we often take for
granted, but which make the whole industry more efficient.” It changed further
in becoming International SEMATECH, reaching out to collaborate with global
members on precompetitive projects of mutual interest. In addition to increasing
the number of members, it has updated its research capacity. Its original facility in
OCR for page 73
73
PANEL III
Austin, Texas, capable of producing eight-inch wafers, had been for two decades
the core R&D facility, where the equipment industry, material suppliers, and
small semiconductor companies went to do research. A new facility designed for
300mm wafers has now been opened in Albany, New York, for the most advanced
current work.
The Value of SEMATECH to Members and Partners
Such facilities are thought to yield high value to members and partners. The
average member-reported ROI is greater than five times, and the reported lever-
age on their yearly R&D investment is about 20 to 1. “This is what happens,” Dr.
Kelly said, “when seeming competitors pool their resources. This has brought
more than $2 billion in research value to members over five years.”
The Semiconductor Research Corporation, he said, was instrumental in sus-
taining the essential “pipeline of skills.” “If you decide you’re going to compete
on innovation, versus lowest cost only, you have to have the skills to innovate.”
The SRC was formed in 1982 to help recover U.S. semiconductor market share
lost to Japan. Begun as a consortium of companies to support relevant university-
based research in semiconductors, it is now the largest and most successful
organization of its type. In 1982, fewer than 100 students and faculty conducted
silicon research. Today, the SRC has built an academic force of 500 faculty and
1,500 students. This academic community is credited with some 20 percent of
the world’s research on silicon. The number of publications credited to SRC uni -
versities grew from 180 in 1981 to 2,226 in 2008. This research output, he said,
is larger in some dimensions than that of some of the largest corporations in the
industry. “We have put thousands of highly qualified students into the industry,”
he said, “most of them hired by the member companies.”
The SRC has also become international, collaborating on research with foreign
companies. It has a focused research initiative in nanotechnology, an educational
component, and Topical Research Collaborations, in which topics are chosen by
participants. Such initiatives, he said, are also suitable for solar projects.
The new Focus Center Research Program (FCRP) supports collaborations
between government, industry, and universities. This program was created in
response to roadblocks indicated by the roadmap five to 10 years away. The five
FCRP centers were established at 41 universities in 19 states to address these
roadblocks “before we hit the wall.” They are funded jointly by about $20 mil-
lion from both the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and DARPA, which
“makes a big difference in the economics of the universities.” The five centers are
divided by topics in design, materials, and interconnect wiring, “and it really does
represent the who’s who in the best universities in the United States. My com -
ment here, said Dr. Kelly, is that if you want to do collaborative work between
industry, universities, and government, there is a model here, with mechanisms
that cover issues all the way through intellectual property, which is non-trivial.”
OCR for page 74
74 FUTURE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS MANUFACTURING
Deliverables
SRC Research Programs
43,419 technical documents
Over $1.3B invested by SRC Members
326 patents granted
u
2,906 contracts
777 patent applications
u
7,455 students
695 inventor awards
u
1,707 faculty members
579 software tools
u
241 universities
2,315 research tasks/themes
u
All for the benefit
of SRC members
* Inception through 2008
FIGURE 1 SRC numbers.
SOURCE: John Kelly, Presentation at April 23, 2009, National Academies Symposium on
“The Future of Photovoltaics Manufacturing in the United States.”
PROC-1-Figure01 now.eps
vector editable
A Nanoelectronics Initiative
R01568
The Nanoelectronics Research Initiative takes an even longer view of
research—beyond 10 years, when the shrinking of transistor size is projected to
reach its end. “We have a few more turns of the crank left with the wonderful tran-
sistor that was invented at Bell Labs back in 1957,” Dr. Kelly said, “but beyond
that we’re going to need a new switch—something far beyond the transistor as we
know it today. This effort looks beyond the current silicon switch into alternate
structures, such as nanotubes and quantum devices, so that new technologies are
developed when we need them.” Here, too, companies have reached out to form
collaborations with universities to establish large industry-funded centers with
some government collaboration and considerable state funding. Four centers are
set in different regions of the country, addressing five primary research vectors:
• New devices (device with alternative state vector).
• New ways to connect devices (noncharge data transfer).
• New methods for computation (nonequilibrium systems).
• New methods to manage heat (nanoscale phonon engineering).
• New methods of fabrication (directed self-assembly devices).
Dr. Kelly closed by describing an industry-only collaboration, a result of the
enormous ongoing rise in research costs. IBM, he said, realized that even a com -
pany of its size could afford only three or four research nodes, so they decided
a decade ago to change their model by bringing in two industrial partners. That
OCR for page 75
75
PANEL III
number has grown to eight, representing countries around the world, all col -
laborating in IBM labs and sharing the research risks. This “IBM Semiconductor
Ecosystem” has now expanded to include other levels of collaboration, including
manufacturing, design tools, design services, design IP, and more recently even
the equipment suppliers. “So even within industry,” he said, “you can form these
very radical collaborative efforts to tackle very large multibillion-dollar invest -
ment problems. And I think there are many lessons here that [the solar] industry
needs to draw upon and move very quickly.”
CONSORTIA IN EUROPE: IMEC
Johan Van Helleputte
IMEC
Mr. Johan Van Helleputte began with a brief review of the creation of IMEC
in 1984. Recognizing that the investments required for a microelectronics re -
search laboratory surpassed the ability of any single university, IMEC’s founder,
the late Prof. Roger van Overstraeten, persuaded the government of Flanders
to create and support IMEC as an independent R&D center for microelectron -
ics. Recognizing also the need for IMEC to be effective and sustainable, Prof.
Overstraeten stressed the importance of operating at a global level in order to
reach a critical mass and, importantly, to work out a new business model that
would maintain popular support by not using taxpayers’ money to fund research
contracts with foreign firms.
This “taxpayers paradox” was resolved by organizing research around more
generic problems of interest to Belgian as well as foreign companies within a
larger research program, ensuring a return to the Flanders economy. This business
model has proven successful. Macroeconomic impact studies have demonstrated
that, IMEC’s revenues have always exceeded the government’s investment. In
2008, the government invested 44 million Euros in structural funding, while
revenues were 270 million Euros. In addition, about 76 percent contract revenue
for research in IMEC’s facilities in Flanders came from international companies
through international collaborations, and 13 percent came from local companies,
which he termed “amazingly high for such a small region” taking into account
the size of IMEC.
IMEC began with a staff of about 70 people and a founding budget of 62
million Euros. By 2008, IMEC had a staff of 1,750 (about 1,650 in Leuven and
100 in Eindhoven) of whom about 1,000 are Belgians and a budget of 280 mil -
lion Euros (including 45 million Euros from the Government of Flanders and
10 million Euros from the Dutch Government). Mr. Van Helleputte showed a
graph depicting the evolution of staff at IMEC, whose members represent more
than 60 nationalities. The international nature of the effort at IMEC is reflected
both in IMEC’s payroll staff as well as in a substantial and fast-growing cadre
OCR for page 76
76 FUTURE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS MANUFACTURING
of employees of international companies residing at IMEC and research fellows
and 185 doctoral students conducting research at IMEC. These international staff
members join mixed teams with IMEC researchers, enriching the intellectual
environment and technical perspectives.
A Larger R&D Reach Through Partnerships
Referring to the high complexity and cost of microelectronics research, Mr.
Van Helleputte noted that “No single company could tackle all the challenges
on its own.” The answer for firms lies in collaborating in R&D. Each company
has a choice on how to spend the percentage of revenues it devotes to R&D:
they could spend all of it on exclusive work, or they could spend part of it on a
research platform, like SEMATECH or IMEC, and gain a much larger R&D reach.
They could further multiply the benefits by doing it in a number of places, each
time expanding their R&D reach. A central challenge for IMEC, as for similar
research institutions, remains one of dealing with the combination of the huge
cost of research and the rapid rate of technological change.
At the heart of research activities on the IMEC campus are two large clean
rooms, one with a 200mm pilot line and one with a 300mm pilot line. Both lines
are in continuous operation to maximize the return on investment in expensive
equipment. The IMEC approach is to address generic problems somewhat early in
a technology’s life cycle. IMEC tries to create a program based upon a forward-
looking vision and by defining which research they intend to do for the next three
years and then sign bilateral contracts with different companies, joining a same
research program: partner A, partner B, partner C, and so on. They ask each partner
to send one or more industrial residents to do joint research within the program
team. The rule for intellectual property protection (IP) is that any foreground in-
formation to which the partner resident has contributed is co-owned with IMEC.
If the industrial partner does not contribute to certain elements of the program, it
receives a nonexclusive, nontransferable license on foreground results for its own
use. This approach ensures that there are no “blind spots” in using the technology
back home. At the same time, IMEC provides a nonexclusive license for the back-
ground information required to exploit the foreground results. In return for these
benefits, IMEC charges an entrance fee and a yearly affiliation fee.
IMEC tries to achieve an IP policy that has something for everyone through
the IMEC Industry Affiliation Program (IIAP). This program offers such varia -
tions as co-owned (shared) IP with individual companies, exclusive IP and shared
(licensed) IP. “What is very important for us and for each company,” Mr. Van Hel-
leputte said, “is not to have exclusive ownership of each subset of IP, but to have
a unique IP ‘fingerprint.’ This is a combination of exclusive IP and shared IP, and
these elements vary with each bilateral partnership. So, the total portfolio for each
partner is unique, while at the same time the partner shares with IMEC the costs,
early insight, access to IMEC results, better time to market, talent, and risks.”
OCR for page 77
77
PANEL III
Building Technology Platforms
“An important organizational point,” Mr. Van Helleputte said, “is that IMEC
begins to form its IP from a ‘research infrastructure’ on which they build ‘tech -
nology platforms’ of expertise and competence.” Building from this idea, IMEC
provides a complex, five-level “leveraging strategic approach” to increase value
for the institute and its partners. As stated in its overarching theme, “an R&D
institute’s growth path depends on its capability to maximize its leveraging effects
at different levels.” In other words, a research institute with multiple technology
programs can offer them to multiple partners and harvest greater value from the
resulting partnerships. “So, you’re building leverage on leverage on leverage,”
said Mr. Van Helleputte “and you reuse the mechanism of co-ownership without
any accounting to each other about the foreground research.”
He turned to IMEC’s strategic orientation in view of industry trends.
He said that industry is now making a distinction between “More Moore”—
continued CMOS scaling and maximization of chip performance—and “More
than Moore” or maximizing the functionality of single chips. The first approach
focuses predominantly on device performance where materials are paramount,
with lithography being an instrumental path of research. The second approach
focuses on heterogeneous integration of different functionalities into a single chip
(SOC) or into a single package (System-in-a-package). In More Moore, IMEC
is now working on 22nm, 16nm, and even smaller devices, where new materials
and device research are central. “IMEC tries to explore multiple options,” he
said, “so companies can see at an early stage which one has a chance to become
a market winner.” He added that with a “core partner system,” each core partner
can subscribe to a total menu of programs or choose a subset of those. These
partners include “the whole ecosystem” of firms: leading integrated device manu -
facturers, memory suppliers, logic suppliers, equipment and material suppliers,
pure foundries and designers.
Help with Custom Applications
Mr. Van Helleputte described a new initiative called CMORE that builds
on the existing infrastructure and technology platforms to aim at custom ap -
plication solutions.15 “For example,” he said, IMEC can work with companies
that may have a brilliant new idea but have difficulty implementing it in a com -
mercial setting. This involves first testing the technical feasibility,” which “may
involve joint R&D, development-on-demand, prototyping, and low-volume
production.” He mentioned the case of a partner who asked for help putting 10
million mirrors on a chip that could be steered individually. The chip had to be
15 IMEC’s CMORE initiative is a platform designed to allow companies to turn their innovative
concepts into packaged microsystems products, based on IMEC’s expertise in the field.
OCR for page 78
78 FUTURE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS MANUFACTURING
no larger than 10 square centimeters and achieve 10 12 cycles without fatigue
or creep. “That,” he said,” was a typical example of Development-on-Demand
CMORE activity.”
IMEC has several major application programs under the “More than Moore”
umbrella that build on its expertise in semiconductors. These include
• Communications technologies: Cognitive reconfigurable radio and
>60GHz communication, and ULP-Radio;
• Biomedical electronics: wearable health and comfort monitoring; brain-IC
interfaces/neuro-electronics; smart implants and biosensor technology based on
nanotechnologies;
• A new Center for Neuro-Electronics Research/Flanders (NERF), part
of a new interdisciplinary research center for the integration of neuroscience
and neuro-electronics & clinical experimental neurosurgery. NERF is hosted at
IMEC; and
• Energy: PV, GaN/Si for power switching and solid-state lighting.
IMEC’s Solar Research
“Indeed, IMEC has a substantial PV program as well, and the workhorse of
the program is silicon PV for the reason that we have a lot of expertise in silicon
and that there is still a lot of room for improvement,” noted Mr. Van Helleputte.
“And we do believe that there is room for both thin-film and crystalline silicon
in the future. Companies like First Solar, will push toward a further acceleration
of the PV roadmap and IMEC will gladly respond to such a challenge.” IMEC
also has an activity with organic PV and with highly efficient PV stacks for solar
concentration. The IMEC program on crystalline silicon PV research has a num-
ber of research modules, with two major themes: One is a wafer-based approach,
and the second explores epitaxial thin film on silicon. They are experimenting as
well with new ways to produce ultrathin wafers without the kerf losses incurred
in cutting ingots. These are called stress-induced lift-off methods (SLIM) where
the active wafer is lifted off a substrate rather than cut.
Finally, IMEC is experimenting with a stacked approach for concentrator
solar cells (CPV) as an alternative to monolithic approaches. In this design, each
layered cell absorbs a part of the light spectrum, not all of it, combining its con -
tribution with those of the other cells. “It is more complex,” he said, “but it avoids
some technical drawbacks of the monolithic approach (such as tunnel junctions
and current matching), and may increase conversion efficiency and energy yield,
although this has not yet been proved in a total system approach.”
Mr. Van Helleputte concluded by mentioning the Solar Europe Industrial
Initiative, which has included on its roadmap the goal of meeting 12 percent
of electricity demand from PV sources by 2020. “To accomplish this,” he said,
“Europe would have to develop about 350 gigawatts of PV capacity.” “And it also
OCR for page 79
79
PANEL III
assumes that by 2020 the lifetime of the solar modules will be 30 years,” he said,
“this is quite ambitious.”
PUBLIC-PRIVATE R&D COLLABORATION:
LESSONS FROM PV PARTNERSHIPS
Robert M. Margolis
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Dr. Margolis said he would speak about trends in PV development, the DoE’s
Solar program, and lessons from several public-private partnerships. He began
with some background on the global PV industry and investment trends highlight-
ing the fact that global PV production has been growing very rapidly over the
past couple of decades and that both public and private sector investment in PV
technology has grown dramatically during the past four to five years. In 1980, the
United States was responsible for more than 75 percent of global PV production
in what was then a nascent market. By the 1990s, Japan had begun a federal pro-
gram of incentives and quickly became the global market leader; the U.S. share
of production dropped to the 30 percent to 50 percent range. In the past decade,
leadership has shifted to European countries and, more recently, China and Tai -
wan have expanded production rapidly. Cumulative installed photovoltaic (PV)
capacity worldwide as of the end of 2008 was estimated to be 13.7 GW. Germany
was the leader at 5.4 GW of cumulative installed capacity, followed by Spain,
Japan, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and France. U.S. cumulative installed
PV capacity through 2008 was 1.1 GW. California continued to dominate the
market with 530 MW in cumulative installed capacity, a 67 percent market share,
with New Jersey second at 70 MW or 9 percent market share. U.S. cumulative
installed capacity of 1.1 GW was a 43 percent increase over 0.77 GW in 2007. 16
While the growth in PV production and installations has been very rapid, PV still
accounts for only a small fraction of U.S. generating capacity.
In addition to rapid growth in production, the growth in investments in solar
technologies has been dramatic during the past couple of years. Just five or six
years ago, according to data from New Energy Finance, only a few tens of mil-
lions of dollars were going into PV from the private sector; this figure had risen
to tens of billions of dollars a year. “This has been a dramatic change,” said Dr.
Margolis, “and has had a very big impact on how the industry is organized, how
it does R&D, and how it interacts with the government.”
Venture capital and private equity, he said, have taken on a larger role be-
ginning in the mid-2000s, and especially in the last three years. This investment
varies enormously by region and technology. For example, the EU has invested
primarily in crystalline silicon technologies and project development. In contrast,
16 Data drawn from numerous sources as presented in Price and Margolis (2009).
OCR for page 80
80 FUTURE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS MANUFACTURING
70% 7000
ROW 6500
Taiwan
60% 6000
China
5500
PV Cell/Module Production (MW)
Europe
U.S. Market Share Percentage
50% 5000
Japan
4500
U.S.
40% 4000
U.S. Share
3500
30% 3000
2500
20% 2000
1500
10% 1000
500
0% 0
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Source: Prometheus Institute (multiple years)
FIGURE 2 Historical global PV production and U.S. market share.
SOURCE: Robert Margolis, Presentation at April 23, 2009, National Academies Sympo -
PROC-1-Figure 02 now.eps
sium on “The Future of Photovoltaics Manufacturing in the United States.”
vector editable
R01568
U.S. investors have been pursuing a much more diverse set of technologies than
investors in other regions. Significant investments in the United States are going
into thin-film technologies, multijunction concentrating PV technologies, and
next-generation PV technologies. Of about 200 companies that received private-
sector investment in the past three years, more than 100 are in the United States
Asia has focused primarily on existing crystalline silicon technologies, with a
small shift toward thin-film technologies during 2008. Asia also has been making
significant investments in polysilicion production.
A Five-Year Projection
Dr. Margolis presented a meta-analysis of near-term projections from about
a dozen analysts. According to this set of projections, a five-fold increase in PV
production is expected to occur between 2008 and 2012. Crystalline silicon is
expected to remain dominant, with thin-film technologies growing more rapidly
than they have in the past. “But we’ve also learned that things can change really
fast,” he said. “For example, the global economic crisis may bring about lots of
changes going forward, and already many analysts have lowered their projected
10-25 percent.”
OCR for page 81
81
PANEL III
Global PV industry revenues are also projected to continue rising. The cur-
rent level of revenues across the PV supply chain was about $30 billion in 2008.
He said this level of revenues places the PV industry where the semiconductor
industry was in the early 1980s. “So maybe this is the perfect time to discuss
whether SEMATECH is the right model. The industry is getting to a similar scale
of production to where the semiconductor industry was in the early 1980s, and
going forward we’re talking about billions of dollars of investment in new PV
‘fab’ facilities.”
Next, Dr. Margolis turned to the Department of Energy’s Solar Program,
which received steady funding of about $80 million from FY2001 to FY2006.
Then, in FY2007, the Solar Program’s budget increased substantially, under the
Solar America Initiative, to about $160 million per year. This is expected to in-
crease again under the new Obama administration, with new resources to leverage
private sector investments through a host of collaborative mechanisms.
The DoE solar R&D pipeline, he went on, is not really a linear process, but
one with feedbacks and interactions. He focused on one piece, the Technology
Pathway Partnerships (TPPs). The whole pipeline supports many early-stage
partnerships between universities and other parts of the supply chain. The TPPs
started in 1997 with a three-year grant of $168 million in DoE funds, and a total
of $357 million including industry matching funds. This represented a shift from
the prior focus on the device and module level to an emphasis on total system
costs, including installation, inverters, and balance of system components. The
partnerships, some of them with over a dozen members, included more than 50
companies, 14 universities, three nonprofits, and two national labs. Dr. Margolis
suggested that this experiment might be a model for how to foster collaboration
across different actors in the PV industry.
180
Concentrating Solar Power
160
140
Photovoltaic Energy Systems
120
Budget (Million $)
100
80
60
40
20
0
FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08
FIGURE 3 DoE solar program funding FY2001-FY2008.
SOURCE: Robert Margolis, Presentation at April 23, 2009, National Academies Sympo -
sium on “The Future of Photovoltaics Manufacturing in the United States.”
PROC-1-Figure 03 now.eps
vector editable
R01568
OCR for page 82
82 FUTURE OF PHOTOVOLTAICS MANUFACTURING
A precursor to the TPPs was the PV Manufacturing/PV Manufacturing R&D
(PVMaT/PVMR&D) project that was started in 1991. Its original goal was “…
to ensure that U.S. industry retain and extend its world leadership role in the
manufacture and commercial development of PV components and systems.”17
This was the period when the U.S. market share was declining from 75 percent
to 30-50 percent. The PVMaT/PVMR&D Project was a collaborative effort
focused on helping the PV industry improve its manufacturing processes and
equipment, accelerate cost reductions, raise commercial product performance and
reliability, and lay the groundwork for scale-up of U.S.-based PV manufactur-
ing capacity. The project was carried out over a 15-year period and was funded
with about $150 million in federal money matched by a roughly equal amount
of private-sector money. The project was considered innovative in its use of
multiyear contracting and cost sharing. About three-quarters of the completed
projects achieved cost reductions, increased output, and improved efficiencies.
For 14 manufacturing R&D participants, the cost of manufacturing came down
54 percent and manufacturing capacity increased by a factor of 17.
Tools for Partnerships
Dr. Margolis reviewed the tools used for the partnerships funded through the
PVMaT/PVMR&D, beginning with cost sharing. The approach to cost sharing
ensures both the sharing of R&D risk and enabled firms to own any resulting
IP. Also built into the proposal was an evaluation process, as well as key col -
laborative aspects, beginning with problem identification. In 1991, 22 firms were
selected through a competitive bidding process. They each received $50,000 for
phase 1, a three-month study, which was required to qualify for phase 2. This
stimulated the involvement of many people, he said, and was effective in educat -
ing DoE and NREL on critical manufacturing problems. The evaluation process
was carried out by independent panels of representatives from industry, govern -
ment, and universities who helped establish the credibility of the project. It was
a challenge for government to give up some control, find good people for the
panels, and keep panels together. One constructive response was to hold annual
review meetings, which provided a venue for participants to interact and share
results.
An approach that did not succeed was a plan to form teams for generic
research on problems of common interest to companies. A key roadblock was
concern over IP. This is still an issue in precompetitive research, he said, though
it is better understood.
Dr. Margolis closed with several conclusions. First, the PVMaT/PVMR&D
17 C. E. Witt, R. L. Mitchell, and G. D. Mooney, “Overview of the Photovoltaic Manufacturing
Technology (PVMaT) Project.” Paper presented at the 1993 National Heath Transfer Conference,
August 8-11, 1993, Atlanta, Georgia, August 1993.
OCR for page 83
83
PANEL III
project used innovative forms of cost sharing and collaboration to strengthen
information flows between partners. Second, under the TPPs, DoE encourages
vertical collaboration—across the value chain—which has helped move the in -
dustry from a component focus to a systems-level focus. And finally, the DoE’s
approach to engaging the private sector in collaborative R&D will need to evolve
as the PV industry grows and matures.
DISCUSSION
A questioner asked about forming industry consortia in such a diverse in-
dustry. With so many technologies, he asked, what kind of critical mass do you
need? Won’t some players decide to go it alone? Dr. Margolis answered that on
the basis of the semiconductor experience, the majority of the large players must
participate, and there must be some mechanism for the involvement of the indus -
try as a whole. In the case of the SIA, he said, consortia needed the top dozen or
so semiconductor CEOs, as well as mechanisms to bring in other participants. For
the PV industry, it would include the module manufacturers and significant sup -
pliers of that value chain. He added that the government can help bring the right
people together. Eventually, in the case of the semiconductor industry, “people
were suddenly afraid of being left out rather than concerned about how to jump
in. Even fierce, fierce competitors came to the table and worked together.”
