Semiconductor chip manufacturing is finally becoming a maturing technology, which may lead some current giants in the field to seek new growth markets in which to operate, such as building solar cells.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), the giant of silicon chip manufacturing business and one of the firms responsible for the steady drop in chip prices over the last twenty years, may be about to duplicate that feat in another industry. TSMC is the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry, producing chops to the designs of companies such as Qualcomm, AMD, Altera, Broadcom, Conexant, Marvell, NVIDIA, VIA, and Intel.

The economies of scale made possible by giant silicon factories such as TSMC and others have resulted in the tumbling prices of computer chips of all kinds over the last two decades, allowing us to build more and more sophisticated technological devices at costs that enable their worldwide, affordable introduction to consumers. The growth of the semiconductor marketplace has slowed, leading TSMC, and other similar firms, to look into expanding into other technologies.

TSMC, for one, is looking at expanding into the solar cell and LED lamp manufacturing business, according to a New York Times story. Solar cells (also called photovoltaic cells) are devices that convert light directly into electricity via the photovoltaic effect. LED lamps are a type of solid state lighting that uses light-emitting diodes as the source of the light. Both of these technologies are important components of the green manufacturing and use of electricity. Both are too expensive today to achieve their true potential.

Manufactures like TSMC specialize in taking existing product designs and streamlining the manufacturing process so that they can be built less expensively. That is what they have done with the semiconductor, and that is what they can be expected to do in any industry that they enter. Thus, the maturing semiconductor business, and the resulting search for growth in other industries by for-hire semiconductor makers, may make it possible for all of us to use green sources of energy and light. This change is free-market economy at its best, and may well lead to a cleaner, brighter world.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 8:07 pm under Green Technology, Intel, Science and technology.

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
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