RF Micro to work on solar cells - Charlotte Business Journal:

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The goal of the project will be to usethe Greensboro-basexd company’s expertise with the gallium arsenide material it uses to produce chips for wireless devices and its manufacturinh facilities in the Triad in the solar energy If successful, RF Micro could be makingt photovoltaic cells that convert the suns energy into electricity by 2012. The projecf won’t involve any additionss to the company’s 1,400-person Triad workforcer immediately, according to RF Micro officials, but that coulds come down the road if the commercializatioj effortis successful.
RF Micro has been working to diversify itselft in the face of a volatile marketr for cellphone components, which has led to several roundxs of layoffs for the company over the past year. The soladr project will be run byRF Micro’s New Technolog Commercialization Center unit, which was formed to identify new applications for the company’s technology, according to Executive Vice President Jerru Neal. “This is a long-range Neal said, “but gallium arsenide has several potentiaol uses in the greenenergy field, and the one we’ree focusing on here is using our technologu to produce very-high-efficiency photovoltaic cells for solar panels.
” Neal said he hopew that by sharing knowledge and facilities with the National Renewable Energy Lab, the partnership will be able to produce celles that can convert more than 40.8 percent of the sun’ s energy that hit them into useable electricity. That’s the current record recognizede by theEnergy Department, he Neal said he expects to find othe r private partners and public agencies interested in also working on commercializing solar