IBM teams up with TOK on thin film CIGS

Doing a little preliminary Googling on a story today, Greenbang was bombarded by adverts for “cheap red wine and white cigarettes”. It took her literally minutes to get back on track after that and she’s still hankering for a spot of cotes du rhone now.

The reason for this booze and fags inspired search result, she presumes, is not her PC trying to mess with her mind but instead a result of searching for thin film technology CIGS.

CIGS or Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenide modules, you see, is a type of thin film technology that will feature as part of a partnership between IBM and electronics company Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (or TOK). The two have announced they’ve buddied up this week to “jointly develop processes, materials, and equipment suitable for the production of CIGS”, with a view to making solar tech cheaper.

A smidgeon more on the deal from IBM:

IBM Research has developed new, non-vacuum, solution-based manufacturing processes for CIGS solar cells and is targeting efficiencies around 15% and higher. Current thin film product efficiencies vary from around 6% to less than 12%. Combining IBM’s technology with the proven coating technique and high purity chemicals of TOK — built upon years of experience manufacturing semiconductors and LCD panels — has the potential to bring the large scale production of thin-film solar cells to market.