If the world is getting hooked on silicon power, it doesn't make sense for jet engines and reinsurance to outrank computers.
"This is just one of the major benefits our community will enjoy as a result of our advanced metering technology, " said John Roukema, director of Silicon Valley Power, the community's utility provider.
All of which starts with the need at the semiconductor level to reduce the silicon cost and power, at the same time increasing the performance per dollar.
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The prospect of getting a piece of that growth has fueled the stocks of companies such as Sunpower, the leader in producing traditional silicon solar-power panels, and First Solar, whose thin-film solar panels are cheaper to manufacture but are less efficient.
My vote for villain is Larry Sonsini, the Silicon Valley lawyer and power broker.
Venture capital icon Paul Graham notes that, for all its advantages and power, Silicon Valley has a great weakness.
The gallium cells can provide almost 50 percent more power than silicon photovoltaic cells, but are nearly twice as expensive.
In short, the power of silicon is coming to lighting.
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On the greener side of things, Ceradyne opens a factory this month in China to produce gear used in the production of polycrystalline silicon for the solar power industry.
Consolidation in the wireless industry risks shifting the balance of power away from Silicon Valley toward the much less innovative wireless carriers.
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The XO 3.0 is powered by Marvell Armada PXA618 silicon, which lowers the power requirements of the tablet to a scant 2 watts.
Guy Kawasakis Garage.com (disclosure: I sit on its board) uses the Web to hook up technology startups in Minnesota with angel investors in Silicon Valley. n Consumer power will rise up.
In contrast to the depletion economics that drive up the cost of fossil fuels over the long run, solar power is a Silicon Valley-style energy resource: the more we make, the more we learn, innovate and lower the cost of the technology.
Our 2011 list admittedly left off several women shifting the power dynamic here in Silicon Valley.
Company A is headquartered in Silicon Valley and develops products which power some of the highest performance parts of the internet.
Then SunPower, the Silicon Valley solar panel manufacturer and power plant developer, said it would temporarily shut down half of its 12 photovoltaic production lines in the Philippines and lay off 900 workers.
Solar panels that heat pools or power handheld calculators rely on silicon semiconductors to turn light into electrons.
The company was formed by three former Analog Devices engineers to replace silicon in semiconductors with a low-power gallium arsenide concoction that TRW once used to pass reams of top-secret data through satellites.
Silicon has been the material of choice for power conversion devices.
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SunPower manufactures and distributes silicon-based solar cells and also produces solar power products for installation on residential and commercial units.
By 2015 or so, the average silicon chip will consume about 150 watts of electrical power, turning this into heat a thought which is already taxing the minds of some engineers.
More importantly, it would become possible to counter the popular perception--the source of so much hostility against markets--that there is some body of super-elites, masters of the universe, who can sit in their plush offices on Wall Street and Silicon Valley and reign supreme through their sheer brain power.
Rather, power consumption still haunts the company that ran up against the limits of power in 2004 with its top-end silicon at 4GHz.
Ovshinsky and his scientists had found a way to use thin films of amorphous silicon to turn the sun's energy into electrical power.
These two are really the same option: using less to get the same power output is the same as making the silicon more efficient.
In this case, Walmart will buy the electricity it generates under a 15-year power purchase agreement with Foundation Windpower, a Silicon Valley company that installs large turbines for businesses.
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At a recent Wharton San Francisco event with the Churchill Club, a Silicon Valley tech and business forum, whether technology will power the next job boom dominated conversation, particularly focusing on the growing gap between the number of college graduates and the number of jobs available.
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Much work is left to get the proteins producing the kind of silicon or titanium dioxides that could run a computer or power your house, but the dream is to have synthetic creations that organically produce what would normally need a mining expedition -- imagine something akin to the glass-like Venus' Flower Basket sponge (pictured above) sitting in an Intel factory.
It makes silicon solar wafers and photovoltaic cells and builds and runs solar power stations.
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