IBM turns wafers into solar cells

IBM SAID it has developed a way of recycling silicon wafers for use in solar panels.

Apparently there is a shortage of refined silicon for such use and IBM reckons it can clean up its old wafers and make them useful to the solar industry, which can then install solar systems on all the INQ outposts across the globe.

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, worldwide 250,000 wafers are started per day across the industry. IBM estimates that up to 3.3 per cent of these started wafers are scrapped. In the course of the year, this amounts to approximately three million discarded wafers.

Funnily enough, if all those chips weren't pumping out so much heat doing daft things like looking at MSN's green pages we might not need so much solar power.

Accrding to IBM a solar cell manufacturer could save between 30 - 90 per cent of the energy that would be needed if they'd used a new silicon material source. IBM says move reduces the carbon footprint for both the Semiconductor and Solar industries. µ