(By Balaseshan) Intermolecular Inc. (NASDAQ: IMI) and First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) have agreed for two-year collaboration and licensing that focused on further increases to the conversion efficiency of First Solar's cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cell technology.
Under the new collaborative development program, First Solar and Intermolecular researchers will work together to develop disruptive new approaches to increasing the performance of CdTe solar cell technology using Intermolecular's proprietary High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) platform.
The program targets substantial gains in First Solar's module conversion efficiency beyond its previously announced roadmap.
"Extending and expanding the collaboration with First Solar after working closely with them last year represents tremendous validation of our value proposition. We look forward to be closely working with First Solar to further increase CdTe solar cell conversion-efficiency by leveraging our HPC platform and capabilities," said Sandeep Nijhawan, Vice President and General Manager of Intermolecular's Clean Energy Group.
Intermolecular's mission is to improve R&D efficiency in the semiconductor and clean-energy industries through collaborations that use its HPC platform, which allows R&D experimentation to be performed at speeds up to 100 times faster than traditional methods.
Intermolecular is engaged in R&D and time-to-market for the semiconductor and clean-energy industries. The company, through paid collaborative development programs (CDPs) with its customers, develops technology and intellectual property (IP) for its customers focused on advanced materials, processes, integration and device architectures.
First Solar manufactures and sells solar modules with an advanced thin-film semiconductor technology, and it designs, constructs, and sells photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems. The company is a thin-film PV solar module manufacturer and a PV solar module manufacturer.
IMI is trading down 4.33% at $8.40 on Monday, while FSLR trades down 6.75% at $31.32.