Nat'l. Semiconductor to deliver PV "magic"

Santa Clara, Calif.-based National Semiconductor (NYSE: NSM) announced its entrance into the PV market with a technology that promises increased energy output per PV panel.

National said its technology, called SolarMagic, can pull the maximum power of each panel, even those that are compromised by shading, debris or panel-to-panel mismatch.

The company said its per-panel technology is expected to maximize the output of multi-panel installations, and is compatible with solar architectures, regardless of the underlying solar cell technology.

“National’s entry into the photovoltaic market is a natural extension of our focus on energy efficient systems,” Brian Halla, National’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement. 

Field trials of the new technology are already underway with California solar installer REgrid Power, and the company said it plans to expand field trials to other installers over the next few months, with the hopes of extending its technology internationally.

The company said it plans to introduce SolarMagic products for solar installers and system providers to include in their installations later this year.

National is the latest semiconductor company to enter the solar market.

Just last month Santa Clara, California-based Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) spun off assets to form independent PV cell maker SpectraWatt, while Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced a partnership to develop thin film solar (see Intel Inside solar cells: mixed bag? and IBM, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo to work on thin film solar).