As I studied CIGS systems, I began to realize that it had big advantages for manufacturing. Silicon solar cells are essentially printed-circuit boards. You build the solar cells on silicon wafers and then solder and wire them together in panels. As a thin-film technology, CIGS can use the type of lithography and deposition processes used in integrated circuits.

All the other thin-film approaches have inherent instabilities, but CIS, like silicon, has no inherent degradation mechanism that has been identified.

There are several levels of advantages that you get out of this. On the first level, the films do not use very much material. That is significant because over half the cost of silicon solar cells is in the silicon itself. At the next level, you have a shorter value chain. The silicon cells have to be wired together and many additional packaging costs occur. With CIGS films, we eliminate most of that.

In 1983 I began work on CIS thin films. At that time it was our group at Boeing and another group at ARCO who were developing the technology.

In Ontario, job losses in manufacturing have accelerated in recent months alongside announced layoffs in the key auto sector. However, Ontario's economy is well diversified and strength in the service sector, which accounts for more than 70% of overall employment and economic activity, should support vehicle sales of about 590,000 units in 2006 - in line with the average of the past two years.

This would be an indication that activity is increasing at more than half the manufacturing firms in the survey, and another sign of growth.