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Scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have fabricated a solar cell with an efficiency of nearly 50%. The six-junction solar cell now holds the world record for the highest solar conversion efficiency at 47.1%, which was measured under concentrated illumination. A variation of the same cell also set the efficiency record under one-sun illumination at 39.2%.

Semiconductor equipment manufacturers worldwide logged sales of $59.8 billion in 2019, a 7 percent drop from the all-time high of $64.5 billion in 2018, SEMI, the industry association representing the worldwide electronics product design and manufacturing supply chain, reported today.

Global silicon wafer market sales could dip if uncertainty surrounding the impact of COVID-19 to the semiconductor industry persists or climb on the strength of rebounding chip sales, SEMI said today in new quarterly report that lays out two wafer market scenarios for the second half of 2020.

When 2020 started, global economic conditions pointed to single-digit percentage sales growth in the IC market after it fell by 15% in 2019, based on worldwide market data compiled by IC Insights for the 2020 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry (MR20). However, the world abruptly changed in 1Q20 with the rapid outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, which shut down nearly all countries and paralyzed global markets beginning in March 2020.

Due to the increasing deployment of electric vehicles (EV) across the globe and rising demand for magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM), the global spintronics market is expected to register a revenue of $12,845.6 million by 2030. The market was valued at $362.7 million in 2019, from where it is predicted to witness a CAGR of 34.8% during the forecast period (2020-2030).