Greentech Media has an article on the demise of thin film solar company Nanosolar (another victim of the shakeout following the solar investment boom of 5 years ago) - Nanosolar, Thin-Film Solar Hype Firm, Officially Dead.

It's official. Nanosolar, the CIGS thin-film solar panel aspirant which produced little but hype and broken promises, is done. Its assets are being auctioned off.

This should come as no surprise to GTM readers. We reported on the layoffs, the skeleton crew, and the "restructuring for sale" back in April. If you speak CIGS, then you know that "restructuring for sale" translates to "Hanergy, please buy us."

But a white knight never emerged as it did for MiaSolé, HelioVolt, and Ascent -- and so, Nanosolar joins Solyndra, AQT, SoloPower, etc. on the list of failed CIGS solar firms.

The thin film solar sector is still moving forward though, with dramatic cost improvements in the offing for CdTe based films - Thin film PV breakthrough may cut solar costs by one third.

A new Silicon Valley developer of thin film solar PV modules, backed by an Australian venture capitalist, has claimed an engineering breakthrough that could cut the manufacturing costs of PV modules by one third. RSI has broken cover after five years of development to announce it has created a 1.5 square metre cadmium telluride PV (CdTe) module, twice the size of conventional modules.

It says this will enable solar PV modules to be manufactured at a cost of less than 40c/Watt, around one third cheaper than current mass-produced thin film and silicon based modules – and hastening the charge towards grid parity for solar PV.

First Solar, currently the world’s largest thin film solar PV module manufacturer, had predicted reaching 40c/W by 2017 through increases in efficiency. RSI says it can deliver that cost in 2014 by doubling the size of the module through a process known as Rapid Efficient Electroplating on Large- areas (REEL).

thin film market leader First Solar still seems to be going strong as well - First Solar Advances 162 MW of Unsubsidized Solar in Chile.

First Solar's strategy of expanding into new, sustainable solar markets looks like it's paying off. The thin-film solar panel manufacturer and project developer has applied for permits for the $370 million, 162-megawatt Luz del Norte project, according to a filing with Chile’s environmental licensing department. The project will use more than 1.7 million panels, with construction slated to start in June 2014.

Earth2Tech reports that First Solar has a set a new efficiency record for a CdTe thin film solar cell - First Solar boasts world-record solar cell.

The prices of solar panels are falling fast, and that’s putting enormous pressure on manufacturers to cut costs and improve the amount of power solar cells can convert from sunlight. Thin film solar leader First Solar says it’s even gotten a world record out of its latest efficiency developments, and on Tuesday the company boasted a 17.3 percent efficient solar cell.

The test cell exceeds the previous record of 16.7 percent for a solar cell made of cadmium-telluride set by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2001. The new record is critical not for bragging but for showing solar panels made with cadmium-telluride cells can have a longer presence in the market than previously expected.

Efficiency is correlated with how much power a panel of a given size can produce – more power means higher efficiencies. There is a fixed cost and amount of time for making each panel, and First Solar’s technology makes a panel in less than 2.5 hours. If the company produces each panel with a higher power rating (in watts), then that panel’s cost-per-watt is lower.

The Arizona company has been hailed as the lowest-cost solar panel manufacturer in the industry for some years now. Producing panels more cheaply than others is the key advantage for First Solar, especially when its solar panels aren’t as efficient as most others in the market. During the first quarter of this year, the company produced panels with 11.7 percent efficiency at $0.75 per watt.