IBM will bring its expertise in producing power cells to the partnership, while TOK will contribute its technology for coating LCD panels, and technology used in the semiconductor industry.

The IBM/TOK collaboration will focus on improving the efficiency of thin film solar modules. The partnership will seek new techniques for printing copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) cells. Current solar CIGS makers are producing cells that can turn between six and 12 percent of sunlight into solar power. IBM and TOK aim to create methods that will produce cells with a 15 percent or more efficiency.

CIGS cells produced in laboratory conditions can reach higher levels of efficiency -- for instance, a cell produced in April by researchers at the U.S. Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory set a new efficiency record for CIGS cells, of 19.9 percent. But cells produced in factories, where cost-effective cell mass-production is key, have yet to come close to that record.

According to Reuters, IBM Research's Supratik Guha, who leads its solar photovoltaic activities, said that IBM and TOK do not plan to enter the solar module production business themselves, but hope in the next two to three years to license their technology to solar module producers.

The goal of the IBM/TOK partnership, according to Guha, is to create a process for producing the cells cheaply enough to reach "grid parity" -- the level at which solar power is financially competitive with traditional forms of generating electricity.