San Francisco-based startup Substrate, which was profiled today in both the The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg L.P., announced it has raised approximately US $100 million, valuing the company at over US $1 billion.
The company says it is building a vertically-integrated foundry business in the United States, centred on a next-generation lithography platform that uses particle-accelerator-generated X-rays. According to Substrate’s website, the system achieves patterns comparable to 2 nm nodes and aims to push well beyond. Their founding hypothesis: U.S. fabrication has become cost-prohibitive and supply-chain dependent, so they intend to bring back competitiveness through innovation.
Investor funding will support tool development, vertical integration of the supply chain, and the construction of production-quality 300 mm wafer lithography tools. The startup plans to “return America to dominance in semiconductor production” by replacing legacy lithography methods with compact, high-throughput accelerator-based machines.
At the company’s website, Substrate writes:
“As with semiconductors and the eponymous Silicon Valley … the only chance the United States has to return to dominance in semiconductor production would be to create a new type of more vertically-integrated foundry … one that continues pushing Moore’s Law in both performance and cost.”
A company spokesperson added:
“Our light source begins with radio-frequency cavities accelerating pulses of electrons … the electrons ride each successive wave, gaining energy … To produce light, these charged, highly energetic electrons traverse a gauntlet of strong alternating magnetic fields … which force them to release their energy as bursts of brilliant, intense light.”
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