Lace, a semiconductor equipment startup based in Norway and backed by Microsoft, has raised $40 million to develop technology that could lead to major advancements in chip design and manufacturing, the company announced on Monday.
To produce cutting-edge chips, manufacturers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Intel use a process called lithography, which uses light to engrave the complex circuits that make up the basis of advanced AI processors.
Industrial players use optical lithography systems made by the Dutch company ASML – a dominant player in the market – in a race to miniaturize components and integrate more functions to boost computing power on a limited silicon surface.
This sector is attracting renewed interest from investors and governments as a new wave of startups emerge, some aiming to challenge the Dutch firm.
Lace has developed a unique approach. Instead of light, Lace engineers have developed a form of lithography using a beam of helium atoms. Thanks to this, the Norwegian company will be able to create chip architectures 10 times smaller than what is currently achievable, said CEO Bodil Holst in an interview with Reuters.
“Our technology is a path that can potentially extend the industry’s roadmap and enable achievements that would not have been otherwise possible,” added Holst.
The main advantage of the helium atom beam is that the industry could create structures such as transistors, basic building blocks of modern chips, on an order of magnitude smaller scale, reaching a “almost unimaginable” degree, according to John Petersen, lithography scientific director at Imec, a research and innovation center for the semiconductor industry.
The beam that Lace will use to manufacture chips is approximately the width of a single hydrogen atom, or 0.1 nanometers. ASML’s lithography tools use a light beam of around 13.5 nanometers; for comparison, a human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide.
Smaller transistors and components would allow manufacturers to increase the performance of AI processors well beyond current capabilities. Lace’s technology would allow foundries to print wafers with what corresponds to “ultimately an atomic resolution,” added Bodil Holst.
Lace’s Series A funding round was led by Atomico, with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s venture capital arm), Linse Capital, the Spanish Company for Technological Transformation, and Nysnø.
Lace, which declined to comment on its overall valuation, has already developed prototypes and aims to install a testing tool in a chip manufacturing pilot plant, or “fab,” by around 2029. The company presented its results in a research paper at a scientific lithography summit in February.
