Andrew Soteriou’s Post

Swiss startup Lightium develops photonic technologies, specifically photonic integrated circuits. The $7 million seed funding round, led by Vsquared Ventures and Lakestar, will accelerate the commercialization of Lightium’s production-grade Thin-Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) foundry services. Schlieren-based startup Lightium aims to turbocharge the performance of data centers and reduce their energy consumption using TFLN, a glass-like material that overcomes the limits of traditional semiconductor transceivers. The startup’s solution significantly increases transmission bandwidth and reduces energy consumption in data centers. Lightium is setting up a pilot production to assess manufacturing yield with tens of thousands of devices, making it the first company to design and manufacture TFLN-based photonic chips at an industrial scale. Amir H. Ghadimi Frédéric Loizeau Dirk Englund Jakob Lingg #datacenter #bandwith #energy #consumption https://lnkd.in/g7U-MWfk

Always great to be mentioned in an article in Design And Reuse as it has global coverage. This is about Rupert Baines joining our board and he says, “The UK is a hot bed of innovation and I am always delighted to be able to help British companies fulfil their true potential. Nanusens has revolutionary technology for building nanoscale MEMS within CMOS layers for sensors and for RF Front End antenna tuners. To have a killer product where there is huge potential is amazing but to have one for two different markets is incredible.” If you would like to learn more and invest to help us be in every new mobile phone, please go to https://lnkd.in/eWzRRcmU. Investment starts at a minimum of only £10. EIS would apply to your investment if you are in the UK. https://lnkd.in/eb5JH8A9 #Crowdfunding #InvestmentOpportunity #TechInnovation #Nanusens #JoinUs #electronics #MEMS #RF #sensors #5G #6G #CMOS #MEMSwithinCMOS #nanotechnology

🗞 Electronic News! 🗞 US startup Qolab has raised over $16.0m for its scalable superconducting quantum supercomputer technology. The Series A financing round was led by Octave Ventures with co-investment from the Development Bank of Japan , Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation , and Phoenix Venture Partners and will be used to scale up its team and partnerships with semiconductor companies. The company has shown high quality superconducting transmon qubit gates produced at scale on 300mm silicon wafer fabrication tools. This led Applied Materials to retrofit its facilities specifically for qubit fabrication in partnership with Qolab. #electricalengineering #electronics #embedded #embeddedsystems #electrical #computerchips Follow us on LinkedIn to get daily news: HardwareBee - Electronic News and Vendor Directory

Diamond chips in diamond hands 💎 Our most recent investment at Asterion is DIAMFAB, a deeptech startup pioneering synthetic diamond technology for the semiconductor industry. Born in the "Alpes Valley", the company is a spinout of CNRS where Gauthier Chicot and Khaled Driche received their PhDs in nanoelectronics and were recognized researchers in the field of semiconducting diamond. Their third co-founder Ivan Llaurado used to lead a division at Schneider Electric. Because diamond is naturally more resistant to high temperatures and more energy-efficient, Diamfab envisions a future in which synthetic diamond will replace silicon carbide as the main component of semi-conductors. Their long-term goal is to make more efficient semiconductors with a much lower carbon footprint. At Asterion Ventures, we are dedicated to supporting the most ambitious teams with carefully curated groups of angels - 50 entrepreneurs and C-Levels invested alongside us in Diamfab -. We are leading this investment together with French Tech Seed Fund by Bpifrance, KREAXI, Better Angle, Hello Tomorrow and Grenoble-Alpes Métropole. The future is bright for Diamfab.

microLED Display Materials Pioneer Gets Further Bankrolling Anglo-Welsh compound technology start-up Kubos Semiconductors has secured a further $2 million in funding. This brings the total capital investment made in the company to $5.5 million - with the Development Bank of Wales, FOV Ventures and S4C DIGITAL MEDIA LIMITED all contributing. The additional cash injection will be pivotal in the ongoing development of Kubos' cubic gallium-nitride (GaN) technology, via which it will be possible to significantly boost the efficiency of red microLEDs, so that higher display brightness can be achieved without curbing battery life. The upshot will be that the performance of head-mounted extended reality (XR) equipment and suchlike is markedly enhanced. The initial source of this disruptive technology stems from research done by the company's founders while at the University of Cambridge. Seasoned industry professional are now becoming heavily involved in the progression of this venture. Among them are IQE’s Drew Nelson, OBE, Inspirit Ventures/GaN Systems’ Geoff Haynes and Monogram Capital/Wafer Technology’s Martin Lamb. Kubos' CEO, Caroline O'Brien is a former executive at Ultrahaptics. As she explains; “Any UK compound semiconductor business would be thrilled to have just one of these movers and shakers in... READ MORE https://lnkd.in/eHpvDmJT Carl Griffiths Bob Jones Luke Jackson William Partridge

Great article highlighting #Canada’s recent strategic investments in the #semiconductor industry. We’re witnessing significant growth in Canada’s chip sector, and as an organization deeply embedded in this industry, we love to see it. These investments will create new opportunities for #startups, researchers, and companies to collaborate, thrive and #innovate. Read more about how Canada is stepping up its semiconductor game in the latest EE Times | Electronic Engineering Times. https://lnkd.in/gWqSgKAP

DIAMFAB, a semiconductor diamond deeptech company, and HiQuTe Diamond, a plasma-assisted CVD synthetic diamond startup, have announced a strategic technological partnership. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eJdkGt9D #manufacturing #engineering #electricity

#investment #Deeptech // Iloomina AB creates ultra-fast data transmission with silicon nitride based photonics Iloomina is a deep tech company in Chalmers Ventures' portfolio. Among the investors are Chalmers Ventures and Navigare Ventures. Iloomiina has also previously received over 10 million SEK from the EIC European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) Iloomina's technology enables ultra-fast data transmission through silicon nitride based photonics. This is a growing technology area that has the potential to address the ever-increasing demand for greater bandwidth and faster data transmission in everything from fiber optic cables to server rooms. - We are delighted to have acquired competent investors who can join us on our development journey, says Oskar Helgason, CEO of Iloomina. - We see fantastic potential in Iloomina's technology, says David Storek, Pre-seed Investment Director at Chalmers Ventures. Iloomina's unique solution can meet the future needs of fast data transmission, which is becoming increasingly important in upcoming #quantum computers and data centers. // The technology is based on over ten years of cutting-edge research at Chalmers University of Technology. The company was founded by Prof. Torres-Company, Dr. Marcello Girardi, and Dr. Oskar B. Helgason in the field of integrated photonics at the Department of Ultrafast Photonics. Full PR in comment

**Saudi Arabia's Bold Move to Bolster the Semiconductor Industry** Saudi Arabia is taking a significant leap forward in the tech world by launching a US$266 million (SAR1 billion) investment fund to accelerate its semiconductor industry. This ambitious initiative is part of the kingdom’s National Semiconductor Hub strategy, which aims to attract 50 chip design companies to Saudi Arabia within the next five years. Saudi Arabia offers a powerful incentive for semiconductor companies to establish their regional presence by providing access to this substantial venture capital fund. As Dr. Mohammed AlOtaibi, the acting head of the Saudi Research Development and Innovation Authority (RDIA), emphasized, "The semiconductor industry is projected to become a $1 trillion industry in the next few years, and Saudi Arabia must play a role in this growth, both regionally and globally, over the coming years." The National Semiconductor Hub strategy aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic reform plan, which aims to diversify the economy and reduce reliance on oil-based revenues. This strategy is designed to create a unified national framework for the local semiconductor industry to thrive. Saudi Arabia positions itself as a significant player in the global tech landscape by fostering innovation and supporting semiconductor development. The General Authority for Statistics reported a 3.4% year-on-year growth in Saudi Arabia’s non-oil activities in the first quarter of 2024, reflecting the kingdom's successful efforts to diversify its economy. The semiconductor fund is expected to boost this growth further, attracting cutting-edge technology and top-tier talent to the region. In addition to the semiconductor initiative, Saudi Arabia’s progressive policies have led to more than 120 regional headquarters relocations, underscoring the kingdom’s appeal as a business hub. This strategic positioning is expected to enhance collaboration and innovation in the semiconductor sector.

RAAAM Memory Technologies Closes $4M Seed Round to Commercialize Super Cost Effective On-Chip Memory Solutions RAAAM Memory Technologies, a start-up company that invented a groundbreaking solution to implement on-chip memory, announced today that it has completed a Seed financing round of $4 million. Investors include Serpentine Ventures, J-Ventures, HackCapital, Silicon Catalyst Angels, Claves Investments and large multi-national semiconductor company as a strategic investor. The memory bottleneck has become a major concern in modern Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC) since the size of on-chip embedded memory continues to increase, already reaching up to 75% of the total SoC real estate in some applications like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). However, the industry standard Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) technology is very area-inefficient and has been facing major scaling difficulties in modern process technologies below 10nm