AlixLabs was founded in 2019 to develop a new method for manufacturing semiconductor components cheaper and faster. The company recently secured nearly SEK 3 million from Almi Invest and private investors, including NHL professionals Michael, Alexander and William Nylander, for a total of SEK 9 million (US $1 million) in seed capital along with $0.2 million in public funding. AlixLabs will be seeking $4-7M in Series A Capital in 12 to 18 months. The company has 5 employees.

AlixLabs has developed Atomic Layer Etch Pitchsplitting (APS), a new method for manufacturing nanostructures with a characteristic size below 20nm. The method is covered by an approved patent in the US and Taiwan and it has additional patent applications in other countries. The patent covers methods to split nanostructures in half by a single process step using Atomic Layer Etching (ALE).

This method of nanostructure fabrication uses ALE, which is inherently a damage-free etch process. Etching process selectivity to inclined surfaces enables the use walls of tapered structures as a mask. The inclined surfaces can be readily fabricated by dry etching or epitaxial growth and provide masking during the ALE process. This achieves nanostructure fabrication beyond the resolution limit for optical and electron beam lithography, according to the company.

The company competes with Directed Self Assembly, Multi-patterning and EUV Lithography as offered by Tier 1 semiconductor equipment companies for leading edge Fabs. The APS method can be used in combination with either Immersion or EUV Lithography and cuts the design features pitch in half. Until now, this have been realized by double or triple exposure by lithography or by using a technology called Multiple patterning. AlixLabs cuts the cost of the corresponding mask layer by 35% to 45%, according to its benchmarking.

The company is targeting Logic and Memory Chip manufacturing below the 10 nm node, essentially all nodes that use EUV Lithography. The Lithography/Etch/Clean Equipment market is about $36 billion in 2020. The company will go to market with IP licensing, equipment royalties, process demonstrations, and development and transfer.

The company has several ongoing negotiations with R&D actors, equipment and semiconductor manufacturers to create a basis for further cooperation for the development of its products. In the longer term, Alix wants to create an ecosystem covering the complete value chain for APS.

Dr. Jonas Sundqvist, Co-founder and CEO (holds 10 patents and authored or co-authored >20 publications in the fields of ALD and CVD process development)

jonas@alixlabs.com

Dr. Dmitry Suyatin, Co-founder and CTO (>15 years interdisciplinary experience in advanced processing of nanostructures and authored >30 publications in the fields of physics and nanotechnology)

Dr. Mohammad Karimi, R&D and Operational Manager (authored and co-authored >20 publications and presentations in the field of solid-state physics and III-V devices)

Stefan Svedberg, Co-founder and Board Member (one of the driving pioneers of Bluetooth technology; also CWO of Beammwave)

Erik Larsson, Chairman (Business Developer at Lund University Innovation System)