Substrate raises $100 million to challenge chipmaking giants
San Francisco-based Substrate has landed $100 million in fresh funding, bumping its valuation past $1 billion.
Backed by investors like In-Q-Tel and General Catalyst, the company plans to build a contract manufacturing operation in the US and develop advanced chipmaking tools.
Competing with TSMC
Substrate has built a new kind of lithography system that uses X-ray light—aiming to create chips as advanced as those made with ASML's pricey EUV machines (which go for over $400 million each).
They've shown off their tech at US National Labs and their own sites, hoping to make high-end AI chip production cheaper and compete with global giant TSMC.
Potential game-changer in the semiconductor industry
With all the talk about bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the US, Substrate's work is catching attention—even without federal funding so far.
Their technology could help solve big challenges in chipmaking and might finally give some real competition to the ASML-TSMC duo that dominates the industry.