Chip startup backed by Peter Thiel and In-Q-Tel wants to revolutionize the semiconductor biz
Another company backed by Tech Magnate (and apocalypticist Peter Thiel) wants to disrupt Silicon Valley.
The Wall Street Journal reports that substrate, a US-based chip startup, has just raised $100 million, and plans to use the money to support its ongoing work to raise the semiconductor industry. The company’s website lists several Venture Capital firms as its vendors, including Tiel’s founders’ fund, Catalyst General, CIA-Tel, CIA-Tel, Mitiimco, which is affiliated with MIT.
So how do you plan to reshape the semiconductor game? According to the press release, it wants to unify all the various activities associated with chip production to “become the whole [manufacturing] process. ” Currently, the chip industry is like many other industries – a Complex Supply Chain, that hardware payment from all over the world. The biggest parts of the Supply Chain come from Asia.
As there is political turmoil in Asia, there has been constant talk about the need to reinvent chip production in the US substrate will seem to be trying to do that but, if its activities are very impressive, unfortunately, industrial experts are very surprised that they can not achieve its goal. The journal notes that “industry veterans have said vertical integration is indefensible” for their business.
The inventor of the substrate, James is proud (described by Thiel “Prolégé”), he promises to return to “the United States of excellence in semiconductor production,” but he admitted that his plan sounds like a good download. “If I was coming from an existing industry, I might not believe it’s possible because I might know very well how difficult it will be, And it was also very difficult,” he said.
On the company’s website, it puts its efforts into words: “The only chance the United States has to return to more integrated manufacturing, one that continues to push Moore’s law on performance and costs,” the site says. “To achieve this, the substrate is developing next-generation fabrics to return from America to semiconductor manufacturing and will use our technology – X-ray Lithography – to extend them.”
Pride explained to The Jolward that one of the advantages of his company is “a wafer that uses an ultrashort-wavelength light to etch complex and microscopic patterns on Silicon Wafers.”
The magazine also notes that the substrate has “received attention from the Trump Administration,” although it’s not clear what kind of attention it has received or whether it has helped the company. In today’s era where the AI industry is on the rise, the physical infrastructure needed to produce that AI is very important. The Trump administration also wanted to promote domestic Chip production and therefore, in that sense, the substrate gives the current political moment.
