Eindhoven-based Invisix has completed a 20-million-euro seed round to bring its soft X-ray metrology technology to semiconductor production. The funding will support development of the company’s first commercial system, expansion of its team and customer demonstrations from a new cleanroom facility in its hometown.
Based on technology developed in-house at ASML and founded by former ASML researchers Christina Porter and Sietse van der Post, Invisix targets a growing bottleneck in advanced chip manufacturing. As logic and memory devices become increasingly three-dimensional, conventional optical metrology tools struggle to inspect critical buried structures. Manufacturers are often forced to rely on slower or destructive measurement techniques, creating yield and ramp-up challenges for leading-edge nodes used in AI and high-performance computing.
Invisix’s solution leverages soft X-rays and proprietary reconstruction software and machine learning algorithms to produce detailed 3D measurements of internal device structures without damaging the wafer. The system’s architecture is designed for the throughput requirements of high-volume manufacturing.
Invisix has already demonstrated the technology with Intel and Imec, measuring features in next-generation gate-all-around transistors, one of the industry’s most demanding metrology targets. The company recently moved its 300mm wafer-capable test platform to Eindhoven and is now working toward deployment of its first production-ready system in customer fabs.
Participants in the oversubscribed seed round include Hitachi Ventures, Transition Ventures, Imec.xpand, Doosan Investment and an unnamed tier-1 chipmaker.
