QuantumDiamonds, a Munich-based startup making chip-inspection equipment to help improve yield for global chipmakers, has raised €91m in equity and non-dilutive funding.
The €15m in equity funding was provided by lead investor World Fund, alongside Bayern Kapital, IQ Capital, Earlybird, First Momentum, UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, Creator Fund and Onsight Ventures. €76m in non-dilutive funding will be provided by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Free State of Bavaria.
Traditional semiconductor inspection tools slow development and production as they struggle to see buried defects in complex 3D chip architectures, which lowers production yields and raises costs for businesses and consumers. Industry analysis shows that a single percentage point improvement in yield can be worth millions of dollars a week for a high-volume device.
QuantumDiamonds, a spinout from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) founded by CEO Kevin Berghoff and CTO Dr. Fleming Bruckmaier, manufactures semiconductor inspection technology that enables chipmakers to non-destructively analyse their most advanced chips.
The company has developed a microscope for electric currents that detects hidden defects, improves production yields and accelerates development cycles for next-generation packaging technologies, and works with nine of the world’s top 10 semiconductor manufacturers. The company is also building a production facility for quantum-based semiconductor inspection.
“This is a major step in bringing quantum sensing into fabs worldwide,” Kevin Berghoff, CEO and cofounder of QuantumDiamonds, said in a statement. “The response from leading chipmakers has been clear, they see our technology as essential for solving yield challenges that today’s systems can’t address.”
QuantumDiamonds has deployments live in the US and Taiwan, and is ramping up production in Munich. It currently employs 70 people, and plans to more than double its engineering team over the next 12 months.
“QD can become Europe’s next ASML,” Daria Saharova, managing partner at World Fund, said in a statement, “a first-of-a-kind technology, built and scaled here in a $104bn equipment market that the entire AI economy depends on.
“Backing companies like QD is how Europe stops buying its technological future from others and starts building the leverage to shape its own.”
