Dutch chip equipment startup Nearfield raises $148 million

By Max A. Cherney

(Reuters) - Dutch chip equipment startup Nearfield Instruments said it has raised $147.6 million (135 million euros) to ramp up production and bring several tools to market more quickly.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Nearfield has developed chipmaking tools designed to measure and inspect silicon wafers to ensure the chips printed on them meet manufacturing standards. The conventional techniques to do so have reached their limits, Nearfield said, and its machines are necessary to ensure that chip production yield remains high with the most advanced processes needed to manufacture artificial intelligence processors.

KEY QUOTE

"What is important after every step of manufacturing is what has been processed is measured - so-called metrology - to make sure it meets what was intended ... to avoid the loss of good chips," Nearfield CEO Hamed Sadeghian said in an interview with Reuters.

CONTEXT

The chip manufacturing equipment sector is dominated by a handful of companies, including ASML in the Netherlands and Applied Materials in the U.S., that enjoy near monopolies in various subsectors of the equipment market. Startups are rare because of immense barriers to entry.

Nearfield, which was founded in 2016, is a rare startup attempting to carve out a portion of the lucrative market for chipmaking equipment.

The Rotterdam-based company claims Samsung Electronics as a customer, and says it is "engaged" with other advanced manufacturers. Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co are the only other chipmakers pursuing advanced techniques.

BY THE NUMBERS

The growth in demand for AI processors has created an opportunity for Nearfield, Sadeghian said.

The market for advanced AI chips is set to grow 120% this year to roughly $110 billion, according to Yole Group research. Advanced chips need more than 2,000 process steps, and as the techniques become increasingly complex, Nearfield's inspection equipment is needed more often, Sadeghian said.

WHAT’S NEXT

The 170-employee company plans to use the funding provided by Walden Catalyst and Singapore state fund Temasek - among others - to grow its research and development capabilities and bring several new products to market.

(Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler)