xLight, a US-backed startup chaired by former Intel chief Pat Gelsinger, is raising $350m to build an xLight EUV light source that could loosen ASML’s grip on chipmaking. Days earlier, a Dutch rival took aim at Nvidia. Deep-tech chips are hot again.
The hardware behind AI is pulling in venture money again. xLight, a Californian startup building a new kind of light source for chip factories, is in talks to raise $350m, The Information reported. Boardman Bay Capital Management and Bain Capital are lining up to lead the round. xLight has stayed quiet through years of lab work, so the size of the raise signals how far the ambition now reaches.
The pitch is bold. xLight wants to cut the cost and time of making the most advanced AI chips. It is betting on an alternative to extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, the process that prints microscopic circuits onto silicon. If it works, xLight EUV hardware would slot into the machines that build Nvidia’s chips.
What xLight is actually building
Today, only one company makes EUV machines: ASML. Its systems fire lasers at tin droplets to create light at a wavelength of 13.5 nanometres. That light prints the smallest features on a chip. The machines are vast, cost hundreds of millions of dollars each, and ship in pieces.
