QuantumDiamonds Raises €91 Million for Next-Generation Chip Testing

Munich – Quan­tum­Dia­monds GmbH (QD), one of the fastest-growing semi­con­duc­tor equip­ment compa­nies in Europe, has closed a funding round tota­ling 91 million euros to expand produc­tion of its quan­­tum-based semi­con­duc­tor test­ing tech­no­logy. The finan­cing consists of a €15 million equity round led by World Fund, as well as €76 million in non-dilu­­tive funding appro­ved at the EU level under the Euro­pean Chips Act. 

“This is an important step toward estab­li­shing quan­tum sens­ing in semi­con­duc­tor fabs world­wide,” said Kevin Berg­hoff, CEO and co-foun­­der of Quan­tum­Dia­monds. “The response from leading chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers is clear: they view our tech­no­logy as indis­pensable for solving yield chal­lenges that cannot be addres­sed with today’s systems. With deploy­ments alre­ady under­way in the U.S. and Taiwan, as well as the ramp-up of mass produc­tion in Munich, Europe is not only parti­ci­pa­ting in the next era of chip tech­no­logy but is also play­ing a key role in shaping it.” 

The non-dilu­­tive finan­cing is being provi­ded jointly by the Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy and the Free State of Bava­ria. In addi­tion to QD’s exis­ting inves­tors —IQ Capi­tal, Early­bird, First Momen­tum, Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Crea­tor Fund, Onsight Ventures , and angel investors—Bayern Kapi­tal also parti­ci­pa­ted to a signi­fi­cant extent in the €15 million equity round led by World Fund.

The company plans to use the capi­tal to scale its technology

QD is well on its way to beco­ming the only startup to receive manu­fac­tu­ring grants under the Euro­pean Chips Act, which was crea­ted to streng­then the Euro­pean semi­con­duc­tor supply chain. This places the company among estab­lished indus­try play­ers such as Global­Found­ries and Carl Zeiss. 

The company was foun­ded in 2022 by Berg­hoff and Dr. Fleming Bruck­maier (CTO) as a spin-off from the Tech­ni­cal Univer­sity of Munich. The company will use the funding to supply labo­ra­tory systems to leading chip manu­fac­tu­r­ers and to further deve­lop its wafer-level capa­bi­li­ties for inspec­tion in high-throug­h­­put manu­fac­tu­ring faci­li­ties. QD, which curr­ently employs 70 people, plans to more than double its engi­nee­ring team over the next 12 months. 

Conven­tio­nal semi­con­duc­tor testers slow down deve­lo­p­ment and produc­tion because they have diffi­culty detec­ting buried defects in complex 3D chip archi­tec­tures, which redu­ces produc­tion yield and drives up costs for busi­nesses and consu­mers. The stakes are high: indus­try analy­ses show that a yield impro­ve­ment of just one percen­tage point for a mass-produ­­ced product can be worth seve­ral million dollars per week. 

QD’s tech­no­logy addres­ses this key chall­enge in modern chip manu­fac­tu­ring by utili­zing defects in synthe­tic diamonds at the atomic scale to detect magne­tic fields with extreme precis­ion: Essen­ti­ally, it is a micro­scope that makes the current flowing through chips visi­ble. The company’s first commer­cial system, the QDm.1, enables non-destruc­­tive 3D current mapping at the nanos­cale, ther­eby pinpoin­ting the exact loca­tion and depth of chip defects. — www.qd-st.com