Invisix, a semiconductor metrology company developing next-generation measurement tools for advanced chip manufacturing, announced an oversubscribed €20 million seed funding round. The investment included participation from Hitachi Ventures, Transition Ventures, imec.xpand, Doosan Investment Co., and a tier-one semiconductor manufacturer.
The Eindhoven-based company will use the funding to expand its team, accelerate development of its first commercial system, and support customer demonstrations at a new cleanroom facility in Eindhoven.
As semiconductor devices become increasingly complex and three-dimensional, traditional optical measurement tools are struggling to inspect critical internal structures. This limitation has become a significant challenge for manufacturers producing advanced logic and memory chips that support artificial intelligence workloads and high-performance computing applications.
Founded by former ASML employees and PhD physicists Christina Porter and Sietse van der Post, Invisix is developing a soft x-ray metrology platform designed to help chipmakers measure complex semiconductor structures at production scale. The company’s technology is intended to provide a non-destructive, high-throughput alternative to slower and often destructive measurement methods currently used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
The platform utilizes High Harmonic Generation (HHG), a process based on research recognized by the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics. HHG generates broadband soft x-rays by using short-pulsed lasers to excite noble-gas atoms into high-energy states. The resulting short-wavelength light enables richer three-dimensional imaging than conventional single-wavelength laser approaches.
Invisix combines HHG technology with proprietary reconstruction algorithms and machine learning techniques to recreate detailed 3D representations of semiconductor devices. The company says its architecture is designed to deliver the throughput required for high-volume manufacturing environments.
The technology builds on more than a decade of soft x-ray research and development at ASML. Invisix has licensed a substantial technology package from ASML and has assembled a team that includes veterans of the company’s soft x-ray program. The leadership team also includes COO Roald Dogge, formerly COO of NTS, a Dutch semiconductor contract manufacturer.
The company’s scientific roots also include a long-term collaboration with Professor Anne L’Huillier of Lund University, whose pioneering work on High Harmonic Generation earned recognition through the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Invisix publicly demonstrated its technology in 2023 through collaborations with Intel and imec, successfully measuring key features in next-generation gate-all-around transistor architectures. More recently, the company relocated its 300mm-wafer-capable soft x-ray testbench to a new cleanroom facility in Eindhoven, where it plans to continue customer demonstrations while developing its first commercial product for deployment in semiconductor fabrication facilities.
KEY QUOTES:
“Semiconductor manufacturers can’t build what they can’t see. As chips become more 3D, the industry needs a new generation of metrology tools that can look inside these incredibly complex miniature skyscrapers without destroying them. We are entering the market with technology that has been incubated inside ASML for more than a decade, a level of technical de-risking that is unusual for a seed-stage hardware company and gives our customers a faster path to deployment.”
Christina Porter, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO, Invisix
“As semiconductor architectures grow more three-dimensional, metrology increasingly limits semiconductor yield and ramp speed, with each new node generation intensifying the challenge. Invisix tackles this with a technology platform backed by a decade of ASML development, proven results with leading industry partners, and a system architecture designed for high-volume manufacturing. We’re excited to support the team as they bring this capability to the market.”
Wolfgang Seibold, Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Hitachi Ventures
“It’s exciting to see world-class talent come out of ASML and build companies of their own. Invisix is one of Europe’s most promising semiconductor companies: they unlock a major bottleneck for manufacturing advanced chips that power AI training and inference. The technology is de-risked, the market is moving fast, and we’re thrilled to back them as they scale.”
Clara Ricard, Partner, Transition Ventures
