xLight, an American company developing high-power laser systems for the semiconductor industry, announced it has signed a final award agreement for $150 million in federal incentives under the CHIPS and Science Act with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The funding will support the construction and demonstration of xLight’s first free-electron laser (FEL), a technology designed to transform how extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) light is delivered to semiconductor fabrication facilities. The company believes its approach can help address growing manufacturing constraints facing the semiconductor industry while enabling future generations of advanced chip production.
According to xLight, semiconductor demand is expected to outpace global manufacturing capacity in the coming years, while the cost of producing increasingly advanced chips continues to rise. The company’s FEL systems are designed to address these challenges by moving EUV light generation outside the fab and delivering significantly higher power levels to as many as 16 lithography scanners simultaneously.
In the near term, xLight says its systems can improve productivity for existing semiconductor fabs, helping manufacturers produce more chips with better quality and lower costs. Over the longer term, the company believes its technology can enable entirely new semiconductor architectures through collaborations across the industry.
The company is developing its first commercial-scale system in Albany, New York, with support from the Department of Commerce and other semiconductor ecosystem partners.
Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, xLight is focused on commercializing free-electron laser technology for critical U.S. economic and national security applications. The company is led by a team of technologists and semiconductor industry veterans with experience designing, building, and deploying FEL systems across research, development, and national security environments.
KEY QUOTES:
“Lithography innovation is the key to reviving Moore’s Law. With these incentives, the support from Commerce, and growing partnerships across the semiconductor ecosystem, xLight will deliver an EUV light source capable of powering lithography innovation for decades.”
Nicholas Kelez, CEO and CTO, xLight
