{"id":234053,"date":"2026-03-25T18:09:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/microsoft-backed-start-up-raises-40-million-for-helium-atom-beam-lithography-that-could-print-chips-at-atomic-resolution-0-1nm-beam-is-135-times-narrower-than-asmls-euv-light"},"modified":"2026-03-25T18:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T23:09:34","slug":"microsoft-backed-start-up-raises-40-million-for-helium-atom-beam-lithography-that-could-print-chips-at-atomic-resolution-0-1nm-beam-is-135-times-narrower-than-asmls-euv-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/microsoft-backed-start-up-raises-40-million-for-helium-atom-beam-lithography-that-could-print-chips-at-atomic-resolution-0-1nm-beam-is-135-times-narrower-than-asmls-euv-light","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft-backed start-up raises $40 million for helium atom beam lithography that could print chips at atomic resolution \u2014 0.1nm beam is 135 times narrower than ASML\u2019s EUV light"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Lace Lithography, a Norwegian start-up backed by Microsoft<\/a>, raised $40 million in Series A funding on Monday to develop a chipmaking tool that uses a helium atom beam instead of light to pattern silicon wafers, Reuters<\/em><\/a> reported. The company claims its technology can create chip features 10 times smaller than current lithography systems, with a beam width of just 0.1 nanometers compared to the 13.5nm wavelength used by ASML\u2019s EUV scanners. Lace aims to have a test tool running in a pilot fab by 2029.<\/p>\n

The advantage of Lace\u2019s system is that atoms don\u2019t have a diffraction limit, whereas photon-based lithography, including ASML\u2019s EUV systems, is constrained by the wavelength of the light it uses. As chipmakers push features smaller, they rely on increasingly complex multi-patterning techniques to work around that limit, but Lace sidesteps the problem entirely by replacing photons with neutral helium atoms and a beam measuring roughly the width of a single hydrogen atom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lace Lithography, a Norwegian start-up backed by Microsoft, raised $40 million in Series A funding on Monday to develop a chipmaking tool that uses a helium atom beam instead of light to pattern silicon wafers, Reuters reported. The company claims its technology can create chip features 10 times smaller than current lithography systems, with a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}