Syenta raises $26M in funding to accelerate chip interconnect production

Australian chip manufacturing startup Syenta Inc. today announced that it has raised $26 million in funding to expand its manufacturing capacity.

Playground Global and Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund led the Series A deal. They were joined by Investible, Salus Ventures, Jelix Ventures and Wollemi Capital. Playground Global general partner Pat Gelsinger, former CEO of Intel Corp., has taken a seat on Syenta’s board.

One of the factors that influence the performance of a chip is the speed at which it can transfer data between its processing circuits and memory. Information travels between those circuits through very small network links known as interconnects. Syenta has developed a technology called localized electrochemical manufacturing, or LEM, which it says can facilitate faster and more cost-effective manufacturing of interconnects.

Making a connection to the fabric usually takes hours. The Syenta claims that LEM can compress the process to minutes, enabling chip makers to increase production rates. It achieves that speedup by combining two manufacturing workflows known as deposition and patterning into one step.

Modern processors consist of up to hundreds of metal layers stacked on top of each other. The links have the same design. During the deposition phase of the manufacturing process, special machines place metal layers on the silicon wafer one by one.

Syenta’s LEM technology uses a deposition method called electroplating. I standard deviation This process involves immersing the chip in a liquid containing metal ions, which are electrically charged metal atoms. Engineers run a current through the chip, which draws ions from its surface to form a new layer of metal.

LEM does electroplating differently. The technology places metal layers on chips using an electrode, or conductive device, that has patterns on its surface. Those patterns turn the device into a type of stamp. The electrode seals the copper structures that carry the data on the chip and makes the connection.

The placement phase of the chip manufacturing workflow is followed by a step called pattering. During the tapping process, the newly deposited metal layer is shaped into small structures. Syenta’s electronic stampings enable installation and patterning at the same time instead of one after the other, which enables the company to speed up the production of connections.

Syenta also promises to provide other benefits. According to the company, LEM can produce better connections than competing methods, facilitating the development of faster processors.

Interconnect speed is influenced by the size of the small communication links it creates. The smaller the links, the faster the connection. Syenta says the LEM can use “sub-micron” links, a major improvement over existing technology.

“We enable better communication within the existing production infrastructure, allowing systems to move more data efficiently and at lower cost without requiring new innovation methods,” said founder and CEO Jekaterina Viktorova.

The company opened an office in Arizona, a major chip manufacturing center, to boost its sales efforts. The funding round announced today will help Syenta expand its US footprint. The company hopes to begin volume production of the interconnects in 2028.

Syenta sees its technology as a big help for artificial intelligence chip suppliers. AI models move data between the underlying chips’ memory and processing circuits more often than other workloads, which means that their performance is greatly affected by connection speed. Syenta says it is already working with several chip designers.

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