Alchimer Rebrands as aveni; secures $13.5M in funding
Alchimer S.A., a provider of metallization technologies for damascene, through silicon vias (TSVs), MEMS and other electronic applications, today announced that the company has been renamed aveni. The change signals a significant shift in the company's life as it transitions into the future, moving from proving out its technology to full readiness for volume manufacturing.
"We have reached a significant point in our company's history," said Bruno Morel, CEO of aveni. "We have the technology, partners and funding in place that make us ready for commercialization. Our innovative technologies have been successfully demonstrated in multiple customer engagements as a manufacturing-ready path forward for metallization processes at and below 14nm. As a company, we are now extremely well-positioned for the future, which drove our rebranding under the name aveni."
Continuing under the same ownership and leadership, the company also announced that it has secured $13.5M in funding from a variety of sources, including a semiconductor chipmaker, ALIAD (Air Liquide Venture Capital), Idinvest Partners, CEA Investissement, Auriga Partners, Panasonic and a private investor. This investment ensures the company's ability to grow to meet future market demand for its novel metallization products. The company also announced the formation of its U.S.-based subsidiary, based in Silicon Valley, California, to support the U.S. market.
"ALIAD's (Air Liquide Venture Capital) role is to take minority equity stakes to support the growth of innovative startups, while encouraging them to establish R&D and business partnerships with Air Liquide," said Pierre-Etienne Franc, VP Air Liquide advanced Business & Technologies. "aveni technology perfectly suits our strategy to partner with innovative companies that excel at addressing emerging manufacturing challenges faced by the semiconductor industry."
aveni's novel wet deposition technology is currently in the qualification phase for the dual-damascene process at the 10nm node at three of the leading worldwide logic manufacturers. At the same time, the technology has been named best-known method for TSV manufacturing at two different customer sites. It is in production at one site and finishing qualification currently for an anticipated ramp to production later this year.
"We are the only company in the industry currently able to support dual-damascene and TSV metallization at 10nm and below, and that does so at better yield than competitive technologies, using existing process equipment. We are truly positioned for the future, and we look forward to engaging with our customers moving forward under the name aveni," said Morel.
