Nanotechnology for lithographic printing is expected to be a boon in
several electronics industry markets, and on top of healthy revenues
for development tools relating in the area, Molecular Imprints
Inc. has
raised $12.9 million in additional venture capital to complete development of production level tools for the CMOS and hard disk-drive industries.
CEO Mark Melliar-Smith says the 7-year-old company has a strong roster
of industry backers and venture capitalists steeped in
nanotechnology production markets and was not looking to add strategic
help in the round. Molecular Imprints brought on the
Kuwaiti-backed fund Wafra Investment Advisory Group of New York as a
new investor to join Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Tokyo Electron Venture
Capital, KT Venture Group, Alloy Ventures and Motorola Ventures.
This
latest investment brings the total amount raised by Molecular Imprints
for the development and commercialization of its technology to $73
million. Along with its equity backing, the company has been supported
by $15 million over the years from federal government agencies,
including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and $3
million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.
Molecular Imprints is built around proprietary technology developed at
the University of Texas for "Step and Flash Imprint Lithography" that
allows semiconductor manufacturers to emboss minute circuit patterns on
a substrate. The technology is used in semiconductor manufacturing and other
applications, including LEDs for solid-state lighting and magnetic-data
storage for micro disk drives. The company has demonstrated sub-20
nanometer resolution at ambient temperatures and pressure, while
traditional methods for creating such small patterns require either
extremely high temperatures or high pressures, vastly increasing the
cost of producing chips.
Molecular Imprints'
inroads
with major disk-drive manufacturing companies including Motorola Inc. [
MOT]
Hewlettt-Packard Co. [
HPQ] and Hitachi Ltd. [ADR:
HIT] has won it industry respect. A recent
showing at an annual semiconductor trade show won additional plaudits.
Melliar-Smith says the company is well-known in the arenas it operates
in and has little need for broad marketing efforts. Molecular Imprints will use the
bulk of the new money to adapt its development level lithography tools
to production markets. The company had 2007 sales of $13 million and expects $25 million this year, but Melliar-Smith
says the new funding will gear the company up for much larger
production markets in the disk-drive industry in 2010 and the CMOS chip
market in 2013.
-- Clifford Carlsen
See May 19 press release from Molecular Imprints
See March 3 post on nanoimprint tech from Semiconductor International blog
Continue reading below
