The Trump administration has agreed to take a stake in xLight – a startup seeking to develop free-electron lasers as key to making faster computing chips.
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TheTrumpadministrationhas agreed to take a stake in xLight – astartupseeking to develop free-electronlasers viewed as key to making faster computingchips.
The U.S. Department of Commerce said on Monday the government willinjectupto $150millioninto the company but did not disclose the size of the stake.
The department’sCHIPS Research and Development Office said that it has signed a non-binding preliminary letter of intent to provide U.S. government incentives. This marks the office’s first investment after theTrumpadministrationtook overa $7.4 billion Biden-era semiconductor research institute.
In the world of advancedchipmanufacturing, the most critical tool is an extreme ultra-violet lithography machine that prints the pattern ofchips onto silicon wafers. The Netherlands’ ASMLis currently the only company in the world that makes such a machine, thoughstartups such as Substrateare trying to develop rivals.
Within the lithography machine, the most difficult part to make is thelaser.
XLight has proposed using technology derived from particle accelerators to create one that would use far less electricity than currentlasers, and is working with U.S. national labs to develop a prototype that could be connected to machines made by ASML or others.
“For far too long, America ceded the frontier of advanced lithography to others. Under PresidentTrump, those days are over,” Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said in a statement.
XLight also now counts former IntelCEO Pat Gelsinger among senior management. He becameexecutive chairmanin March.
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