Lace Lithography is developing atom-beam lithography systems that use metastable helium atoms for nanoscale patterning in chip fabrication beyond EUV.
Lace is the only genuinely new entrant in the lithography sub-category, held at early maturity. Its technology replaces photons: a beam of metastable helium atoms, roughly 0.1 nanometres wide against ASML's 13.5 nanometre EUV, patterns the wafer directly. Atoms have no diffraction limit, which the company says allows resolutions up to ten times smaller at lower cost, energy and complexity, integrating into existing foundry workflows rather than replacing them. The hard problem it claims to have solved is mask design, where it says a proprietary AI-driven algorithm accelerates computation by over 15 orders of magnitude. It raised EUR 34.5m (USD 40m) on 2026-03-23 led by Atomico, total funding above EUR 51.7m in under three years, targeting a test tool inside a pilot fab by around 2029. Scale of the target: ASML holds 94 percent of the EUV equipment market on EUR 32.7bn of 2025 revenue and a EUR 38.8bn backlog, and both Nikon and Canon invested billions and failed to build EUV. Firepower is 2 accordingly.
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Lace Lithography is developing atom-beam lithography systems that use metastable helium atoms for nanoscale patterning in chip fabrication beyond EUV. Lace is the only genuinely new entrant in the lithography sub-category, held at early maturity. Its technology replaces photons: a beam of metastable helium atoms, roughly 0.1 nanometres wide against ASML's 13.5 nanometre EUV, patterns the wafer directly. Atoms have no diffraction limit, which the company says allows resolutions up to ten times smaller at lower cost, energy and complexity, integra
Lace Lithography is on the AI Core watchlist list of Frontier Tech Intelligence with a score of 47 out of 100, below the Top 100.
Lace Lithography is based in Bergen, Vestland, Norway.
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