First physical wafers produced — Semefab begins test production

From physics to silicon

In August 2018, Semefab begins test production of the first physical our semiconductor platform wafers. After years of theoretical development, software modelling, and physics analysis, the technology meets the real world for the first time.

The result is significant: the characteristics of the physical wafers match the predictions of the Synopsys and Cadence software models with high accuracy. The physics is right. The models are right. The wafers are real.

What was validated

The first wafers validated the core proposition of our semiconductor platform: that a fundamentally different approach to transistor physics — going back to first principles rather than iterating on CMOS — could produce real, manufacturable devices with the predicted performance characteristics.

A Cadence PDK (Product Development Kit) had been developed alongside the wafer process, enabling circuit designers to use our semiconductor platform devices in standard design tools.

The significance

For a founding team that had been working from first principles since 2015, the first physical wafers represented the transition from conviction to evidence. The physics that David Summerland had identified — and that Sam Lodh and the early team had backed — was demonstrably real.

It would take another six years to build the fabrication infrastructure to manufacture these devices at scale and speed. But the foundation was confirmed in August 2018.