Australian chip manufacturing startup Syenta Inc. today announced that it has raised $26 million in funding to expand its production capacity.

Playground Global and Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund led the Series A deal. They were joined by Investible, Salus Ventures, Jelix Ventures and Wollemi Capital. Playground Global general partner Pat Gelsinger, the former Chief Executive Officer of Intel Corp., has taken a seat on Syenta’s board.

One of the factors that influence a chip’s performance is the speed at which it can move data between its processing and memory circuits. Information travels between those circuits through microscopic network links collectively known as the interconnect. Syenta has developed a technology called localized electrochemical manufacturing, or LEM, that it says can facilitate the production of faster and more cost-efficient interconnects.

Fabricating an interconnect at a fab usually takes hours. Syenta claims that LEM can compress the process into a few minutes, which enables chipmakers to boost production volumes. It achieves that speedup by combining two manufacturing workflows known as deposition and patterning into a single step.

Modern processors comprise up to hundreds of metal layers stacked atop one another. Interconnects have a similar design. During the deposition stage of the manufacturing process, specialized machines deposit metal layers on a silicon wafer one by one.

Syenta’s LEM technology uses a deposition method called electroplating. The standard variation of the technique involves submerging a chip in a liquid that contains metal ions, which are metal atoms with an electric charge. Engineers run a current through the chip, which draws the ions onto its surface to form a new metal layer.

The LEM performs electroplating differently. The technology deposits metal layers onto chips using an electrode, or conductive device, that has patterns on its surface. Those patterns turn the device into a kind of stamp. The electrode stamps data-carrying copper structures onto a chip and thereby form an interconnect.

The deposition stage of the chip manufacturing workflow is followed by a step called patterning. During the pattering process, a newly deposited metal layer is shaped into microscopic structures. Syenta’s electrode stamps perform deposition and patterning simultaneously rather than one after one, which is what enables the company to accelerate interconnect manufacturing. 

Syenta also promises to provide other benefits. According to the company, LEM can produce more performant interconnects than competing methods, which facilitates the development of faster processors.

An interconnect’s speed is influenced by the size of the tiny networking links that make it up. The smaller the links, the faster the interconnect. Syenta says that LEM can implement “sub-micron” links, a significant improvement over existing technologies.

“We’re enabling finer-pitch connections within existing manufacturing infrastructure, allowing systems to move more data more efficiently and at a lower cost without requiring entirely new fabrication approaches,” said co-founder and CEO Jekaterina Viktorova.

The company has opened an office in Arizona, a major chip manufacturing hub, to advance its commercialization efforts. The funding round announced today will help Syenta grow its U.S. footprint. The company hopes to start volume production of interconnects in 2028.

Syenta sees its technology coming particularly handy for artificial intelligence chip suppliers. AI models move data between the underlying chips’ memory and processing circuits more frequently than other workloads, which means that their performance is more heavily affected by interconnect speeds. Syenta says that it’s already working with several chip designers.

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