Inversion Semiconductor is pursuing a lithography approach that uses high-power lasers to heat a gas into plasma, driving electrons in a magnetic structure to emit light with wavelengths closer to X-rays. The company claims its source can generate up to 500 million pulses per second, compared with about 50,000 pulses per second from current tin-droplet EUV systems. It aims to challenge the dominance of incumbent lithography suppliers by producing a more directed, laser-like light source and contends this could enable up to 15x faster chip manufacturing if successful. The team has reduced the size of its laser from the scale of several football fields to roughly 30 meters by 5–10 meters, but says a test lithography machine is still years away. Financially, it has secured $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator and Entrepreneur First and $750,000 in government grants with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and it was awarded the DOE’s "Genesis Mission" prize.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Grant

Latest activity

Aug 2026