Hardware

Dispatches from the conference room • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Actuator, Alphabet, Hardware, Iron Ox, Lidar, Robotics & AI, wing, XPRIZENo Comments

Greetings on a brisk New England morning. I’m finally here on my long threatened trip to Boston. I was planning to be here in early July ahead of our robotics event, but SARS-CoV-2 and its many variants had different ideas. I narrowly avoided another reschedule on my third time around with COVID, but now I’m in that brief (and ever narrowing) window of relative immunity. It’s like I’m Superman or something (probably shouldn’t have gone with one of the few DC superheroes without a mask). Given the fact that I haven’t been out since 2019, I may well have overbooked. Met with four startups yesterday afternoon after arriving at Logan, spent this morning meeting with a couple of VCs/accelerators and startups, and am currently writing to you from a MassRobotics conference room (shoutout to Joyce, who kindly reserved me a conference room to chat with some founders ahead of a panel and more meetings tonight). An aerial general view during a game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees on August 13, 2022 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. Image Credits:Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images Call it a fact-finding mission. Or maybe a temperature check. We’ve entered an interesting moment, where superpowered robotic VC investments are finally having to contend with the realities of market forces. For a moment there, the industry appeared relatively immune to the slowdown, but in spite of continued bullish feelings about automation at large, nothing here can appropriately be labeled “recession proof.” Anecdotally, we may have also entered the stage in which the key players in already well-represented categories such as logistics/fulfillment are already in place. That isn’t to say there isn’t room for key new players to enter the picture, but I suspect it’s a lot harder to get tens of millions in funding by telling investors that you’re an Amazon Robotics killer than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. At the moment, I’ve got a keen eye out for two things: First, the companies solving the extremely unsexy problems. There are still a lot of extremely bad — and impossible-to-staff — jobs out there that are ripe for automation. I spoke with a company that’s a great representation of that phenomenon, which I’ll dive into when I debrief my Boston trip in next week’s Actuator. Second, the key components of the broader robotics experience. I know a lot of well-funded companies are looking to create their full-stack solutions, but as these technologies grow in application, a ton of smaller industries are going to sprout up around that. If you’ve got a sufficiently adaptable piece of that puzzle, you’ve got a great — and perhaps overlooked — business on your hands. There’s value in well-placed myopia. Sometimes thinking small is the right business move. I realize and respect that a lot of folks enter the space with plans to change the world, but they think globally and act locally and all of that good stuff. Roughly 24 hours into this trip, and I’m realizing how much I missed landing in a place and talking to as many startups as possible. Glad I’m able to do this in Boston again, and hoping to be in more cities soon to see what companies are cooking and, perhaps, check the temperature of the industry from a much closer vantage point. Again, lots more on all of the above next week. Image Credits: Iron OX For now, two things are top of mind on this newsletter. One is fun. The other less so. We’ll start with the bad news first. Layoffs. Almost overnight, half the staff at Iron Ox is out of work. Even forgetting the extremely real and immediate human impact of such a move, it’s very disheartening for the industry. There are a lot of questions here. Is this a broader indictment of fully automated greenhouses? Is it something specific to Iron Ox? Perhaps the company’s solution was more proprietary and less adaptable to existing systems than a startup needs to be in the space. Either way, it’s hard not to walk away from this with the sense that such a well-funded firm is something of a bellwether for automation’s hard road ahead, as the space grapples with bigger macroeconomic issues. Chief legal officer Myra Pasek confirmed the layoffs this week with ZebethMedia. All told, they amount to just under half of Iron Ox’s staff, and appear to run across the organization. It’s a gutting of a company that is clearly doing some soul searching around which existing elements to capitalize on going forward. Says Pasek: We’ve decided to hyperfocus on our core competence of engineering and technology; as a result, we eliminated many roles that are not core to our renewed focus. However, the layoff was comprehensive and included positions throughout the organization — i.e., not limited to only certain departments. Reducing the Iron Ox team was a painful decision — one we did not take lightly. We are working with our board members and leaning into our extensive ecosystem throughout Silicon Valley to help employees find meaningful new work at mission-aligned companies. Iron Ox has always hired world-class talent, and I’m confident that the individuals we unfortunately had to cut this week will have many options open to them. As a matter of policy, we are not going to provide additional details or comment on specific personnel, and we ask that you respect their privacy at this sensitive time. This was precisely the caveat I was alluding to in last week’s newsletter when talking about climate robotics firms. Not everything is a surefire bet, but that shouldn’t distract founders from the fact that there’s a lot of good to be done and money to be made in this space. Image Credits: NimbRo The more pleasant news this week is around teleoperation. Our TC Sessions: Robotics pitch-off winner Touchlab made it to the semifinals, but ultimately, the XPrize Avatar trophy went to NimbRo, which hails from the Autonomous Intelligent

This is Amazon’s new delivery drone, the MK30 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Amazon, drone, drone delivery, drones, Hardware, Robotics & AINo Comments

Following this morning’s debut of the Sparrow bin picking robot, Amazon just unveiled MK30, the latest iteration of its delivery drone. The system is the successor to the MK27-2, which is set to debut limited deliveries to residents in Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas. The MK30, which is set for a 2024 debut, is both smaller and lighter than the earlier version and able to withstand harsher temperatures and a broader range of weather conditions. Another key element here is making things quieter. Drone noise has been one of the most anticipated complaints about bringing these systems into residential settings. The system maintains the same basic hexacopter foundation as its predecessor — a different tact that the fixed wing systems deployed by the likes of Wing. Image Credits: Brian Heater Amazon writes, Reducing the noise signature of our drones is an important engineering challenge our team is working on. Our drones fly hundreds of feet in the air, well above people and structures. Even when they descend to deliver packages, our drones are generally quieter than a range of sounds you would commonly hear in a typical neighborhood. Prime Air’s Flight Science team has created new custom-designed propellers that will reduce the MK30’s perceived noise by a further 25%. That’s a game-changer we’re very excited about. Also on-board are new safety systems designed to avoid a wide range of different obstacles, from fellow drones to trees to people and pets. “While it’s impossible to eliminate all risks from flying, we take a proven aerospace approach to design safety into our system,” the company writes. “As always, our newest drone will go through rigorous evaluation by national aerospace authorities like the Federal Aviation Administration to prove its safety and reliability.” The acknowledgement of risk is important here. The truth is as these things become more common, so too, will accident reports. Amazon’s delivery drones have been through their share of ups and downs (so to speak), but the program appears to have survived some wide ranging cuts from CEO Andy Jassy – the same may not apply to the company’s latest mile Scout delivery robot, however. Amazon: A drone being tested in a wind tunnel “[T]o sustainably deliver a vast selection of items in under an hour, and eventually within 30 minutes, at scale,” Amazon writes, “drones are the most effective path to success.” Plenty of skepticism remains around the efficacy so such programs, of course. Amazon, however, isn’t alone in better big on drone deliver — one baby step at a time. Alphabet’s Wing program recently announced a deal with Door Dash for food deliveries in Logan, Australia.

Amazon debuts Sparrow, a new bin picking robot arm • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Hardware, Robotics & AINo Comments

The bin moving robots designed by Kiva Systems still form the foundation of Amazon’s warehouse robotics play a decade after it acquired the startup. There’s a reason — for example — that the recently announced fully autonomous Proteus robot effectively looks like a green (“Seahawks green,” per robotics VP, Joseph Quinlivan) version of one of those systems. Over the years, the retail giant has broadened the scope of its warehouse ‘bots – hundreds of thousands of them now occupy fulfillment centers across the U.S. Image Credits: Brian Heater As one might imagine, robot arms are a big piece of that puzzle. Robin (which debuted 18 months ago) and Cardinal (which rolls out this year) are the two most prominent examples, both designed to move packages and send them on their way inside the warehouse. Cardinal is effectively an update to Robin that’s able to pack boxes full of packages. There are currently around 1,000 Robin units deployed in Amazon warehouses. At an event held in its Westborough, Massachusetts robotics center (about 40 minutes from downtown Boston), the company added a third bird into the mix: Sparrow. Image Credits: Amazon The new arm is a more sophisticated take on the company’s existing robotic arms, adding the ability to pick and place specific objects in bins. The arm’s computer vision and AI are capable of identifying and move “millions” of items, according to the company. Amazon writes, Working with our employees, Sparrow will take on repetitive tasks, enabling our employees to focus their time and energy on other things, while also advancing safety. At the same time, Sparrow will help us drive efficiency by automating a critical part of our fulfillment process so we can continue to deliver for customers. The company is, of course, quick to point out that Sparrow (along with its other robots) is designed to replace repetitive tasks – and, perhaps, save a few human backs in the process. It’s understandably become common practice to get out ahead of the standard criticism of companies automating away jobs, but pointing out that these systems, 1. Have the ability to actually create more jobs in the long run and2. Those are “better” jobs than the standard warehouse fare. Image Credits: Amazon Per the second, Amazon attached a note about its employee education programs in the Sparrow blog post, noting, An example of our commitment to advancing employee careers is our Amazon Mechatronic and Robotics Apprenticeship. A 12-week classroom apprentice program covered by Amazon that is followed by 2,000 hours of on-the-job training and industry-recognized certifications, helping our employees learn new skills and pursue in-demand, technical maintenance roles. Following completion of the apprenticeship, employee pay increases by approximately 40% for program participants.

With $7M raised, Keyo launches a biometric palm verification network • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in biometrics, Enterprise, Gadgets, Hardware, KeyoNo Comments

Maybe you’ve heard of Keyo. Perhaps you saw the initial round of press the firm did in 2017 — roughly two years after its founding. Or maybe you saw it pop back in 2020, riding the wave of news around Amazon’s lukewarmly received hand-scanner tech. You may have wondered precisely what’s been going on with the Chicago-based firm in the interim. “I think we were probably a bit naïve in the beginning to underestimate the true complexity of this undertaking,” admits co-founder/CEO Jaxon Klein. “There’s a lot involved in building a global scale identity solution. We’ve been in deep engineering mode for several years now. We’ve put the last five years and millions of dollars into building what we really view as the first global scale biometric identity ecosystem.” It’s not a unique case, in that respect. And may well mean that your organization is on the right track, if members of the press are willing to discuss your technologies at such an early stage. But the kind of technology Keyo has been working on is the sort of thing it’s important to get exactly right, given the security, privacy and financial implications of its biometrics. Image Credits: Keyo “That early press coverage was us prematurely saying ‘hey, look what we’re doing,’” Klein adds. “It settled in what we were really doing and the reasons that no other companies were competing for the space and how just how long and hard the road were heading down. We then retreated from that and said, ‘okay, we have a lot to build and we need to go actually deploy this into the real world, work with real customers work with real users and make sure we’re doing it right.” This week, the company’s got something to show for that work. Fueled by an aggregate $7 million in seed funding, the Keyo Network had previously been in beta. It’s a combination of hardware and software designed to bring palm scanning to a broad range of different markets and services. Today it’s announcing the Keyo Wave hand-scanner hardware, Keyo mobile app, third-party partner program and the Keyo Identify Cloud, which “enables users to instantly and privately identify themselves based on a simple scan of their hand at any business participating in the Keyo network.” The Keyo team remains small, with 33 remote employees, though Klein says the firm has been hiring around an employee a week. Not huge growth, though he winkingly notes that at least the startup is bucking the current brutal trend in startup land. Image Credits: Keyo “One of the things we’ve gotten really good at is scalable supply chain deployment. We’ve deployed 15,000 devices just recently, and we manage our supply chain internally. Even pre-pandemic, we’ve been building out our supply chain in North America — largely in the U.S. We’ve built a lot of institutional knowledge and capabilities around operating and expanding supply chains. We are really unique in the hardware space — or part of a very small cohort — that designs and builds their own devices, that’s entirely distributed.” The notion of replacing more traditional payment methods like cards — or even phones — with hand scanning will continue to attract its share of critics. That will only increase as massive corporations like Amazon adopt such technologies, but there’s little doubt the interest is there, at least with the corporations fueling such change.

Apple pledges $450M toward expanding the satellite infrastructure powering Emergency SOS • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, Hardware, infrastructure, iOS, iPhone, satelliteNo Comments

As a part of its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, Apple will invest $450 million in satellite network and ground stations to power Emergency SOS, its service for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro lineups that uses satellite to route emergency calls, the company announced today. The majority of the funding will go to Globalstar, the satellite provider with which Apple has an existing partnership to deliver Emergency SOS when it launches later this month. In part, Apple’s capital infusion will fund the installation of new custom-designed antennas manufactured by California-based company Cobham Satcom. Designed to receive signals transmitted by Globalstar’s satellite constellation, the antennas have already be installed in the satellite provider’s existing ground stations including facilities in Nevada, Hawaii, Texas, Alaska, Florida and Puerto Rico. “The launch of Emergency SOS via satellite direct to iPhone is a generational advancement in satellite communications, and we are proud that Globalstar’s satellites and spectrum assets will play a central role in saving lives,” Globalstart executive chairman Jay Monroe said in a statement. “With Apple’s infrastructure investment, we’ve grown our teams in California and elsewhere to construct, expand, and upgrade our ground stations, and we look forward to the next chapter in Globalstar’s lifesaving technology.” As CNBC notes, Apple’s investment — one of the largest to date out of its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, through which the company has furnished U.S.-based suppliers including Corning, Finisar, XPO Logistics and Copan Diagnostics with over $1.4 billion dollars combined — underscores the costly nature of satellite-based communications. In addition to substantial technical and communications infrastructure, Emergency SOS requires human-staffed call centers. Apple says that over 300 Globalstar employees will work on the service. Emergency SOS doesn’t support ordinary data, voice or text. But it alerts emergency services with a location and other key information. Once users point their phone at a satellite using an orientation guide in iOS, they can choose between preset messages to be sent along with the phone’s battery level and medical info to local EMS. If supported in the region where the emergency call is placed, iPhone users can have a two-way conversation with first responders. If not, Emergency SOS will route communications through Apple-operated local relay stations that act as intermediaries with emergency services. Emergency SOS will remain free for two years to Phone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners when it goes live in late November in the U.S. and Canada. But Apple has left open the possibility of charging for it after that.

Apple limits AirDrop ‘everyone’ option to 10 minutes in China • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in airdrop, Apple, censorship, China, Government & Policy, HardwareNo Comments

A change in the iOS 16.1.1 update for Chinese users is turning some heads. Apple is restricting the “Everyone” option in AirDrop to ten minutes on iPhones purchased in mainland China, according to online user reports. That means people can no longer keep their Airdrop on for an unlimited time, including for strangers and contacts. Some argue that this feature should have long been an option for all Apple users — sometimes one just forgets to switch Airdrop off and end up with unsolicited content from unknown users — but others interpret the decision as Apple’s response to recent incidents in China. Airdrop, which uses Bluetooth Low Energy and peer-to-peer wifi technology to enable instant file transferring, remains one of the few uncensored communication medium in China, which is why people were using the feature to share politically sensitive content with others in recent weeks as the country’s top leadership reshuffled. Despite the rise of local rivals like Huawei and Oppo, Apple has managed to hold onto its dominance in China, especially among more affluent demographics. In the second quarter, iPhones accounted for 13% of handset shipments in China, according to Counterpoint’s research, down from 18% and 22% in Q1 and Q4 respectively. It’s not unusual for Apple to introduce region-specific restrictions to abide by local regulations. In EU countries, for example, users can’t exceed the EU Volume Level as a result of hearing protection standards. In China, Apple has a history of applying more stringent rules on content-related services, including games and podcasts, a closely watched area by the local authorities.

I guess you can (officially) use your fancy Canon camera as a webcam studio now • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Canon, Gadgets, Hardware, webcamNo Comments

When the pandemic slammed into our shores a couple of years ago, many of us were shoo-ed inside, doomed to endless Zoom meetings. At the time, Canon released a beta of its EOS Webcam Utility, and then seemed to pretty much forget about it. Until today. In a ‘geez, Canon, this would have been helpful two years ago’ kind of move, the company released the EOS Webcam Utility Pro software, so you can finally show up crisply high-def with Canon’s blessing. Canon claims that ‘millions of users’ have already been using the EOS Webcam Utility for streaming and meetings, and its ‘pro’ installment of the software lets you give the company money (yay!) and ‘unlock exclusive features that take video communication and customization capabilities to the next level.’ Forgive the sarcasm; Canon’s EOS cameras are legitimately high-end and high-quality products and its lens lineup continues to be world-class, so if you really want to highlight every pore and every stray eyelash, Canon’s got your, er, front. The subscription version of the software will set you back $4.99 per month, or $50 per year. It enables you to hook up several cameras, unlocks wireless connectivity, and gives more camera and content control. It ups the framerate available to 60 fps, and you can push the video streams to multiple channels at once, such as YouTube, Facebook Live, and others. The new software also includes layout options, watermarking, scene transitions, and other stuff. Now, if those things were important to you, you have probably already discovered the free OBS software and a slew of other, paid-for solutions that have various degrees of sophistication and feature sets. But, you know. Canon.

IBM unveils its 433 qubit Osprey quantum computer • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Enterprise, Hardware, IBM, quantum computingNo Comments

IBM wants to scale up its quantum computers to over 4,000 qubits by 2025 — but we’re not quite there yet. For now, we have to make do with significantly smaller systems and today, IBM announced the launch of its Osprey quantum processor, which features 433 qubits, up from the 127 qubits of its 2021 Eagle processor. And with that, the slow but steady march toward a quantum processor with real-world applications continues. “The new 433 qubit ‘Osprey’ processor brings us a step closer to the point where quantum computers will be used to tackle previously unsolvable problems,” said Darío Gil, Senior Vice President, IBM and Director of Research. “We are continuously scaling up and advancing our quantum technology across hardware, software and classical integration to meet the biggest challenges of our time, in conjunction with our partners and clients worldwide. This work will prove foundational for the coming era of quantum-centric supercomputing.” Image Credits: IBM IBM’s quantum roadmap includes two additional stages — the 1,121-qubit Condor and 1,386-qubit Flamingo processors in 2023 and 2024 — before it plans to hit the 4,000-qubit stage with its Kookaburra processor in 2025. So far, the company has generally been able to make this roadmap work, but the number of qubits in a quantum processor is obviously only one part of a very large and complex puzzle, with longer coherence times and reduced noise being just as important. Ideally, that’s something developers who want to work with these machines wouldn’t have to worry about, so increasingly, the tools they use are abstracting the hardware away for them. With the new version of its Qiskit Runtime, for example, developers can now trade speed for reduced error count. The company also today detailed its Quantum System Two — basically IBM’s quantum mainframe — which will be able to house multiple quantum processors and integrate them into a single system with high-speed communication links. The idea here is to launch this system by the end of 2023. Image Credits: IBM

Electric Era wants to put an EV charger in convenience store parking lot near you • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Hardware, TransportationNo Comments

Before starting Electric Era, Quincy Lee was one of the chief mechanical engineers at Space X. He got bored of doing space stuff when the climate crisis was happening down here on Earth and decided to do something about one of the biggest challenges with the adoption of electric vehicles: Distributed high-speed charging infrastructure. “I spent seven years at SpaceX cutting my teeth on rockets and satellites. While watching a rocket launch from SpaceX mission control in 2018, I saw the Earth recede in size as the rocket flew away into the void of space. WTF, I thought to myself,” says Lee, the company’s founder and CEO, in an interview with ZebethMedia. “Why am I spending all my time sending tech away from Earth when humanity is about to burn to a crisp from climate change. That is dumb.” The company just raised $4 million (bringing its total raised to $8 million) to tackle this challenge, with fast-charging EV stations, especially aiming to install them at and near convenience stores. That makes them eligible for President Biden’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, enabling it to tap into the $5 billion program. The business model makes sense: 7-Eleven claimed it’s gearing up to install charger stations at 500 of its locations by the end of the year and last year, Shell claimed it is wants to add 500,000 charging points by the end of 2025. The market may soon be ready for some consolidation, come to think of it. Electric Era announced that it has secured its investment from Proeza Ventures, Blackhorn Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures and previous strategic investors including Remus Capital. The company also added another SpaceX veteran to its payroll — Sam Reineman, who served as Lead Mechanical Engineer at the Musk-powered company. He joins as Electric Era’s CTO to help accelerate the production and delivery of the PowerNode Platform to customers. “Blackhorn, Proeza and Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 ventures are outstanding. They are deeply technical and top tier climate investors. They are super intense about deep decarbonization, first principles thinking and outstanding business strategy, said Lee. “The PowerNode Platform is the most affordable EV fast-charging solution. We built it to avoid costly demand charges and grid upgrades, making it the ideal choice for convenience stores — particularly those looking to qualify for NEVI grants.” The idea is that the platform reduces grid requirements and demand charges by a third, while supporting fast-charging speeds. The upshot is that this enables convenience stores to replicate the gas station experience while optimizing revenue and minimizing the costs of fast-charging, keeping them in the game in a new round of competition with gas stations and charging infrastructure. “Our tech allows us to build Tesla SuperCharger-like stations at every gas station in America in weeks instead of years. We are laser focused on having 10,000 PowerNode charging stations installed by 2030,” claims Lee, painting a picture of aggressive market expansion in the future: “Electric Era was founded to make EV fast-charging ubiquitous and affordable. In 10 years you will be able to autonomously charge your Rivian or CyberTruck on every street corner in America at our charging stations.” Not a moment too soon; EV charging is desperate for a business model, as Tim explored in a recent post, and inviting EV drivers into convenience stores and fast food establishments might be just the thing to tip the scales. The company is facing stiff competition, as a huge number of EV charging companies have raised money in the past year, all trying to take on different slices of the same market. Loop lassoed in $60 million, Bump charged ahead with $180 million, Monta climbed a $30 million mountain of cash and Kopperfield made $5 million appear, just to list a few of the recent rounds.

Eliyan raises $40M from Intel and Micron to build chiplet interconnects • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in chips, funding, Hardware, Intel, Micron, semiconductor, startup, StartupsNo Comments

Increasingly, as Moore’s law rears its ugly head, computer chip developers are adopting “chiplet” architectures to scale their hardware’s processing power. Chiplets are Lego-like integrated circuit blocks designed to work with other, similar chiplets to form complex, stackable chips that boost performance while maintaining a similar physical footprint. Chiplets offer a number of advantages over conventional designs. But assembly issues — as well as challenges in balancing cost, performance, power consumption and time to market — often plague them in the early phases. Aiming to overcome the hurdles in chiplet creation, Ramin Fajadrad, Syrus Ziai and Patrick Soheili founded Eliyan, a chiplet interconnect startup, in 2021. Eliyan’s technology — dubbed NuLink — connects chiplet components using standard chip packaging, leading to what the company claims are faster-performing and more energy-efficient chips. “The focus is on developing a way to enable a more high-performance, lower-power and lower-latency interconnect for chiplet architectures, which experts agree is the only path to continuing to scale Moore’s law,” Farjadrad told ZebethMedia in an email interview. “We use our technology in standard packaging, thus saving time, cost and development effort compared to more advanced packing that other interconnect schemes require. In addition, our approach has sustainability benefits by reducing material costs and waste in the manufacturing process and lowering energy consumption for high-performance compute chips.” Eliyan’s roots are in a previous startup, Aquantia, that Marvell acquired in 2019. Farjadrad says the technology has been under development since 2017; he co-started Aquantia and served as the startup’s chief engineer for nearly 15 years. Prior to co-founding Eliyan, Farjadrad spent several years at Marvell as CTO and VP of the company’s networking and automotive division. Ziai is a former Qualcomm engineering VP, while Soheili was previously VP of business development at semiconductor firm eSilicon. While Eliyan hasn’t launched its technology commercially yet — it expects the first silicon to hit the market in Q2 2023 — the company claims to have achieved the last step before manufacturing, a tape-out, using semiconductor manufacturer TSMC’s 5 nm process. “Process” in chip lingo refers to an architectural platform; TSMC began mass-producing 5 nm chips in 2020. “Eliyan’s technology enables processors by allowing them to scale in performance and power to be more readily and practically manufacturable,” Farjadrad said. “The world will always need more computing power, and Eliyan is enabling a critical aspect of making sure scaling will happen for any type of high-performance computing application.” The fact that Eliyan’s tech has yet to reach market might give some would-be customers pause. But the startup has notable investors in the chip world behind it, including Intel and Micron, who alongside Cerberus and Celestra contributed to Eliyan’s $40 million Series A tranche that closed today. With the capital, Eliyan plans to continue chasing after a chiplet market that could be worth $50 billion in 2024 — specifically by ramping up testing and implementation. Farjadrad wouldn’t name clients, but said that Eliyan, which currently has a 21-person staff, is in discussions with “big semi companies, hyperscalers and AI processor startups.” “We’re dealing with the challenges and realities of physics in designing and manufacturing advanced chips … [but we’re] in a high-demand market,” Farjadrad said. “Our technology will ultimately lead to faster, more efficient and cheaper high-performance computing to run data centers, cloud computing AI, graphics and more.”