Berkeley-based advanced materials startup Thintronics has secured an undisclosed Series A Extension, led by Maverick Capital and Translink Capital, to accelerate its mission of revamping insulator technology for high-performance electronics. The round, which includes strategic investments from M Ventures (Merck KGaA’s corporate venture capital (CVC) arm) and TGVP (Toppan Holdings’ U.S. CVC arm), will fuel Thintronics’ expansion and support its efforts to displace fiberglass in advanced applications like AI data centers and 5G/6G infrastructure.

Stefan Pastine, CEO of Thintronics, noted in a press release that the funding round also involves “additional support” and “strategic insights in semiconductor materials and semiconductor packaging.”

Earlier this year, the company announced that it closed $24 million in Series A financing led by Maverick capital and Translink Capital.

Thintronics’ CTO, Tristan El Bouayadi, shed light on the company’s vision and how the funding will help them execute it. “The market has a real need for simpler integration schemes with higher performance requirements in terms of signal integrity, power integrity, and thermomechanical reliability,” he explained. Addressing the complexity of the semiconductor ecosystem, El Bouayadi underscored the collaborative approach Thintronics is taking: “Harnessing the networking effect from semiconductor material suppliers to packaging fabs and OSAT [Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test] will enable Thintronics to make this a reality.”

El Bouayadi also outlined Thintronics’ role in driving the adoption of novel packaging technologies: “Practically speaking, Thintronics will act as an ecosystem enabler for architectures such as Interposer-less 2.1D, Chiplets and heterogeneous co-packaging. This investment aligns perfectly with our technical and commercial roadmap.”

Insulators tailored for tomorrow

Founded in 2019, the Berkeley and soon to be moving to Alamada, California, the startup is developing a new class of high-performance insulators that surpass the limitations of conventional materials, especially in cutting-edge AI datacenter, networking, and RF/millimeter-wave applications that are pushing the limits of current interconnect technologies.

The company’s new class of insulator materials offers significant advantages over traditional fiberglass-based insulators. These materials can be tuned to be flexible or rigid, enabling high-speed interconnects up to 224 Gbps and 6G for wireless RF applications. Its insulators also provide a 50% thickness reduction compared to traditional materials. And by minimizing signal loss and energy dissipation, Thintronics’ insulators are designed to support demanding applications in AI datacenters, networking, and RF/mmW technologies.

Shaking up semiconductor norms

As a recent Technology Review article noted, Thintronics’ quest to develop novel dielectric materials positions it as a challenger to Ajinomoto, the Japanese food company that, curiously, has dominated the market for dielectric film used in chip manufacturing for the past 30 years. This dominance stems from long-standing relationships with chip manufacturers and the complexities of producing these critical components at scale. Ajinomoto’s Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF) has become a key component in the semiconductor industry, enabling faster processing speeds and lower energy consumption in electronic devices. Its development stemmed from Ajinomoto’s research on amino acid chemistry and epoxy resins, paving the way for a film-based insulator that addressed the limitations of conventional liquid insulators. The company now has a more than 90% market share on the component of semiconductor production.

As Technology Review noted, potential hurdles to disrupting the status quo include the conservative nature of the semiconductor industry. Several companies have challenged Ajinomoto and haven’t been successful. Yet the changing landscape of chip design, with major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta developing their own chips, could open up new opportunities.