Building on the success of the first year of Startups for Sustainable Semiconductors to spur more green technology innovation, SEMI launched the second year of the program in January, inviting all startups, academics, and innovators with compelling ideas for advancing semiconductor industry sustainability to apply to participate.
The year two effort takes aim at identifying innovative technologies focused on circularity (water and waste), emissions, and energy efficiency.
To increase the Startups program’s reach, organizers of the SEMI-led initiative connected with Enterprise Singapore's Sustainability Open Innovation Challenge, specifically focusing on GlobalFoundries' Green Buildings and Zero-waste Challenge Statements – a collaboration that increased the number of companies applying to the Startups program. SEMI and the Startups for Sustainable Semiconductors organizing committee thanks Enterprise Singapore and GlobalFoundries for their support.
This year we attracted a large pool of applications reviewed by the organizing committee and narrowed down to these semifinalists. The semifinalists were matched with industry mentors over six weeks for coaching on how to apply their technologies to the semiconductor industry, cater their pitch to the industry, and earn proof of concept and sales opportunities. SEMI hosted a two-day online pitch event in June, with semifinalists presenting to an audience of 50+ corporate VCs, financial VCs, accelerators, and incubators. The organizing committee evaluated and scored each presentation, and the following companies were selected as finalists.
The finalists will be invited to present at the Sustainability Pavilion during SEMICON West on Thursday, July 13, as part of a startup-focused program featuring keynotes from Micron and Tokyo Electron, as well as a panel discussion among corporate VCs on their role in sparking sustainability innovation in the industry.
“We are proud to continue the sustainability journey that we started along with our partners in the industry, identifying the finalists of this year’s SEMI Startups for Sustainable Semiconductors program and their innovative solutions to some of the most important challenges around circularity, energy, and waste reduction,” said Tobias Egle, analyst in the Technology Investment team at M Ventures, the corporate Venture Capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
Circularity
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ElectraMet is a cleantech company focused on strategic metal recovery from process water and wastewater streams using its patented technology. |
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GRAPHEC has developed a new, low-cost electrode material for electrochemical water treatment without oxidizing chloride. This work was developed in the scope of European Research Council Starting Grant project ELECTRON4WATER. |
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Purity ReSource develops technology to maximize the point-of-use recovery of chemical resources. |
Emissions
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CFEX technology has been developed to track and reduce Scope 2 emissions across supply chains. |
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InnoFlex develops scalable rooftop photocatalytic systems to break down F-GHGs and other prevalent greenhouse gases emitted by semiconductor fabs. |
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Multiscale Technologies offers a full suite of products that accelerate innovations in materials and manufacturing processes while simultaneously reducing harmful gases such as carbon dioxide released during manufacturing. |
Energy
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Aqua Membranes builds elements using printed spacers compatible with existing systems to reduce wasted energy by up to 60% and increase rates of water reuse and recycling. |
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Corintis pushes the state of the art in computing design by offering a new dimension in cooling and logic co-design. |
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L2X Labs’ ambitious mission is to develop EUV technology for the next generation of chip manufacturing. |
Learn more about the SEMI Startups for Sustainable Semiconductors.
James Amano is senior director of EHS and Sustainability at SEMI.