In the pre­miere episode of the new pod­cast, Smoltalk, Smoltek CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son sits down with Smoltek CTO Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni to talk about Smoltek Semi’s ultra-thin capac­i­tors, called CNF-MIM, and the tech­nol­o­gy and busi­ness behind them. The episode is avail­able on Apple Pod­casts, Spo­ti­fy, and most oth­er pod­cast direc­to­ries, as well as on YouTube. Below is a sum­ma­ry of the dis­cus­sion between the two gentlemen.

Smoltek’s 20-year journey

The com­pa­ny is approach­ing its 20th anniver­sary, a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment for a devel­op­ment-phase com­pa­ny. Dr. Gha­vani­ni notes that the orig­i­nal founders, includ­ing Shafiq and Pro­fes­sor Peter Enoks­son, are still active­ly involved as employ­ees or share­hold­ers. Ander­s­son sees this long-term com­mit­ment as a “tes­ta­ment to the poten­tial” of the core technology.

What makes the technology special

Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers (CNF) pos­sess a unique com­bi­na­tion of three key prop­er­ties. They are excel­lent con­duc­tors of elec­tric­i­ty, excel­lent con­duc­tors of heat, and, as nanos­truc­tures, they have an extreme­ly high sur­face-to-vol­ume ratio.

It is this mas­sive sur­face area (or “high aspect ratio”) that both Smoltek Semi (for capac­i­tors) and Smoltek Hydro­gen (for elec­trolyz­ers) lever­age to build com­po­nents that are far more effi­cient and com­pact than tra­di­tion­al solutions.

Ultra-thin capacitors explained

Smoltek Semi focus­es on an emerg­ing class of “ultra-thin capac­i­tors.” These are not con­ven­tion­al com­po­nents like MLCCs (which are 300–400 microm­e­ters thick) but are instead fab­ri­cat­ed using advanced semi­con­duc­tor processes.

This allows for com­po­nents well below 100 microm­e­ters. Dr. Gha­vani­ni con­firms that Smoltek has already suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ed capac­i­tors as thin as 40 micrometers.

The AI and data center revolution

This ultra-thin pro­file is crit­i­cal for the AI rev­o­lu­tion. Advanced AI proces­sors, like NVIDI­A’s H100, expe­ri­ence mas­sive tran­sient cur­rents, draw­ing hun­dreds of amps in mere nanosec­onds. To func­tion, they need a large “reser­voir of elec­trons” (a capac­i­tor) avail­able instantly.

This requires two things: high capac­i­tance den­si­ty and extreme prox­im­i­ty to the proces­sor. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy is engi­neered to deliv­er both, solv­ing the “pow­er deliv­ery dilem­ma” that is a major bot­tle­neck for AI hardware.

Miniaturization and wearables

While arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) are the pri­ma­ry dri­vers, the tech­nol­o­gy is also per­fect­ly suit­ed for oth­er space-con­strained appli­ca­tions. These include wear­ables like smart­watch­es and earpods.

Fur­ther­more, the tech­nol­o­gy is ide­al for high-fre­quen­cy (RF) appli­ca­tions. In RF sys­tems, com­po­nents must be very small to match the trans­mis­sion lines, pre­vent­ing sig­nal reflec­tions and ener­gy waste.

Technology comparison: CNF-MIM vs silicon trench

Today, the main com­peti­tor in the ultra-thin space is sil­i­con trench tech­nol­o­gy. Dr. Gha­vani­ni explains the key dif­fer­ence. Trench tech­nol­o­gy etch­es deep, nar­row trench­es into sil­i­con, achiev­ing an aspect ratio (depth-to-width) of about 20–25. To get enough capac­i­tance, they must stack mul­ti­ple capac­i­tor lay­ers inside these trenches.

Each lay­er requires a cost­ly and slow man­u­fac­tur­ing step called Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD). Stack­ing four lay­ers means pay­ing for that expen­sive process four times.

Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy grows nanofibers with an aspect ratio of 100 (for Gen-One). Because this ratio is so high, Smoltek can achieve com­pa­ra­ble per­for­mance with just one ALD step, cre­at­ing a fun­da­men­tal cost advan­tage and a new “S‑curve” for inno­va­tion by sim­ply grow­ing the fibers taller.

Product development status

Smoltek is now in the “lab-to-fab” phase, which is focused on indus­tri­al­iza­tion. As a unique tech­nol­o­gy, Dr. Gha­vani­ni notes that the “bur­den of proof” is high. The most impor­tant mile­stone is prov­ing reliability.

Smoltek recent­ly announced a major suc­cess on this front: its capac­i­tors passed a 1,000-hour test at 85°C. This proves that the tech­nol­o­gy is “fun­da­men­tal­ly reli­able,” a crit­i­cal step toward com­mer­cial­iza­tion. The next phase is focused on pro­duc­ing cus­tomer val­i­da­tion sam­ples of Gen-One.

ITRI partnership in Taiwan

This progress is sup­port­ed by key part­ners. The Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute (ITRI) in Tai­wan, a world-renowned semi­con­duc­tor insti­tute, is a cru­cial part­ner on two fronts. First, ITRI is fab­ri­cat­ing the “Gen-One” val­i­da­tion sam­ples. Sec­ond, they are col­lab­o­rat­ing with Smoltek to estab­lish a “pilot line” for low-vol­ume pro­duc­tion, pro­vid­ing pow­er­ful exter­nal val­i­da­tion for the Asian market.

YAGEO and Kemet collaboration

Smoltek also main­tains a strong tech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion with YAGEO and its sub­sidiary, Kemet, with month­ly tech­ni­cal meet­ings. This part­ner­ship pro­vides expert val­i­da­tion and access to spe­cial­ized equipment.

For exam­ple, YAGEO/​Kemet helped sim­u­late the capac­i­tor’s par­a­sitic induc­tance (ESL), which was cal­cu­lat­ed to be around one picohenry—an excel­lent result that is too low for Smoltek to even mea­sure with its own equipment.

Future roadmap and integration plans

With a new, in-house ALD sys­tem, Smoltek will accel­er­ate its R&D and IP gen­er­a­tion. The future roadmap includes “Gen-Two” trough “Gen-Three,” which will fea­ture even taller fibers for high­er capacitance.

The go-to-mar­ket plan starts with a stand­alone, dis­crete capac­i­tor. This will be fol­lowed by advanced inte­gra­tion, such as embed­ding the capac­i­tor into an inter­pos­er. The long-term vision is to grow nanofibers direct­ly onto the active CMOS chip (back­end of line), achiev­ing the clos­est pos­si­ble integration.

EU chiplet project

This inte­gra­tion strat­e­gy aligns per­fect­ly with the “chiplet” trend, which involves break­ing large proces­sors into small­er, spe­cial­ized com­po­nents. Smoltek is part Chips Joint Under­tak­ing (Chips JU). In this ecosys­tem, Smoltek’s capac­i­tor-on-sil­i­con would func­tion as a spe­cial­ized chiplet ded­i­cat­ed to pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion, solv­ing a key chal­lenge for next-gen­er­a­tion hardware.

Listen to the full episode

This arti­cle cov­ers the main top­ics from the pre­miere episode of Smoltalk. To hear the full, in-depth con­ver­sa­tion with Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni, lis­ten to the full episode.

You find Smoltalk on Apple Pod­casts, Spo­ti­fy, and most oth­er pod­cast direc­to­ries, as well as on YouTube.