The semi­con­duc­tor industry’s grave­yard is full of bril­liant tech­nolo­gies that nev­er escaped the lab­o­ra­to­ry. For Smoltek share­hold­ers, the recent­ly signed tech­ni­cal ser­vice agree­ment with Taiwan’s Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute (ITRI) rep­re­sents the game-chang­ing moment that sep­a­rates promis­ing research from com­mer­cial reality.

This agree­ment has been met with sig­nif­i­cant enthu­si­asm from share­hold­ers and the mar­ket – and right­ful­ly so. But to ful­ly appre­ci­ate why this part­ner­ship marks such a cru­cial turn­ing point, we need to under­stand what it con­crete­ly deliv­ers and why ITRI is the per­fect part­ner to take our unique capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy from lab to fab.

More than an agreement

On the sur­face, this is a tech­ni­cal ser­vice agree­ment enabling low-vol­ume pro­duc­tion of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. But its real val­ue lies in what it unlocks. For over a year, Smoltek Semi and ITRI have worked togeth­er devel­op­ing and refin­ing the tech­ni­cal process­es required to man­u­fac­ture our capac­i­tors. This new, for­mal­ized agree­ment rep­re­sents the cul­mi­na­tion of that work and the start­ing sig­nal for the next phase: industrialization.

This is the deci­sive step to take our tech­nol­o­gy from “lab to fab.” By estab­lish­ing a pilot pro­duc­tion line at ITRI, we can man­u­fac­ture indus­tri­al pro­to­types for the first time. This mat­ters for two crit­i­cal reasons:

First, cus­tomer val­i­da­tion. We already have cus­tomers wait­ing for indus­tri­al pro­to­types and are in dis­cus­sions with poten­tial cus­tomers will­ing to pay pre­mi­um prices for our capac­i­tors. Being able to deliv­er phys­i­cal, indus­tri­al­ly man­u­fac­tured capac­i­tors for eval­u­a­tion pro­vides the ulti­mate proof of our technology’s matu­ri­ty and performance.

Sec­ond, risk mit­i­ga­tion. By ver­i­fy­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing process along­side a world-lead­ing part­ner, we sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce both tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial risks. We’re prov­ing not just that our tech­nol­o­gy works, but how it can be man­u­fac­tured in an indus­tri­al environment.

Why ITRI?

The choice of part­ner is no coin­ci­dence. ITRI isn’t just any research insti­tute. With over 6,000 employ­ees and a patent port­fo­lio exceed­ing 30,000 patents, ITRI stands as one of the pil­lars of Taiwan’s tech­no­log­i­cal miracle.

It was ITRI that laid the foun­da­tion for Taiwan’s entire semi­con­duc­tor indus­try in the 1970s and 80s by act­ing as an incu­ba­tor and then spin­ning off giants like UMC (1980) and TSMC (1987) – today two of the world’s largest chip man­u­fac­tur­ers. ITRI’s entire exis­tence is built on bridg­ing the gap between break­through research and com­mer­cial mass pro­duc­tion. They are world-lead­ing experts at bring­ing new semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy to market.

Part­ner­ing with ITRI gives Smoltek a qual­i­ty stamp that is invalu­able. It sig­nals to the entire indus­try that our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is ready to be tak­en seri­ous­ly at the high­est lev­el. More­over, it posi­tions us at the heart of the glob­al semi­con­duc­tor ecosys­tem in Tai­wan, close to our customers.

What happens now?

The agree­ment involves sev­er­al con­crete and val­ue-cre­at­ing steps that accel­er­ate our devel­op­ment timeline.

The most sig­nif­i­cant aspect is that we will install our advanced, cus­tom-designed chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (CVD) tool direct­ly in ITRI’s pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty. This advanced PE-CVD tool grows the car­bon nanofibers that form the heart of our capac­i­tor technology.

Instead of ship­ping mate­ri­als between facil­i­ties, we now have a com­plete val­ue chain – from car­bon nanofiber growth to fin­ished capac­i­tor – in one location.

This set­up cuts logis­tics costs, speeds up devel­op­ment, and gives us bet­ter process con­trol – all essen­tial for scal­ing up pro­duc­tion. As CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son explains, “With the ITRI agree­ment and instal­la­tion of our car­bon growth machine in their pro­duc­tion envi­ron­ment, we have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to scale up and grow car­bon nanofibers for man­u­fac­tur­ing mil­lions of capac­i­tors per year.”

This man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty opens two imme­di­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties. First, it enables pro­duc­tion of indus­tri­al pro­to­types for cus­tomer eval­u­a­tion – address­ing the crit­i­cal gap between lab­o­ra­to­ry demon­stra­tions and real-world val­i­da­tion. Sec­ond, it allows small-vol­ume com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion for spe­cial­ized cus­tomer projects, cre­at­ing an imme­di­ate path to ini­tial rev­enue while larg­er licens­ing agree­ments are negotiated.

Strategic positioning in semiconductor’s epicenter

The geo­graph­ic ele­ment of this part­ner­ship can­not be over­looked. Tai­wan hosts the world’s most sophis­ti­cat­ed semi­con­duc­tor ecosys­tem, with com­pa­nies like TSMC, UMC, and dozens of pack­ag­ing and test­ing facil­i­ties all with­in close prox­im­i­ty. By estab­lish­ing our pilot pro­duc­tion at ITRI, Smoltek posi­tions itself at the cen­ter of this ecosystem.

This prox­im­i­ty pro­vides imme­di­ate access to poten­tial cus­tomers who are already eval­u­at­ing next-gen­er­a­tion pack­ag­ing solu­tions for AI and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing appli­ca­tions. The tim­ing aligns per­fect­ly with indus­try trends, as advanced proces­sors for AI and data cen­ters push the lim­its of pow­er deliv­ery – cre­at­ing exact­ly the prob­lems that our ultra-thin, high-capac­i­tance solu­tions are designed to solve.

Risk mitigation through proven expertise

Per­haps most impor­tant­ly for share­hold­ers, this part­ner­ship dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduces the tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial risks asso­ci­at­ed with our indus­tri­al­iza­tion jour­ney. ITRI’s deep knowl­edge of semi­con­duc­tor scal­ing process­es means we can lever­age decades of accu­mu­lat­ed exper­tise rather than learn­ing through cost­ly tri­al and error.

Con­sid­er what this means in prac­tice. When TSMC was spun off from ITRI in 1987, it was­n’t just giv­en tech­nol­o­gy – it inher­it­ed the man­u­fac­tur­ing wis­dom that ITRI had devel­oped over years of research and devel­op­ment. That same exper­tise is now avail­able to Smoltek as we nav­i­gate the crit­i­cal tran­si­tion from lab­o­ra­to­ry to com­mer­cial production.

This expe­ri­ence becomes invalu­able as we pre­pare for licens­ing agree­ments with major com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers. Poten­tial part­ners need con­fi­dence that our tech­nol­o­gy can scale reli­ably and cost-effec­tive­ly. Hav­ing ITRI’s val­i­da­tion pro­vides exact­ly that assurance.

Securing Smoltek’s place in semiconductor’s elite

Our patent­ed CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy enables man­u­fac­tur­ing of extreme­ly thin capac­i­tors with excep­tion­al­ly high capac­i­tance den­si­ty. These char­ac­ter­is­tics are cru­cial for next-gen­er­a­tion elec­tron­ics in rapid­ly grow­ing mar­kets like AI, mobile com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and high-per­for­mance data cen­ters, where max­i­mum per­for­mance in min­i­mal space is everything.

The ITRI agree­ment is about more than just man­u­fac­tur­ing – it’s about real­iz­ing this poten­tial. This strate­gic alliance com­bines our unique, dis­rup­tive nan­otech­nol­o­gy with ITRI’s unmatched exper­tise in indus­tri­al scal­ing. Togeth­er, we’re now tak­ing the deci­sive step to estab­lish Smoltek Semi as a key play­er in the glob­al semi­con­duc­tor industry.

For share­hold­ers, this agree­ment trans­forms Smoltek from a com­pa­ny with promis­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nol­o­gy into one with proven indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty. That trans­for­ma­tion, val­i­dat­ed by one of the world’s most respect­ed semi­con­duc­tor research insti­tutes, rep­re­sents the cru­cial leap toward real­iz­ing the com­mer­cial poten­tial of CNF-MIM technology.

The jour­ney from lab to fab has begun in earnest.