# Smoltek > Pioneering Carbon Nanotechnology --- title: "About" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_19ae472b765a4644bf326a0a66b6dcebmv2-jpg.webp" --- # About ![Pexels Jimmy Teoh 1634278](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/pexels-jimmy-teoh-1634278-1200x675.webp) # About Smoltek Semi Smoltek Semi AB is a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB](https://www.smoltek.com/about/organization/ "Organization"), oper­at­ing as an inde­pen­dent com­pa­ny focused on devel­op­ing break­through tech­nolo­gies for the semi­con­duc­tor industry. For glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ers of advanced elec­tron­ic sys­tems who need to place decou­pling capac­i­tors direct­ly on the under­side of chips between their inter­con­nects to max­i­mize chip per­for­mance while main­tain­ing sta­ble pow­er deliv­ery, CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are ultra-thin capac­i­tors that pro­vide extreme­ly high capac­i­tance in rela­tion to their vol­ume. Unlike deep trench capac­i­tors (DTC), which face phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions in their sub­trac­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing process, CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy uses an addi­tive approach requir­ing few­er pro­duc­tion steps, result­ing in both cost sav­ings and greater design flex­i­bil­i­ty for next-gen­er­a­tion electronics. ### Why? Pro­vid­ing solu­tions that help the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try push the lim­its of Moore’s Law. [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/why/) ### How? Using car­bon nanos­truc­tures that increase sur­face area, reduce con­tact resis­tance, and dis­si­pate heat. [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/how/) ### What? Deliv­er­ing tech­nol­o­gy for ultra-thin capac­i­tors that offer a high­er capac­i­tance per unit height than any other. [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/what/) # Meet the team Behind Smoltek Semi’s tech­nol­o­gy stands sci­en­tists, engi­neers and busi­ness strate­gists with proven track records in semi­con­duc­tor inno­va­tion. This team brings com­ple­men­tary skills in nan­otech­nol­o­gy, mate­ri­als sci­ence and high-vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing – essen­tial for both per­fect­ing car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy and bring­ing it suc­cess­ful­ly to market. ![Magnus Andersson](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ma-2025-management.webp "MA 2025-management") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#magnus-andersson)Magnus Andersson Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer (CEO) & Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi/​Smoltek Hydrogen Mag­nus Ander­s­son has over 25 years of inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence in cor­po­rate acqui­si­tions, busi­ness devel­op­ment and lead­er­ship in tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven growth com­pa­nies, pri­mar­i­ly in the ener­gy sec­tor, where he also acts as an ener­gy expert. **Edu­ca­tion:** M.Sc. Engi­neer­ing and Man­age­ment, Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Gothen­burg; B.Sc. Finance, Gothen­burg School of Economics. ![Farzan Ghavanini](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fg-portrait-01-jpg.webp "FG_portrait_01") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#farzan-ghavanini-phd)Farzan Ghavanini, PhD Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer (CTO) & Head of R&D Smoltek Semi Farzan Gha­vani­ni has sol­id expe­ri­ence from lead­ing posi­tions in tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, most recent­ly as head of new tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment at Fin­ger­print Cards. Farzan also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence of indus­tri­al­iz­ing nanotechnology. **Edu­ca­tion:** Ph.D. Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience, Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Gothenburg ![SNH Gabriel portraits 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/snh-gabriel-portraits-1000x1300-1.webp "SNH Gabriel portraits 1000x1300") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gabriel-altby)Gabriel Altby Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer (CFO) Gabriel Alt­by has 25+ years of expe­ri­ence in senior finan­cial and oper­a­tional posi­tions in inter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies in the elec­tron­ics indus­try. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in finan­cial con­trol, group report­ing and busi­ness sup­port for large indus­tri­al cus­tomers with over­all respon­si­bil­i­ty for finance and account­ing functions. **Edu­ca­tion:** B.Sc. Busi­ness & Eco­nom­ics, Gothen­burg School of Economics ![Snh qi 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-qi-1000x1300-1-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#qi-li-phd)Qi Li, PhD Project Man­ag­er Qi Li man­ages our crit­i­cal devel­op­ment projects with pre­ci­sion and tech­ni­cal insight. His sci­en­tif­ic back­ground com­bined with project man­age­ment exper­tise ensures our tech­ni­cal mile­stones align with busi­ness objec­tives while main­tain­ing the agili­ty need­ed in a rapid­ly evolv­ing field. ![Snh anders 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-anders-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anders-lundgren-msc)Anders Lundgren, MSc Project Man­ag­er Anders Lund­gren coor­di­nates our cru­cial indus­try part­ner­ships, ensur­ing seam­less inte­gra­tion between inter­nal devel­op­ment efforts and exter­nal man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties. His work is essen­tial to our fab­less man­u­fac­tur­ing strategy. ![SNH Sun 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/snh-sun-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#shuangxi-sun-phd)Shuangxi Sun, PhD Project Man­ag­er Dr. Shuangxi Sun brings exper­tise in advanced pack­ag­ing, 3D IC inte­gra­tion, ther­mal man­age­ment, ASIC devel­op­ment, and pro­duc­tion engi­neer­ing. He com­bines research cre­den­tials with exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence, dri­ving inno­va­tion from con­cept devel­op­ment to high-vol­ume production. ![Snh amin 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-amin-1000x1300-1-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#amin-saleem-phd)Amin Saleem, PhD Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Engineer Amin Saleem, uti­liz­ing his spe­cial­ized exper­tise in car­bon nanos­truc­tures, opti­mizes our CNF growth process­es to achieve max­i­mum per­for­mance with con­sis­tent reli­a­bil­i­ty. His work direct­ly impacts our capac­i­tance den­si­ty improve­ments between prod­uct generations.  ![Snh elin 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-elin-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#elin-granas-phd)Elin Grånäs, PhD Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Engineer Elin Grånäs focus­es on mate­r­i­al inter­faces and dielec­tric stack opti­miza­tion, crit­i­cal ele­ments that deter­mine both capac­i­tor per­for­mance and reli­a­bil­i­ty. Her exper­tise ensures our capac­i­tors main­tain elec­tri­cal sta­bil­i­ty under var­i­ous envi­ron­men­tal conditions. ![Arun SNH portraits 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/arun-snh-portraits-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#arun-haridas-phd)Arun Haridas, PhD ALD Research Engineer Arun Hari­das focus­es on thin-film R&D and depo­si­tion tech­nolo­gies, with par­tic­u­lar empha­sis in Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD. ![Snh andreas w 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-andreas-w-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#andreas-westlund-phd)Andreas Westlund, PhD Design Engi­neer Andreas West­lund leads the efforts in design­ing the capac­i­tor and the test­ing efforts we need to under­stand our research and pro­duc­tion results. With his back­ground in microwave design, Andreas engages in how the trade-offs in price and per­for­mance may affect customer’s applications. ![Snh chinjung 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-chinjung-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#chin-jung-kuo-msc)Chin Jung Kuo, MSc Process Engi­neer Chin Jung Kuo spe­cial­izes in trans­lat­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry process­es to indus­tri­al-scale pro­duc­tion, work­ing close­ly with our foundry part­ners to ensure man­u­fac­tur­ing via­bil­i­ty while main­tain­ing per­for­mance standards. ![Snh hampus 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/snh-hampus-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hampus-thulin-msc)Hampus Thulin, MSc R&D engi­neer Ham­pus Thulin leads activ­i­ties relat­ed to the growth, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and inte­gra­tion of car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) into advanced device structures. --- title: "About" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/sh2-ecs244-boothcamp-02-jpg.webp" --- # About ![H2lab xin+bastien 05](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/h2lab-xinbastien-05-1200x675.webp) # About Smoltek Hydrogen Smoltek Hydro­gen AB is a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB](https://www.smoltek.com/about/organization/ "Organization"), oper­at­ing as an inde­pen­dent com­pa­ny focused on devel­op­ing break­through tech­nolo­gies for the renew­able ener­gy sec­tor and the hydro­gen industry. For glob­al indus­tri­al enter­pris­es in the hydro­gen sec­tor seek­ing to reduce cat­a­lyst costs by 80% or more while main­tain­ing high per­for­mance of PEM elec­trolyz­er cells, Smoltek PTE is a Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Sub­strate (CCS) that deliv­ers full func­tion­al­i­ty with min­i­mal pre­cious met­al usage. Unlike the pre­vail­ing Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Mem­brane (CCM) approach­es, where expen­sive cat­a­lysts are inef­fi­cient­ly buried in thick lay­ers, Smoltek Hydrogen’s patent pro­tect­ed car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy cre­ates a 30× larg­er active sur­face area, ensur­ing near­ly all cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al active­ly par­tic­i­pates in the reaction. ### Why? Pro­vid­ing solu­tions that help indus­try real­ize the green transition. [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/why/) ### How? Using cor­ro­sion-resis­tant nanos­truc­tures to increase active area, reduce con­tact resis­tance, and improve mass transport. [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/how/) ### What? Deliv­er­ing tech­nol­o­gy for porous trans­port elec­trodes that solve the irid­i­um challenge. [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/what/) # Meet the team Our excep­tion­al team com­bines deep sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise with indus­tri­al expe­ri­ence to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the hydro­gen econ­o­my. Each mem­ber brings spe­cial­ized knowl­edge in nan­otech­nol­o­gy, mate­ri­als sci­ence, elec­tro­chem­istry, and busi­ness devel­op­ment – cre­at­ing the per­fect foun­da­tion for com­mer­cial­iz­ing break­through innovations. ![Ma management 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ma-management-1000x1300-1.webp "MA management 1000x1300") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#magnus-andersson)Magnus Andersson Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen Mag­nus Ander­s­son has over 25 years of inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence in cor­po­rate acqui­si­tions, busi­ness devel­op­ment and lead­er­ship in tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven growth com­pa­nies, pri­mar­i­ly in the ener­gy sec­tor, where he also acts as an ener­gy expert. **Edu­ca­tion:** M.Sc. Engi­neer­ing and Man­age­ment, Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Gothen­burg; B.Sc. Finance, Gothen­burg School of Economics. ![Fabian Wenger](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fw-2023-management.webp "FW 2023-management") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fabian-wenger-phd)Fabian Wenger, PhD Head of R&D Smoltek Hydrogen Fabi­an Wenger has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in prod­uct devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion, e.g. for Eric­s­son, Emer­son and Qam­com where he also con­tributed with strate­gic IPR. Fabi­an leads and coor­di­nates an agile team cre­at­ing a cat­alyt­ic nano-coat­ing for scal­ing up water elec­trol­y­sis for green hydrogen. **Edu­ca­tion:** Ph.D. The­o­ret­i­cal Sol­id-State Physics, Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Gothenburg ![Snh shafiq 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-shafiq-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#shafiq-kabir-phd-emba)Shafiq Kabir, PhD, EMBA VP Vol­ume Processes Shafiq Kabir, founder of Smoltek, pro­vid­ed the foun­da­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy plat­form for our inno­va­tions through his doc­tor­al research in Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience (2005). After estab­lish­ing a sol­id patent port­fo­lio and lab­o­ra­to­ry infra­struc­ture, he now leads our cru­cial tran­si­tion from lab­o­ra­to­ry pre­ci­sion to indus­tri­al-scale pro­cess­ing, work­ing close­ly with lead­ing equip­ment sup­pli­ers to ensure our sur­face enhance­ment process­es deliv­er con­sis­tent qual­i­ty at scale. ![SNH Gabriel portraits 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/snh-gabriel-portraits-1000x1300-1.webp "SNH Gabriel portraits 1000x1300") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gabriel-altby)Gabriel Altby Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer (CFO) Gabriel Alt­by has 25+ years of expe­ri­ence in senior finan­cial and oper­a­tional posi­tions in inter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies in the elec­tron­ics indus­try. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in finan­cial con­trol, group report­ing and busi­ness sup­port for large indus­tri­al cus­tomers with over­all respon­si­bil­i­ty for finance and account­ing functions. **Edu­ca­tion:** B.Sc. Busi­ness & Eco­nom­ics, Gothen­burg School of Economics ![Snh reka 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-reka-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#reka-simon-balint-msc)Réka Simon-Balint, MSc VP Qual­i­ty & Project Management Réka Simon-Bálint has over 10 years of expe­ri­ence in qual­i­ty assur­ance in high-qual­i­ty man­u­fac­tur­ing envi­ron­ments and holds an MSc in Applied Physics and Mate­ri­als Sci­ence. She will ensure all design, test­ing, and pro­cess­ing pro­to­cols meet rig­or­ous qual­i­ty stan­dards while main­tain­ing oper­a­tional excel­lence, envi­ron­men­tal com­pli­ance, and ser­vice reliability. ![Snh xin 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-xin-1000x1300-1-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#xin-wen-phd)Xin Wen, PhD Senior Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Scientist Xin Wen spe­cial­izes in metal­lic cat­a­lyst syn­the­sis and microstruc­ture analy­sis (PhD in Mate­r­i­al Sci­ence, 2020) and opti­mizes our cat­a­lyst depo­si­tion process­es to achieve max­i­mum per­for­mance with min­i­mal pre­cious met­al loading. ![Snh sankar 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-sankar-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sankar-sasidharan-phd)Sankar Sasidharan, PhD Indus­tri­al Postdoc Sankar Sasid­ha­ran, hold­ing a PhD in Chem­istry (2015) and pos­sess­ing exper­tise in com­pos­ite mate­ri­als and func­tion­al coat­ings, bridges the­o­ret­i­cal research and prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions through our col­lab­o­ra­tion with WISE and Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology. ![Snh bastien 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-bastien-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bastien-penninckx-msc)Bastien Penninckx, MSc Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Scientist Bastien Pen­ninckx imple­ments spe­cial­ized car­bon nanofiber growth process­es and devel­ops pro­duc­tion pro­to­cols that trans­late lab­o­ra­to­ry pre­ci­sion into repeat­able indus­tri­al steps. ![Snh linnea 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-linnea-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#linnea-strandberg-phd)Linnéa Strandberg, PhD Tech­ni­cal Expert Lin­néa Strand­berg con­tributes her exper­tise in elec­tro­chem­istry and cat­a­lyst degra­da­tion, bring­ing sub­stan­tial knowl­edge of PEM cell degra­da­tion improve­ments to our devel­op­ment efforts. ![Snh amin 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/snh-amin-1000x1300-1-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#amin-saleem-phd)Amin Saleem, PhD Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Expert Amin Saleem brings spe­cial­ized exper­tise from Smoltek Semi, enhanc­ing cross-pol­li­na­tion of semi­con­duc­tor-grade pre­ci­sion tech­niques to our hydro­gen applications. ![Er portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/er-portrait-01-jpg.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#emma-ronnmark-msc)Emma Rönnmark, MSc Board Mem­ber Emma Rön­n­mark con­tributes prac­ti­cal elec­tro­fu­el sec­tor insights from her role as Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer at Liq­uid Wind, pro­vid­ing valu­able green hydro­gen mar­ket knowledge. ![Johan rask 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/johan-rask-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#johan-rask-msc)Johan Rask, MSc Board Mem­ber Johan Rask brings strate­gic exper­tise from ven­ture cap­i­tal and M&A roles, cur­rent­ly serv­ing as CEO of Insplo­ri­on AB and board posi­tions across mul­ti­ple tech­nol­o­gy companies. --- title: "Blog" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/blog/" date: 2025-11-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" --- # Blog # Smoltek’s IR blog Wel­come to the Smoltek blog! Here, we write for share­hold­ers and prospec­tive investors. We expand on tech­ni­cal and finan­cial news, pro­vid­ing back­ground infor­ma­tion and clar­i­fy­ing what makes it note­wor­thy and how it affects our business. The tone is infor­mal and some­times play­ful. That’s inten­tion­al. Our aim is to make it easy and enjoy­able for you to under­stand our tech­nol­o­gy and busi­ness. We believe that the most valu­able share­hold­ers and investors are those who under­stand our oper­a­tions and believe in what we do. This is a lot to ask, giv­en how tech­ni­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly advanced our work is. But we have faith in you. ![Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#positioning-for-the-next-wave-of-ai-infrastructure)[Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure](https://www.smoltek.com/positioning-for-the-next-wave-of-ai-infrastructure/23610/) May 8, 2026 The 2026 YAGEO AI Sum­mit in Taipei was not sim­ply a prod­uct show­case. It was a strate­gic posi­tion­ing exer­cise by one of the world’s largest pas­sive com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers to estab­lish itself as a foun­da­tion­al enabler of the AI infra­struc­ture build­out now under­way globally. ![Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#breaking-barriers-part-iv-the-age-of-ai)[Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-part-iv-the-age-of-ai/17165/) Decem­ber 19, 2025 Some years ago, in three arti­cles, I out­lined a vision where nano­ma­te­ri­als in gen­er­al, and Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form in par­tic­u­lar, would help in break­ing bar­ri­ers in sev­er­al indus­tries – espe­cial­ly in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try – bring­ing more super­s­mart gad­gets to society.  ![Smoltek Semi & AI](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-semi-ai)[Smoltek Semi & AI](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi-ai/13551/) Decem­ber 17, 2025 Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) is the col­lec­tive term for tech­nolo­gies that enable com­put­ers to per­form tasks that nor­mal­ly require human intel­li­gence – such as rec­og­niz­ing images, under­stand­ing lan­guage, play­ing games or mak­ing deci­sions. It is based on algo­rithms, math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els and (now main­ly) Machine Learn­ing and Deep Learn­ing, where neur­al net­works are trained on large data sets. ![Inside Smoltek Hydrogen: A conversation with Dr. Fabian Wenger](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/fabian-wenger.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#inside-smoltek-hydrogen-a-conversation-with-dr-fabian-wenger)[Inside Smoltek Hydrogen: A conversation with Dr. Fabian Wenger](https://www.smoltek.com/inside-smoltek-hydrogen-conversation-with-fabian-wenger/16692/) Decem­ber 15, 2025 What does it take to rev­o­lu­tion­ize green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion? In the sec­ond episode of Smoltalk, CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son sits down with Dr. Fabi­an Wenger to explore the sci­ence, strat­e­gy, and part­ner­ships behind Smoltek Hydro­gen’s break­through tech­nol­o­gy. Here’s the com­plete story—from car­bon nanofibers to a 95% reduc­tion in irid­i­um usage. ![Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/youtube-this-is-smoltek-jpg.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-celebrates-20-years-in-nanotechnology)[Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-celebrates-20-years-in-nanotechnology/16275/) Decem­ber 12, 2025 Smoltek con­ducts advanced research and inno­va­tion based on nan­otech­nol­o­gy to devel­op new mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy oppor­tu­ni­ties that can solve many of today’s indus­tri­al chal­lenges. This jour­ney began 20 years ago, when Dr. Shafiq Kabir, togeth­er with David Brudö and Dr. Peter Enoks­son, found­ed the company. ![A deep dive into Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/smoltalk-s1-e1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-deep-dive-into-smolteks-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology)[A deep dive into Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology](https://www.smoltek.com/deep-dive-into-smoltek-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology/14127/) Novem­ber 20, 2025 In the first ”Smoltalk” pod­cast, CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son is joined by Smoltek Semi CTO Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni for a tech­ni­cal deep dive. Dr. Gha­vani­ni dis­cuss­es the core CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy in detail, cov­er­ing every­thing from its unique mate­r­i­al prop­er­ties and AI appli­ca­tions to the com­plete prod­uct roadmap, key part­ner­ships, and future inte­gra­tion plans. This arti­cle sum­ma­rize the high­lights of the conversation. ![Smoltek’s ALD investment: From months to days](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ald-machine-crushes-days.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-ald-investment-from-months-to-days)[Smoltek’s ALD investment: From months to days](https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-ald-investment-from-months-to-days/13787/) Novem­ber 17, 2025 Smoltek Semi has acquired its own ALD sys­tem. This is a strate­gic invest­ment that dra­mat­i­cal­ly cuts devel­op­ment cycle time for its capac­i­tors from months to a sin­gle day. The move accel­er­ates the val­i­da­tion of Gen-One, de-risks the busi­ness plan, and builds long-term, defen­si­ble IP value. ![Where is Eddie?](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/eddie-the-machine.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#where-is-eddie)[Where is Eddie?](https://www.smoltek.com/where-is-eddie/11946/) Novem­ber 14, 2025 When Smoltek announced they would install their high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion machine in Tai­wan, share­hold­ers expect­ed updates. Instead: silence. Where is the machine the investor com­mu­ni­ty calls Eddie? In this light­heart­ed inves­ti­ga­tion, a free­lance writer turns detec­tive to solve a mys­tery that reveals more about busi­ness strat­e­gy than ship­ping logistics. ![Making every atom count in the race for scalable green hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/satirical-lighthearted-caricature-of-female-president-holding-flags-of-sweden-and-germany.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#making-every-atom-count-in-the-race-for-scalable-green-hydrogen)[Making every atom count in the race for scalable green hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/making-every-atom-count-in-the-race-for-scalable-green-hydrogen/12019/) Octo­ber 29, 2025 At the Hydro­gen Tech­nol­o­gy World Expo 2025 in Ham­burg, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen, joined a high-lev­el pan­el to debate one of the industry’s most press­ing chal­lenges: How can green hydro­gen be scaled fast enough—and afford­ably enough—to meet the world’s decar­boniza­tion goals?  ![From Lab to Fab: Why ITRI Partnership is a game-changer for Smoltek](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/satirical-scientist-businessman-romance.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#from-lab-to-fab-why-itri-partnership-is-a-game-changer-for-smoltek)[From Lab to Fab: Why ITRI Partnership is a game-changer for Smoltek](https://www.smoltek.com/from-lab-to-fab-why-itri-partnership-is-a-game-changer-for-smoltek/11011/) July 30, 2025 The recent­ly signed tech­ni­cal ser­vice agree­ment between Smoltek Semi and the Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute (ITRI) of Tai­wan changes how CNF-MIM capac­i­tors will reach the mar­ket. This part­ner­ship deliv­ers the val­i­da­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties need­ed to trans­form lab­o­ra­to­ry break­throughs into com­mer­cial reality. 1 [2](https://www.smoltek.com?query-78223c8b-page=2) [3](https://www.smoltek.com?query-78223c8b-page=3) [4](https://www.smoltek.com?query-78223c8b-page=4) … [6](https://www.smoltek.com?query-78223c8b-page=6) [Next](https://www.smoltek.com/blog.md?query-78223c8b-page=2) --- title: "Cookie policy" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/cookie-policy/" date: 2025-06-14 author: "Thomas Barregren" --- # Cookie policy # Cookie policy With this cook­ie pol­i­cy, we would like to explain what cook­ies and cook­ie-like tech­nolo­gies are, how we and oth­er ser­vice provider use them on this web­site, what infor­ma­tion they col­lect, for how long and for what pur­pos­es we use them. ## Table of contents - [Con­troller of the website](https://www.smoltek.com#controller-of-the-website) - [Addi­tion to the pri­va­cy policy](https://www.smoltek.com#diff-to-privacy-policy) - [What are cook­ies and sim­i­lar technologies?](https://www.smoltek.com#cookie-technology) - [What is the legal basis for setting/​reading cookies?](https://www.smoltek.com#legal-basis) - [What rights does the web­site vis­i­tor have?](https://www.smoltek.com#rights-of-visitor) - [How to man­age cook­ies in a browser?](https://www.smoltek.com#manage-cookies) - [What types of cook­ies exist?](https://www.smoltek.com#types-of-cookies) - [Who can set cook­ies on this website?](https://www.smoltek.com#cookies-origin) - [Which cook­ies are used on this website?](https://www.smoltek.com#list-of-services) ## Controller of the website - **Provider:** Smoltek, Swe­den - **Email:** [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) - **Phone:** [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46%20317%2001%2003%2005) - **Con­tact form:** [www.smoltek.com/contact/](https://www.smoltek.com/contact/) ## Addition to the privacy policy This cook­ie pol­i­cy is a sup­ple­ment to this web­site’s [pri­va­cy pol­i­cy](https://www.smoltek.com/privacy-policy/). The cook­ie pol­i­cy spec­i­fies how a web­site uses cook­ies and what data it col­lects through them, while the pri­va­cy pol­i­cy is a more com­pre­hen­sive overview of all data pro­cess­ing activ­i­ties on the web­site and beyond. ## What are cookies and similar technologies? Cook­ies are small pieces of infor­ma­tion sim­i­lar to text files that can be stored and read on the end device. They serve var­i­ous pur­pos­es, includ­ing main­tain­ing basic func­tion­al­i­ties of the web­site, secu­ri­ty and pri­va­cy, pro­vid­ing option­al func­tions of the web­site, col­lect­ing sta­tis­tic data on vis­i­tor flows and pro­vid­ing mar­ket­ing sys­tems. Prac­ti­cal exam­ples of what can be stored in cook­ies are the stor­age of login sta­tus in user accounts, the con­tent of shop­ping bas­kets in e‑commerce plat­forms, or a user ID for track­ing behav­ior on the web­site. The infor­ma­tion can tech­ni­cal­ly be stored in var­i­ous ways. The best-known exam­ples of this are HTTP cook­ies and cook­ie-like tech­nolo­gies like local stor­age, ses­sion stor­age or Indexed­DB. Each type of stor­age has dif­fer­ent prop­er­ties, which deter­mine the tech­ni­cal han­dling, acces­si­bil­i­ty and con­trollers autho­rized to access the infor­ma­tion. All these types of stor­age are usu­al­ly sum­ma­rized under the term “cook­ies” and are there­fore called as such in this cook­ie policy. ## What is the legal basis for setting/​reading cookies? The set­ting and read­ing of cook­ies in the Euro­pean Union (EU) and the Euro­pean Eco­nom­ic Area (EEA) is in accor­dance with Art. 5 (3) ePri­va­cy Direc­tive and Recital 66 ePri­va­cy Direc­tive only per­mit­ted if a user has giv­en his con­sent on the basis of com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion about the pur­pos­es of the pro­cess­ing. The web­site oper­a­tor may also set cook­ies if they are strict­ly nec­es­sary to pro­vide you as a user with the express­ly request­ed ser­vice, e.g. the basic con­tent of this web­site or oth­er strict­ly nec­es­sary cook­ies for basic func­tion­al­i­ty of the web­site to be dis­played to you with­out your consent. ## What rights does the website visitor have? Ser­vices and their cook­ies can be set and read on the legal basis of your con­sent or a legit­i­mate inter­est. When you first vis­it­ed this web­site, you were asked for your con­sent and you had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to object to the use of cer­tain ser­vices. We explained which legal basis is used for which ser­vice in our con­sent dia­log. You have the right to view the his­to­ry of your deci­sions, change your pri­va­cy set­tings, object to the use of ser­vices and revoke your con­sent at any time. Below you find pos­si­bil­i­ties to exer­cise your rights: - [Change pri­va­cy settings](https://www.smoltek.com#consent-change) - [Pri­va­cy set­tings history](https://www.smoltek.com#consent-history) - [Revoke con­sents](https://www.smoltek.com#consent-revoke) ## How to manage cookies in a browser? - **How to remove cook­ies in a brows­er:** To remove cook­ies from your device, you can clear the brows­ing data in the set­tings of your brows­er. This action will remove all cook­ies from all web­sites you’ve vis­it­ed, poten­tial­ly includ­ing saved login details and site pref­er­ences. In some browsers, you can just delete the cook­ies and sim­i­lar data with­out delet­ing the whole brows­ing history. - **How to con­trol cook­ies in a brows­er:** For more gran­u­lar con­trol over cook­ies spe­cif­ic to cer­tain web­sites, nav­i­gate to the pri­va­cy and cook­ie set­tings with­in your used brows­er. Here, you can adjust pref­er­ences relat­ed to indi­vid­ual sites’ cook­ie usage. - **How to block cook­ies in a brows­er:** It’s pos­si­ble to con­fig­ure most mod­ern browsers in their set­tings to block all cook­ies from being placed on your device. But block­ing cook­ies could lead to cer­tain ser­vices and func­tion­al­i­ties not func­tion­ing cor­rect­ly, e.g. logins as a user. You can also use exten­sions for many browsers which can block the set­ting of cook­ies on websites. - **How to man­age cook­ies on this web­site:** To tai­lor your pref­er­ences regard­ing cook­ies on this web­site, you can change your pref­er­ences at any time by click­ing on the link in the sec­tion “Rights of the web­site visitor”. You can find more infor­ma­tion on the han­dling of cook­ies [devowl.io/rcb/cookie-handling/](https://devowl.io/rcb/cookie-handling/). ## What types of cookies exist? - **Essen­tial cook­ies** are indis­pens­able for the basic func­tion­al­i­ty of a web­site and enable func­tions such as sav­ing login infor­ma­tion or access to secure areas of the site. These include, for exam­ple, secu­ri­ty cook­ies, which can iden­ti­fy a bot that is not want­ed on the web­site by stor­ing an authen­ti­ca­tion key in a cookie. - **Func­tion­al cook­ies** improve the user expe­ri­ence by stor­ing infor­ma­tion and pref­er­ences such as lan­guage set­tings or appear­ance set­tings of the web­site to pro­vide per­son­al­ized. This includes, for exam­ple, pref­er­ence cook­ies that store the user’s pre­ferred video qual­i­ty on a website. - **Sta­tis­tics cook­ies** col­lect data about the use of a web­site to gain insights into user behav­ior and opti­mize the per­for­mance of the site. This includes, for exam­ple, a ran­dom­ly assigned user ID that makes it pos­si­ble to attribute whether you have vis­it­ed a sub­page of the website. - **Mar­ket­ing cook­ies** are used to track user behav­ior across dif­fer­ent web­sites and to dis­play per­son­al­ized adver­tis­ing based on the inter­ests and surf­ing behav­ior of users. This includes, for exam­ple, adver­tis­ing cook­ies that store an inter­ac­tion with an adver­tise­ment on the web­site and pass it on to adver­tis­ers or a chat sys­tem for pre-sale ques­tions and cus­tomer support. ## Who can set cookies on this website? On this web­site, both the oper­a­tor of the web­site and third-par­ty ser­vices which are used on this web­site may set cook­ies and access its con­tent. Who can access which cook­ies and their con­tent dif­fers between first-par­ty and third-par­ty cook­ies. First-par­ty cook­ies are cre­at­ed by the vis­it­ed web­site and can only be read by the web­site oper­a­tor and inte­grat­ed third-par­ty ser­vices on this web­site. Third-par­ty cook­ies are set by usu­al­ly third-par­ty ser­vices on oth­er domains, can be read on all web­sites on which the ser­vice that con­trols the domain is embed­ded and, for exam­ple, used by adver­tis­ing net­works to track user behav­ior across dif­fer­ent web­sites and offer per­son­al­ized advertising. ## Which cookies are used on this website? | Cat­e­go­ry | Tech­ni­cal cook­ie name | Tech­ni­cal cook­ie host | Ser­vice | Dura­tion | Type | Pur­pose | |--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------|--------------------------------|-----------|------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Essen­tial | real\_​cookie\_​banner* | .smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | 365 days | HTTP Cook­ie | Unique iden­ti­fi­er for the con­sent, but not for the web­site vis­i­tor. Revi­sion hash for set­tings of cook­ie ban­ner (texts, col­ors, fea­tures, ser­vice groups, ser­vices, con­tent block­ers etc.). IDs for con­sent­ed ser­vices and ser­vice groups. | | Essen­tial | real\_cookie\_banner\*-tcf | .smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | 365 days | HTTP Cook­ie | Con­sents col­lect­ed under TCF stored in TC String for­mat, includ­ing TCF ven­dors, pur­pos­es, spe­cial pur­pos­es, fea­tures, and spe­cial features. | | Essen­tial | real\_cookie\_banner\*-gcm | .smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | 365 days | HTTP Cook­ie | Con­sents into con­sent types (pur­pos­es) col­lect­ed under Google Con­sent Mode stored for all Google Con­sent Mode com­pat­i­ble services. | | Essen­tial | real\_­cook­ie\_ban­ner-test | .smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | 365 days | HTTP Cook­ie | Cook­ie set to test HTTP cook­ie func­tion­al­i­ty. Delet­ed imme­di­ate­ly after test. | | Essen­tial | real\_​cookie\_​banner* | https://www.smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | \- | Local Stor­age | Unique iden­ti­fi­er for the con­sent, but not for the web­site vis­i­tor. Revi­sion hash for set­tings of cook­ie ban­ner (texts, col­ors, fea­tures, ser­vice groups, ser­vices, con­tent block­ers etc.). IDs for con­sent­ed ser­vices and ser­vice groups. Is only stored until con­sent is doc­u­ment­ed on the web­site server. | | Essen­tial | real\_cookie\_banner\*-tcf | https://www.smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | \- | Local Stor­age | Con­sents col­lect­ed under TCF stored in TC String for­mat, includ­ing TCF ven­dors, pur­pos­es, spe­cial pur­pos­es, fea­tures, and spe­cial fea­tures. Is only stored until con­sent is doc­u­ment­ed on the web­site server. | | Essen­tial | real\_cookie\_banner\*-gcm | https://www.smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | \- | Local Stor­age | Con­sents col­lect­ed under Google Con­sent Mode stored in con­sent types (pur­pos­es) for all Google Con­sent Mode com­pat­i­ble ser­vices. Is only stored until con­sent is doc­u­ment­ed on the web­site server. | | Essen­tial | real\_­cook­ie\_ban­ner-con­sent-queue* | https://www.smoltek.com | Real Cook­ie Banner | \- | Local Stor­age | Local caching of selec­tion in cook­ie ban­ner until serv­er doc­u­ments con­sent; doc­u­men­ta­tion peri­od­ic or at page switch­es attempt­ed if serv­er is unavail­able or overloaded. | | Func­tion­al | \_​ga\_​BZBL1GE94X | .spotlightstockmarket.com | Spot­light Stock­mar­ket Graph | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_​ga | .spotlightstockmarket.com | Spot­light Stock­mar­ket Graph | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_​gcl\_​au | .spotlightstockmarket.com | Spot­light Stock­mar­ket Graph | Ses­sion | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SIDCC | .google.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SIDCC | .youtube.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | VISITOR\_​INFO1\_​LIVE | .youtube.com | YouTube | 7 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | LOGIN\_​INFO | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | CONSENT | .youtube.com | YouTube | 9 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | CONSENT | .google.com | YouTube | 9 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | OTZ | www.google.com | YouTube | 1 day | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-remote-device-id | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | Unique device ID, time of cre­ation and expi­ra­tion of the object | | Func­tion­al | yt-fuller­screen-edu-but­ton-shown-count | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-remote-con­nect­ed-devices | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | List of devices asso­ci­at­ed with a YouTube account, time of cre­ation and expi­ra­tion of the object | | Func­tion­al | yt-play­er-band­width | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | Infor­ma­tion on the band­width util­i­sa­tion of the YouTube play­er, time of cre­ation and expi­ra­tion of the object | | Func­tion­al | LogsDatabaseV2:\*\|\| | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | Ser­vice­Work­er­Logs­Data­base | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | Ytldb­Meta | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-play­er-qual­i­ty | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | Out­put video qual­i­ty for YouTube videos, time of cre­ation and expi­ra­tion of the object | | Func­tion­al | yt-play­er-per­for­mance-cap | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | \- | | Func­tion­al | Per­sis­ten­tEn­ti­ty­S­toreDb:\*\|\| | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-idb-pref-stor­age:\*\|\| | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt.innertube::nextId | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt.innertube::requests | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-html5-player-modules::subtitlesModuleData::module-enabled | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-remote-ses­sion-app | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | SESSION | Ses­sion Storage | Appli­ca­tion used for the ses­sion and time of object creation | | Func­tion­al | yt-remote-cast-installed | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | SESSION | Ses­sion Storage | Sta­tus of instal­la­tion of the ‘remote-cast’ func­tion and time of object creation | | Func­tion­al | yt-remote-ses­sion-name | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | SESSION | Ses­sion Storage | Name of the active ses­sion and time of object creation | | Func­tion­al | yt-remote-cast-avail­able | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | SESSION | Ses­sion Storage | Sta­tus of avail­abil­i­ty of the ‘remote-cast’ func­tion and time of object creation | | Func­tion­al | yt-remote-fast-check-peri­od | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | SESSION | Ses­sion Storage | Time of object cre­ation as a deter­mi­na­tion of whether the remote-cast func­tion can be accessed | | Func­tion­al | \*\|\|::yt-player::yt-player-lv | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | \- | | Func­tion­al | swpush­no­ti­fi­ca­tions­db | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-play­er-local-media:\*\|\| | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | yt-it-response-store:\*\|\| | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_HOST-GAPS | accounts.google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | OTZ | accounts.google.com | YouTube | 1 day | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-1PSID­CC | .google.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-1PA­PISID | .google.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-3PSID­CC | .youtube.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-1PA­PISID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-1PSID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-3PSID­CC | .google.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-ENID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-1PSID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | ytGe­f­Con­fig:\*\|\| | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Indexed­DB | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Host-3PLSID | accounts.google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | LSID | accounts.google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | ACCOUNT\_​CHOOSER | accounts.google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Host-1PLSID | accounts.google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-3PA­PISID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SAPISID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | APISID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | HSID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-3PSID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-3PA­PISID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SAPISID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | HSID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SSID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SID | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SSID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | APISID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-3PSID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | SID | .youtube.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | VISITOR\_​PRIVACY\_​METADATA | .youtube.com | YouTube | 7 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Func­tion­al | PREF | .youtube.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | Unique ID to set pre­ferred page set­tings and play­back set­tings such as explic­it auto­play options, con­tent ran­domi­sa­tion and play­er size | | Func­tion­al | YSC | .youtube.com | YouTube | Ses­sion | HTTP Cook­ie | Unique ses­sion ID to recog­nise that requests with­in a brows­er ses­sion orig­i­nate from the user and not from oth­er websites | | Func­tion­al | SOCS | .youtube.com | YouTube | 9 months | HTTP Cook­ie | Set­tings for users to con­sent to Google ser­vices stor­ing their preferences | | Func­tion­al | SOCS | .google.com | YouTube | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | Set­tings for users to con­sent to Google ser­vices stor­ing their preferences | | Func­tion­al | NID | .google.com | YouTube | 7 months | HTTP Cook­ie | Unique ID to store pre­ferred set­tings such as lan­guage, num­ber of results on the search results page or acti­va­tion of the Google Safe­Search filter | | Func­tion­al | IDE | .doubleclick.net | YouTube | 9 months | HTTP Cook­ie | Unique iden­ti­fi­ca­tion tokens for per­son­al­is­ing ads on all sites using the Google adver­tis­ing network | | Func­tion­al | yt-play­er-head­ers-read­able | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | State of tech­ni­cal read­abil­i­ty of the YouTube play­er head­er, time of cre­ation and expi­ra­tion of the object | | Func­tion­al | \_\_Se­cure-YEC | .youtube.com | YouTube | 1 year | HTTP Cook­ie | Unique iden­ti­fi­er used to detect spam, fraud, and abuse | | Func­tion­al | yt-play­er-vol­ume | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | Sound set­tings for the YouTube play­er, time of cre­ation and expi­ra­tion of the object | | Func­tion­al | yt-play­er-vol­ume | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | SESSION | Ses­sion Storage | Sound set­tings for the YouTube play­er, time of cre­ation of the object | | Func­tion­al | AEC | .google.com | YouTube | 6 months | HTTP Cook­ie | Unique iden­ti­fi­er used to detect spam, fraud, and abuse | | Func­tion­al | ytidb::LAST\_RESULT\_ENTRY\_KEY | https://www.youtube.com | YouTube | \- | Local Stor­age | \- | | Func­tion­al | test\_​cookie | .doubleclick.net | YouTube | 1 day | HTTP Cook­ie | Tests whether cook­ies can be set | | Mar­ket­ing | lang | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | Ses­sion | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | lidc | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 1 day | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | bcook­ie | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 13 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | Ana­lyt­ic­sSyn­cHis­to­ry | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 1 month | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | User­Match­His­to­ry | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 1 month | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | lang | .ads.linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | Ses­sion | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | li\_​gc | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 6 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | li\_​mc | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 23 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | liap | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 3 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | | Mar­ket­ing | li\_​sugr | .linkedin.com | LinkedIn Insight-Tag | 3 months | HTTP Cook­ie | \- | The cook­ie pol­i­cy was last updat­ed on July 12, 2025. --- title: "How" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/how/" date: 2025-07-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/smoltek-hydrogen-how.webp" --- # How ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Solving The Iridium Challenge The scarci­ty and cost of irid­i­um cre­ates what indus­try experts call “The Irid­i­um Chal­lenge.” To over­come this obsta­cle, we need a break­through solu­tion that address­es both the lim­it­ed glob­al sup­ply and the fun­da­men­tal inef­fi­cien­cy in how this pre­cious cat­a­lyst is cur­rent­ly used. Con­ven­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy uses Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Mem­branes (CCM), apply­ing irid­i­um-con­tain­ing slur­ry to the mem­brane. This wastes pre­cious met­al, as only sur­face atoms par­tic­i­pate in reac­tions while those buried inside remain inactive. With glob­al irid­i­um pro­duc­tion lim­it­ed to just 7–9 tons annu­al­ly, the PEM elec­trolyz­er indus­try faces a crit­i­cal sup­ply con­straint. At cur­rent usage rates of 1–2 mg/​cm², the entire world’s annu­al irid­i­um pro­duc­tion could sup­port only 4–5 GW of elec­trolyz­er capac­i­ty – just 2% of pro­ject­ed 2030 demand. This sup­ply bot­tle­neck is described by author­i­ties like the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency (IEA) as one of the most crit­i­cal bar­ri­ers to scal­ing green hydro­gen production. Beyond the sup­ply chal­lenge, the stan­dard 2 mg/​cm² irid­i­um load­ing trans­lates to $60 mil­lion in cat­a­lyst costs alone for a sin­gle gigawatt elec­trolyz­er. Reduc­ing this to 0.1 mg/​cm² would slash these costs to just $3 mil­lion – a $57 mil­lion sav­ing per gigawatt that makes the dif­fer­ence between eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty and pro­hib­i­tive expense. This 95% reduc­tion rep­re­sents the thresh­old where it is pos­si­ble to scale up the pro­duc­tion of green hydro­gen to the huge vol­umes the fos­sil free future needs. Despite exten­sive research into var­i­ous tech­nolo­gies, indus­try efforts have stalled at 0.5 mg/​cm² – still five times high­er than the cru­cial eco­nom­ic thresh­old of 0.1 mg/​cm². ### Five Failed Approaches **Com­pos­ite anodes** replace most irid­i­um with plat­inum black, but still require at least 0.5 mg/​cm² of irid­i­um and increase over­all pre­cious met­al costs. **Core-shell struc­tures** use cheap­er mate­ri­als (ruthe­ni­um or nick­el) coat­ed with thin irid­i­um lay­ers, but suf­fer from dura­bil­i­ty issues as the core mate­ri­als leach out in acidic environments. **Man­ganese-irid­i­um com­pos­ites** scat­ter indi­vid­ual irid­i­um atoms across man­ganese oxide, show­ing promise in lab­o­ra­to­ries but prov­ing dif­fi­cult to man­u­fac­ture con­sis­tent­ly at scale. **Nanos­truc­tured thin films** deposit irid­i­um on crys­talline organ­ic whiskers, but the del­i­cate struc­tures are prone to mechan­i­cal fail­ure dur­ing operation. **Nanoprint­ing tech­nol­o­gy** pre­cise­ly places tiny irid­i­um par­ti­cles on mem­branes, but requires spe­cial­ized equip­ment that lim­its cost-effec­tive mass production. An alter­na­tive approach exists – Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Sub­strate (CCS) – elec­trode­po­si­tion of an extreme­ly thin irid­i­um cat­a­lyst lay­er onto the elec­trode sub­strate rather than a thick irid­i­um ink onto the membrane. This method was pre­vi­ous­ly dis­missed because elec­trode sur­faces are too small, but Smoltek Hydro­gen has over­come this lim­i­ta­tion through our rev­o­lu­tion­ary car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy – increas­ing the active sur­face area by 30 times. With this archi­tec­ture, near­ly all cat­a­lyst atoms active­ly par­tic­i­pate in the reac­tion, allow­ing us to achieve the once-impos­si­ble tar­get of 0.1 mg/​cm² irid­i­um while main­tain­ing high performance. --- title: "How" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/how/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_fceb6b2b6aff4a15a2addf572f6b29cdmv2-jpg.webp" --- # How ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # The Carbon Nanofiber Solution Stan­dard Mul­ti­lay­er Ceram­ic Capac­i­tors (MLCCs), long the indus­try work­horse, have reached their fun­da­men­tal minia­tur­iza­tion lim­its, falling short of the demands for next-gen­er­a­tion elec­tron­ics. Deep Trench Capac­i­tors (DTCs) emerged as an alter­na­tive, fab­ri­cat­ed using a *sub­trac­tive* process – etch­ing deep, nar­row trench­es into sil­i­con wafers, which are then filled with com­plex lay­ers of met­al and insu­lat­ing materials. How­ev­er, this sub­trac­tive approach faces inher­ent phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers. Uni­form­ly coat­ing these extreme­ly deep and nar­row trench­es becomes pro­gres­sive­ly dif­fi­cult and cost­ly, akin to try­ing to paint the inside of a very long, thin straw. These man­u­fac­tur­ing com­plex­i­ties make DTCs pro­hib­i­tive­ly expen­sive for many appli­ca­tions and lim­it their future scal­a­bil­i­ty, rep­re­sent­ing a tech­no­log­i­cal dead end. Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy rep­re­sents a par­a­digm shift, mov­ing from the microm­e­ter-scale chal­lenges of con­ven­tion­al meth­ods to pre­ci­sion engi­neer­ing at the **nanome­ter scale**. Instead of carv­ing mate­r­i­al away, we employ a fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent **addi­tive** man­u­fac­tur­ing process. We pre­cise­ly grow dense arrays of ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) – typ­i­cal­ly tens of nanome­ters in diam­e­ter but microm­e­ters tall – direct­ly onto the sub­strate. Each fiber acts as a scaf­fold for the sub­se­quent con­for­mal coat­ing of a Met­al-Insu­la­tor-Met­al (MIM) stack. The cru­cial advan­tage lies in the geom­e­try: the com­bined sur­face area pro­vid­ed by this dense ”for­est” of nanoscale fibers increas­es the effec­tive sur­face area by up to 100× com­pared to the flat foot­print they occu­py. This mas­sive­ly mul­ti­plies the effec­tive elec­trode sur­face area, enabling dra­mat­i­cal­ly high­er capac­i­tance with­in an ultra-thin profile. Crit­i­cal­ly, this addi­tive nano-scaf­fold­ing approach sig­nif­i­cant­ly sim­pli­fies the man­u­fac­tur­ing process com­pared to the com­plex mul­ti-step etch­ing and fill­ing required for DTCs. Notably, our process neces­si­tates few­er cycles of expen­sive and time-con­sum­ing Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) – typ­i­cal­ly just one ALD step com­pared to the three or four often need­ed for DTCs. This inher­ent process effi­cien­cy is expect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly **reduce front-end pro­duc­tion costs** com­pared to DTC tech­nol­o­gy, offer­ing a com­pelling eco­nom­ic advan­tage along­side supe­ri­or per­for­mance potential. --- title: "Hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen/" date: 2025-07-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smoltek-img-0000s-0001-wind-hydro-jpg.webp" --- # Hydrogen Strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares # Summarizing the financial news at the break point between June and July shows strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heavily oversubscribed and Smoltek shares are now available for trading on several international marketplaces in addition to the main listing on the Spotlight Stock Market in Sweden. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) Smoltek hydro­gen is paving the way for a sus­tain­able future as we are mak­ing pro­duc­tion of green hydro­gen viable. By intro­duc­ing a porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) for PEM elec­trolyz­ers that increas­es the active sur­face area by 30 times and reduces the need for irid­i­um by up to 95 per­cent, while main­tain­ing high per­for­mance, we are enabling the scale-up of next gen­er­a­tion PEM electolyzers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#partner-with-us-for-cost-leadership)Partner with us – for cost leadership Smoltek Hydro­gen can cre­ate a high­ly attrac­tive mar­ket posi­tion based on sub­stan­tial cost lead­er­ship as we have devel­oped a solu­tion to the most crit­i­cal obsta­cle lim­it­ing the large-scale adop­tion of green hydro­gen: the extreme scarci­ty and high cost of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst used in PEM electrolyzers. Our inno­v­a­tive PTE tech­nol­o­gy suc­ceeds where com­peti­tors have strug­gled in try­ing to refine the coat­ing of the mem­brane (CCM). By tak­ing a Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Sub­strate (CCS) approach – coat­ing of the metal­lic sub­strate instead of the plas­tic mem­brane – we now have the solu­tion for cost-effec­tive fos­sil-free hydro­gen production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-iridium-challenge)The Iridium Challenge Iridium’s scarci­ty and cost pose a major bar­ri­er to scal­ing green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. Glob­al out­put is lim­it­ed to just 7–8 tons per year—enough for only 4–5 GW of PEM elec­trolyz­er capac­i­ty at today’s usage rates (1–2 mg/​cm²). That’s just 2% of pro­ject­ed 2030 demand. Con­ven­tion­al Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Mem­branes (CCM) waste much of this pre­cious met­al, as only sur­face atoms are active while the rest remain unused. At 2 mg/​cm², irid­i­um costs reach $60 mil­lion per gigawatt. Reduc­ing usage to 0.1 mg/​cm² would cut that to just $3 million—a crit­i­cal step toward eco­nom­ic viability. Despite years of research, indus­try has stalled at 0.5 mg/cm²—still five times above the tar­get. A break­through is needed. Smoltek Hydro­gen offers a solu­tion: Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Sub­strate (CCS) using our pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy. By increas­ing the active sur­face area 30-fold, we enable near­ly full cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion and achieve the 0.1 mg/​cm² milestone—unlocking scal­able, cost-effec­tive green hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#three-times-smaller-without-compromising-capacity)Three times smaller without compromising capacity Smoltek’s advanced car­bon nanos­truc­ture tech­nol­o­gy has a unique poten­tial to enable more cost-effi­cient pro­duc­tion of fos­sil-free hydro­gen. PEM elec­trolyz­ers, specif­i­cal­ly designed for inter­mit­tent ener­gy sup­ply, use a large amount of very rare and expen­sive cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles (irid­i­um) that today are used inef­fi­cient­ly – where­as Smoltek’s anode-side cell mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy makes max­i­mum use of the cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles. The result is 2–3 low­er invest­ment costs for elec­trolyz­ers in hydro­gen plants thanks to decreased elec­trolyz­er size. ![Smoltek ECM effect comparison 02](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/smoltek-ecm-effect-comparison-02-1200x339.png) Smoltek Hydro­gens tech­nol­o­gy for the anode side elec­trode – reduc­ing the irid­i­um load towards 0.1 mg/​cm2 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanostructures-in-the-hydrogen-industry)Carbon nanostructures in the hydrogen industry Our main objec­tive is to devel­op robust solu­tions for indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant cat­a­lyst coat­ings in the ener­gy con­ver­sion sec­tor for the future. We build on our expe­ri­ence to scale up nanos­truc­tures devel­oped for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to also incor­po­rate thin films that can cat­alyze effec­tive­ly the reac­tions need­ed in gas dif­fu­sion elec­trodes for water elec­trol­y­sis. The goal is to offer our cus­tomers supe­ri­or prop­er­ties in terms of sta­bil­i­ty and activity. A huge green H2 (hydro­gen) mar­ket is devel­op­ing in the com­ing years. Five sec­tors will con­sume mas­sive amounts of green hydrogen: - Fuel cells in elec­tric vehi­cles when bat­ter­ies are not suitable - Syn­thet­ic fuels for marine applications - Replac­ing today’s H2 in agri­cul­ture fertilizer - Fos­sil-free steel works - Heat­ing in cement production With new tech­nol­o­gy, we intend to grow a sub­stan­tial busi­ness in the hydro­gen ecosystem Reduce the need for expen­sive irid­i­um and platinum: - Reduce the size of hydro­gen plants - Cheap­er to man­age the inter­mit­tent pow­er from wind, water, and solar plants ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#skyrocketing-demand-for-electrolyzers-the-h2-producer)Skyrocketing demand for electrolyzers—“The H2 producer” Green hydro­gen is pro­duced by elec­trol­y­sis. Sim­ply put, that is run­ning elec­tric­i­ty through water and gath­er­ing the released hydro­gen. The appa­ra­tus in which this is done is called an electrolyzer. Today, there are main­ly two dif­fer­ent elec­trol­y­sis tech­niques for the pro­duc­tion of hydro­gen; Alka­line elec­trol­y­sis (ALK) and Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane (PEM) elec­trol­y­sis. ALK has been around the longest but the tech­nol­o­gy faces dif­fi­cul­ties as it can­not be quick­ly adapt­ed to vary­ing input from green elec­tric­i­ty, such as wind and solar. PEM on the oth­er hand is more flex­i­ble and can han­dle the vari­a­tions from the inter­mit­tent pow­er sources.  The PEM tech­nol­o­gy’s ben­e­fits also include high effi­cien­cy, min­i­mal upkeep require­ments, and rapid start­up times. It can also low­er costs thanks to being able to pro­duce more hydro­gen when elec­tric­i­ty is cheap­er. These are the main rea­son why PEM elec­trolyz­ers are antic­i­pat­ed to expand at the high­est rate when the indus­try will scale up hydro­gen production. The crit­i­cal com­po­nent of a PEM elec­trolyz­er is the cell. It is the unit where the elec­tric­i­ty in con­tact with water becomes hydro­gen and oxy­gen. Each hydro­gen pro­duc­tion unit has vast num­bers of these. Thus, the rapid growth of the pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty of green hydro­gen implies that the demand for elec­trolyz­er cells will skyrocket. With clever use of car­bon nanofibers, we can reduce the use of rare and expen­sive noble met­als by 50–70 per­cent while dou­bling or tripling the active sur­face area of the pro­ton-exchange mem­brane (PEM) in elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells. And this will enable the green hydro­gen revolution! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrogen-market-market-for-electrolyzers)Hydrogen market – market for electrolyzers ### 1. Fuel cells in electric vehicles when batteries are not suitable Elec­tric heavy-duty vehi­cles are the key to fos­sil-free trans­port. When bat­ter­ies would not pro­vide a long enough range, fuel cells are the alter­na­tive. The vehi­cle is loaded with hydro­gen, which the fuel cell trans­fers into elec­tric­i­ty. This will be used for heavy-duty trucks, coach­es, long-range pas­sen­ger vehi­cles, and trains. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/pexels-quintin-gellar-2199293-1200x799.webp) Hydro­gen will pow­er long-haul trans­ports to reduce car­bon emissions ### 2. Synthetic fuels for marine applications For long dis­tances, heavy marine trans­ports syn­thet­ic fuel is a con­ve­nient way to make the trans­ports green. Exist­ing com­bus­tion engines are run on syn­thet­ic fuels pro­duced from green H2. Also, bio­fu­els, lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies, and fuel cells will be used to make the sec­tor fos­sil-free. Still, syn­thet­ic fuels are con­sid­ered most attrac­tive, giv­en that the cost of pro­duc­ing hydro­gen can be reduced. ### 3. Replacing today’s fossil hydrogen in agriculture fertilizer Ammo­nia is the sec­ond most com­mon­ly pro­duced chem­i­cal in the world, and it is derived from hydro­gen. More than 80 per­cent is used as feed­stock for fer­til­iz­er. The rest are used in mak­ing paint, plas­tic, tex­tiles, explo­sives, and oth­er chem­i­cals. Ammo­nia pro­duc­tion in 2018 gen­er­at­ed around 500 mil­lion tons of car­bon diox­ide, where a large part comes from hydro­gen pro­duced by steam methane reform­ing. Mak­ing this from green hydro­gen instead implies an immense growth of the elec­trolyz­er market. ### 4. Fossil-free steel works New steel works are being built all around Europe, some­thing that has not hap­pened for hun­dreds of years. The new steel­works will be using green hydro­gen instead of fos­sil gas. Each ton of steel pro­duced today is esti­mat­ed to emit 2.2 tons of car­bon dioxide—equating to about 11 per­cent of glob­al car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. In Swe­den, two well-known exam­ples are the HYBRIT project run by SSAB, LKAB, and Vat­ten­fall, and H2 Green Steel, a new ambi­tious com­pa­ny build­ing new steel­works in Swe­den and Iberia. Sim­i­lar projects are seen, for instance, in Ger­many. For each new steel­works, a new large-scale hydro­gen plant is being built. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/green-steel-on-conveyor-1920x600.webp) ### 5. Heating in cement production Green hydro­gen can be used for high-grade indus­tri­al heat­ing in, for exam­ple, the cement indus­try, which accounts for 8 per­cent of glob­al car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. Emis­sions can be reduced by a third by using green hydro­gen to heat the cement kilns. (The remain­ing two-thirds come from the chem­i­cal reac­tion that pro­duces cement and must be cap­tured and stored or reduced by oth­er means.) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#rapid-increase-in-demand-for-green-hydrogen)Rapid increase in demand for green hydrogen Green hydro­gen means that elec­tric­i­ty from renew­able sources is used, like wind, water, and solar ener­gy. The wind and solar pow­er capac­i­ty are planned to be built up at a large scale glob­al­ly to match the demand. The large vol­ume pro­duc­tion com­bined with the tech­nol­o­gy run­ning down the expe­ri­ence curve indi­cates an attrac­tive cost per kilo­watt from green elec­tric­i­ty. For exam­ple, wind pow­er is increas­ing­ly being pro­duced in large off­shore wind farms in the com­ing decade. Wind pow­er already reach­es a low­er cost per kilo­watt than new nuclear power. ![Green Hydrogen Energy Storage](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/green-hydrogen-energy-storage-1200x375.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanostructures-in-hydrogen)Carbon nanostructures in hydrogen Cur­rent­ly, we focus on improv­ing the elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell in PEM elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells. The cell enables the con­ver­sion of elec­tric­i­ty into hydro­gen and vice ver­sa. Thus, it’s a key com­po­nent in stor­ing and trans­mit­ting renew­able ener­gy and decar­boniz­ing indus­try, trans­porta­tion, and heating. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more)Learn more Rec­om­mend­ed read­ing for you who want to learn more about Smoltek Hydro­gen and our elec­trolyz­er technology: ### Electrolyzer Technology About our elec­trolyz­er technology [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen/electrolyzers/) ### Whitepaper In-depth on our technology [Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology/1976/) ### News News about Smoltek Hydrogen [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/?s=Hydrogen&ct_post_type=post%3Apage&category_name=news%2Cmedia-mentions%2Cevents&orderby=post_date&order=DESC) ### Press Releases Press releas­es in Swedish [Open in new window](https://news.cision.com/se/?q=smoltek%20hydrogen) --- title: "News" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/news/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/landing-investors-sq-jpg.webp" --- # News ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) # News and insights about Smoltek Semi Below, you will find news items, media men­tions, IR blog posts and videos from the main Smoltek web­site relat­ing to Smoltek Semi. Remem­ber to sub­scribe to the Smoltek newsletter! [All](https://www.smoltek.com?#filter) [News](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=news#filter) [Blog posts](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=ir-blog-posts#filter) [Men­tions](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=media-mentions#filter) [Videos](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=videos#filter) [Events](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=events#filter) IR Blog Posts ![Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-top-image-2.webp) June 29, 2026 ### [Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC](https://www.smoltek.com/why-ultra-thin-capacitors-matter-for-ai-and-hpc/23803/) For many years, the per­for­mance sto­ry in AI and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) was dom­i­nat­ed by tran­sis­tors and mem­o­ry band­width. But as AI accel­er­a­tors move into the kilo­watt era, anoth­er lim­i­ta­tion is becom­ing just as impor­tant: pow­er delivery. IR Blog Posts ![Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/backpack-beard-bench-842912.webp) June 16, 2026 ### [Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-enables-the-next-generation-digital-and-fossil-free-society/23864/) The world needs more com­put­ing pow­er and more fos­sil-free ener­gy. Read about how Smoltek enables the next gen­er­a­tion dig­i­tal and fos­sil-free soci­ety – two glob­al mega­trends that will dom­i­nate indus­try investment.  News ![Smoltek strengthens Interposer IP enabling AI chip capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/land-side-capacitors-1-jpg.webp) May 15, 2026 ### [Smoltek strengthens Interposer IP enabling AI chip capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-awarded-an-additional-patent-in-the-interposer-family/23641/) Smoltek has been grant­ed an addi­tion­al patent with­in its Inter­pos­er patent fam­i­ly, fur­ther pro­tect­ing the company’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy for advanced semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing. With this Euro­pean patent approval, the com­pa­ny has secured Inter­pos­er IP in all major glob­al markets. IR Blog Posts ![Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp) May 8, 2026 ### [Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure](https://www.smoltek.com/positioning-for-the-next-wave-of-ai-infrastructure/23610/) The 2026 YAGEO AI Sum­mit in Taipei was not sim­ply a prod­uct show­case. It was a strate­gic posi­tion­ing exer­cise by one of the world’s largest pas­sive com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers to estab­lish itself as a foun­da­tion­al enabler of the AI infra­struc­ture build­out now under­way globally. News ![Major Capacitor Manufacturer extends life test of CNF-MIM Capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cnf-mim-ai-chip.webp) March 27, 2026 ### [Major Capacitor Manufacturer extends life test of CNF-MIM Capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/major-capacitor-manufacturer-extends-life-test-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/23511/) Our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy has demon­strat­ed sta­ble elec­tri­cal per­for­mance after 2,000 hours in an inde­pen­dent life test con­duct­ed by a glob­al capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er. This fur­ther strength­ens con­fi­dence in the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the tech­nol­o­gy and sup­ports Smoltek’s devel­op­ment of advanced capac­i­tors for AI, RF and opto­elec­tron­ics, among oth­er applications.  News ![CNF-MIM Capacitors Reliability Validated by Major Capacitor Manufacturer](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-10-jpg.webp) Feb­ru­ary 24, 2026 ### [CNF-MIM Capacitors Reliability Validated by Major Capacitor Manufacturer](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-reliability-validated-by-major-capacitor-manufacturer-duplicate/23490/) An inde­pen­dent, third-par­ty reli­a­bil­i­ty test of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy has con­firmed the reli­a­bil­i­ty results com­mu­ni­cat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2026. The inde­pen­dent val­i­da­tion, per­formed by a major capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er, also reduces tech­ni­cal risk in the com­mer­cial­iza­tion process and strength­ens Smoltek’s cred­i­bil­i­ty in ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions with indus­tri­al partners.  News ![CNF-MIM Capacitors Demonstrate 1,000x Lower Current Leakage in Life Test](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/smoltek-mc2-02-2000x1125-1.webp) Feb­ru­ary 5, 2026 ### [CNF-MIM Capacitors Demonstrate 1,000x Lower Current Leakage in Life Test](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-demonstrate-1000x-lower-current-leakage-in-life-test/21983/) Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors demon­strate excel­lent sta­bil­i­ty in a new 1,000-hour life test at 85°C under applied 2 volts. No degra­da­tions were observed, and the capac­i­tors exhib­it­ed more than 1,000 times low­er cur­rent leak­age com­pared to the pre­vi­ous life test. IR Blog Posts ![Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) Decem­ber 19, 2025 ### [Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-part-iv-the-age-of-ai/17165/) Some years ago, in three arti­cles, I out­lined a vision where nano­ma­te­ri­als in gen­er­al, and Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form in par­tic­u­lar, would help in break­ing bar­ri­ers in sev­er­al indus­tries – espe­cial­ly in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try – bring­ing more super­s­mart gad­gets to society.  IR Blog Posts ![Smoltek Semi & AI](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp) Decem­ber 17, 2025 ### [Smoltek Semi & AI](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi-ai/13551/) Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) is the col­lec­tive term for tech­nolo­gies that enable com­put­ers to per­form tasks that nor­mal­ly require human intel­li­gence – such as rec­og­niz­ing images, under­stand­ing lan­guage, play­ing games or mak­ing deci­sions. It is based on algo­rithms, math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els and (now main­ly) Machine Learn­ing and Deep Learn­ing, where neur­al net­works are trained on large data sets. IR Blog Posts ![Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/youtube-this-is-smoltek-jpg.webp) Decem­ber 12, 2025 ### [Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-celebrates-20-years-in-nanotechnology/16275/) Smoltek con­ducts advanced research and inno­va­tion based on nan­otech­nol­o­gy to devel­op new mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy oppor­tu­ni­ties that can solve many of today’s indus­tri­al chal­lenges. This jour­ney began 20 years ago, when Dr. Shafiq Kabir, togeth­er with David Brudö and Dr. Peter Enoks­son, found­ed the company. News ![Smoltek launches SmolTALK – a podcast about deep tech](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pexels-kehn-hermano-4675376-webbformat-jpg.webp) Novem­ber 20, 2025 ### [Smoltek launches SmolTALK – a podcast about deep tech](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-launches-smoltalk-a-podcast-about-deep-tech/14481/) We have launched a pod­cast about mate­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy and invest­ments in gen­er­al and our dis­rup­tive car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy in particular. IR Blog Posts ![A deep dive into Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/smoltalk-s1-e1.webp) Novem­ber 20, 2025 ### [A deep dive into Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology](https://www.smoltek.com/deep-dive-into-smoltek-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology/14127/) In the first ”Smoltalk” pod­cast, CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son is joined by Smoltek Semi CTO Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni for a tech­ni­cal deep dive. Dr. Gha­vani­ni dis­cuss­es the core CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy in detail, cov­er­ing every­thing from its unique mate­r­i­al prop­er­ties and AI appli­ca­tions to the com­plete prod­uct roadmap, key part­ner­ships, and future inte­gra­tion plans. This arti­cle sum­ma­rize the high­lights of the conversation. 1 [2](https://www.smoltek.com?query-11729af2-page=2) … [14](https://www.smoltek.com?query-11729af2-page=14) [Next »](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/news.md?query-11729af2-page=2) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#newsletter-archive)Newsletter archive Want to take a look at pre­vi­ous newslet­ters? Here are the ten most recent ones. As you can see, we don’t exact­ly spam our sub­scribers’ inbox­es. Old­er issues can be found in our [newslet­ter archive](https://us13.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=f6accdebe71790a1661e12dd2&id=bf6517fa3e). - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sum­mer 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1bc58ab3475a/smoltek-newsletter-summer-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, April 2026](https://mailchi.mp/5f285aaa40c2/smoltek-newsletter-april-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Feb­ru­ary 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1b18cb71b078/smoltek-newsletter-february-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Decem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/17ee18afc3cb/smoltek-newsletter-december-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Novem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/2fb5f414cd18/smoltek-newsletter-november-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/7698bad4a012/smoltek-newsletter-october-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/388fff630937/smoltek-newsletter-september-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, August 2025](https://mailchi.mp/81f966bd206c/smoltek-newsletter-august-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, June 2025](https://mailchi.mp/0b35ff341742/smoltek-newsletter-june-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, May 2025](https://mailchi.mp/768d7fa5f15b/smoltek-newsletter-may-2025) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#press-releases)Press releases You find press releas­es about Smoltek Semi in Smoltek’s news­room at Cision. Below are links to the lat­est releas­es. [You can find them all on Cision.](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/?q=smoltek%20semi) June 3, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-sees-opportunities-in-japans-big-investments-in-semiconductors-for-ai-and-high-performance-computing)[Smoltek sees opportunities in Japan’s big investments in semiconductors for AI and High-Performance Computing](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-sees-opportunities-in-japan-s-big-investments-in-semiconductors-for-ai-and-high-performance-,c4355154) June 2, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-has-decided-on-a-partially-guaranteed-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million)[Smoltek has decided on a partially guaranteed rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-has-decided-on-a-partially-guaranteed-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million,c4356746) May 11, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-ceo-comments-on-the-first-quarter-of-2026-and-the-companys-focus-going-forward)[Smoltek’s CEO comments on the first quarter of 2026 and the company’s focus going forward](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-ceo-comments-on-the-first-quarter-of-2026-and-the-company-s-focus-going-forward,c4346946) April 28, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-visits-taiwan-for-meetings-with-industrial-partners-and-participation-in-yageo-group-ai-summit)[Smoltek visits Taiwan for meetings with industrial partners and participation in Yageo Group AI Summit](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-visits-taiwan-for-meetings-with-industrial-partners-and-participation-in-yageo-group-ai-summ,c4342863) Novem­ber 14, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-semi-optimizes-pecvd-system-as-cnf-mim-prototype-production-continues)[Smoltek Semi Optimizes PECVD System as CNF-MIM Prototype Production Continues](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-optimizes-pecvd-system-as-cnf-mim-prototype-production-continues,c4263852) Novem­ber 5, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-semi-reaches-key-milestone-that-brings-cnf-mim-capacitors-closer-to-commercialization)[Smoltek Semi reaches key milestone that brings CNF-MIM capacitors closer to commercialization](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-reaches-key-milestone-that-brings-cnf-mim-capacitors-closer-to-commercialization,c4262457) Octo­ber 24, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-semi-brings-ald-in-house-to-accelerate-innovation-and-shorten-time-to-market)[Smoltek Semi Brings ALD In-House to Accelerate Innovation and Shorten Time to Market](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-brings-ald-in-house-to-accelerate-innovation-and-shorten-time-to-market,c4256239) Sep­tem­ber 17, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-showcases-ultra-thin-capacitor-technology-for-next-generation-ai-and-high-performance-computing-at-semicon-taiwan)[Smoltek Showcases Ultra-Thin Capacitor Technology for Next-Generation AI and High-Performance Computing at Semicon Taiwan](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-showcases-ultra-thin-capacitor-technology-for-next-generation-ai-and-high-performance-comput,c4235917) Sep­tem­ber 10, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-semi-presents-its-capacitor-technology-for-next-generation-ai-and-high-performance-computing-systems-at-semicon-taiwan)[Smoltek Semi presents its capacitor technology for next-generation AI and high-performance computing systems at Semicon Taiwan](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-presents-its-capacitor-technology-for-next-generation-ai-and-high-performance-computing,c4231852) July 15, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-has-signed-an-agreement-with-itri-for-small-scale-production-of-cnf-mim-capacitors)[Smoltek has signed an agreement with ITRI for small-scale production of CNF-MIM capacitors](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-has-signed-an-agreement-with-itri-for-small-scale-production-of-cnf-mim-capacitors,c4205269) --- title: "News" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/news/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/landing-investors-sq-jpg.webp" --- # News ![CNFs on a glowing substrate web](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/cnfs-on-a-glowing-substrate-web.webp) # News and insights about Smoltek Hydrogen Below, you will find news items, media men­tions, IR blog posts and videos from the main Smoltek web­site relat­ing to Smoltek Hydro­gen. Remem­ber to sub­scribe to the Smoltek newsletter! [All](https://www.smoltek.com?#filter) [News](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=news#filter) [Blog posts](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=ir-blog-posts#filter) [Men­tions](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=media-mentions#filter) [Videos](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=videos#filter) [Events](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=events#filter) IR Blog Posts ![Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/backpack-beard-bench-842912.webp) June 16, 2026 ### [Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-enables-the-next-generation-digital-and-fossil-free-society/23864/) The world needs more com­put­ing pow­er and more fos­sil-free ener­gy. Read about how Smoltek enables the next gen­er­a­tion dig­i­tal and fos­sil-free soci­ety – two glob­al mega­trends that will dom­i­nate indus­try investment.  News ![Smoltek Hydrogen Selected for Swedish-German Cleantech Platform 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp) Jan­u­ary 28, 2026 ### [Smoltek Hydrogen Selected for Swedish-German Cleantech Platform 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-selected-for-swedish-german-cleantech-platform-2026/21304/) Smoltek Hydro­gen, has been select­ed as one of nine Swedish clean­tech com­pa­nies to join the Swedish-Ger­man Clean­tech Plat­form 2026. This strate­gic pro­gram, man­aged by the Swedish Ener­gy Agency and the Ger­man-Swedish Cham­ber of Com­merce, gives the oppor­tu­ni­ty to accel­er­ate the company’s com­mer­cial expan­sion into Ger­many — Europe’s lead­ing and most dynam­ic mar­ket for green hydro­gen and fuel cell technology. IR Blog Posts ![Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) Decem­ber 19, 2025 ### [Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-part-iv-the-age-of-ai/17165/) Some years ago, in three arti­cles, I out­lined a vision where nano­ma­te­ri­als in gen­er­al, and Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form in par­tic­u­lar, would help in break­ing bar­ri­ers in sev­er­al indus­tries – espe­cial­ly in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try – bring­ing more super­s­mart gad­gets to society.  IR Blog Posts ![Inside Smoltek Hydrogen: A conversation with Dr. Fabian Wenger](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/fabian-wenger.webp) Decem­ber 15, 2025 ### [Inside Smoltek Hydrogen: A conversation with Dr. Fabian Wenger](https://www.smoltek.com/inside-smoltek-hydrogen-conversation-with-fabian-wenger/16692/) What does it take to rev­o­lu­tion­ize green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion? In the sec­ond episode of Smoltalk, CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son sits down with Dr. Fabi­an Wenger to explore the sci­ence, strat­e­gy, and part­ner­ships behind Smoltek Hydro­gen’s break­through tech­nol­o­gy. Here’s the com­plete story—from car­bon nanofibers to a 95% reduc­tion in irid­i­um usage. IR Blog Posts ![Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/youtube-this-is-smoltek-jpg.webp) Decem­ber 12, 2025 ### [Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-celebrates-20-years-in-nanotechnology/16275/) Smoltek con­ducts advanced research and inno­va­tion based on nan­otech­nol­o­gy to devel­op new mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy oppor­tu­ni­ties that can solve many of today’s indus­tri­al chal­lenges. This jour­ney began 20 years ago, when Dr. Shafiq Kabir, togeth­er with David Brudö and Dr. Peter Enoks­son, found­ed the company. News ![Smoltek launches SmolTALK – a podcast about deep tech](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pexels-kehn-hermano-4675376-webbformat-jpg.webp) Novem­ber 20, 2025 ### [Smoltek launches SmolTALK – a podcast about deep tech](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-launches-smoltalk-a-podcast-about-deep-tech/14481/) We have launched a pod­cast about mate­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy and invest­ments in gen­er­al and our dis­rup­tive car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy in particular. Media men­tions ![Smoltek Hydrogen’s technology leads in the race for green hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/pemwe-in-landscape.webp) Novem­ber 12, 2025 ### [Smoltek Hydrogen’s technology leads in the race for green hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogens-technology-leads-in-the-race-for-green-hydrogen/13665/) Smoltek Hydrogen’s inno­va­tion in nanos­truc­tured elec­trodes offers a solu­tion to help Europe to over­come the tech­no­log­i­cal con­straints in the race for green hydro­gen — enabling elec­trol­y­sers with less rare mate­r­i­al require­ment, at low­er cost and enhanced performance.  News ![Smoltek Hydrogen launches development project with Heraeus Precious Metals](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/smoltek-pte-03-1920x1080-1.webp) Novem­ber 4, 2025 ### [Smoltek Hydrogen launches development project with Heraeus Precious Metals](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-launches-development-project-with-heraeus-precious-metals/12640/) Smoltek Hydro­gen has received an order for sam­ples of low irid­i­um-load Porous Trans­port Elec­trodes (PTE) for PEM elec­trolyz­ers. The elec­trodes will be used in a joint devel­op­ment project with Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als, a glob­al leader in pre­cious metals. News ![Smoltek Hydrogen highlights global iridium shortage: “Every atom counts”](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp) Octo­ber 30, 2025 ### [Smoltek Hydrogen highlights global iridium shortage: “Every atom counts”](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-highlights-global-iridium-shortage-every-atom-counts/12129/) Smoltek Hydro­gen recent­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Hydro­gen Tech­nol­o­gy World Expo 2025 in Ham­burg, Ger­many – the world’s largest indus­try event for inno­va­tion in hydro­gen and elec­trol­y­sis tech­nol­o­gy. Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen, was invit­ed to a pan­el dis­cus­sion on the top­ic “Over­com­ing the Key Obsta­cles in Elec­trolyz­er Expansion” IR Blog Posts ![Making every atom count in the race for scalable green hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/satirical-lighthearted-caricature-of-female-president-holding-flags-of-sweden-and-germany.webp) Octo­ber 29, 2025 ### [Making every atom count in the race for scalable green hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/making-every-atom-count-in-the-race-for-scalable-green-hydrogen/12019/) At the Hydro­gen Tech­nol­o­gy World Expo 2025 in Ham­burg, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen, joined a high-lev­el pan­el to debate one of the industry’s most press­ing chal­lenges: How can green hydro­gen be scaled fast enough—and afford­ably enough—to meet the world’s decar­boniza­tion goals?  Events ![Hydrogen Technology World Expo](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ellinor-2024-06-webb.webp) Sep­tem­ber 3, 2025 ### [Hydrogen Technology World Expo](https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen-technology-world-expo/11186/) Smoltek is attend­ing Hydro­gen Tech­nol­o­gy World Expo in Ham­burg, Octo­ber 21–23, 2025. Media men­tions ![Smoltek’s Fuel Cell Breakthrough Slashes Iridium Use, Advancing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Tech](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hydrogen-fuel-news-smolteks-fuel-cell-breakthrough-slashes-iiridium-use-advancing-hydrogen-fuel-cell-ech.webp) June 13, 2025 ### [Smoltek’s Fuel Cell Breakthrough Slashes Iridium Use, Advancing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Tech](https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-fuel-cell-breakthrough-slashes-iridium-use-advancing-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tech/8843/) This is a sum­ma­ry of an arti­cle fea­tur­ing Smoltek titled “Smoltek’s Fuel Cell Break­through Slash­es Irid­i­um Use, Advanc­ing Hydro­gen Fuel Cell Tech” pub­lished by Hydro­gen Fuel News on June 13, 2025. 1 [2](https://www.smoltek.com?query-11729af2-page=2) … [8](https://www.smoltek.com?query-11729af2-page=8) [Next »](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/news.md?query-11729af2-page=2) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#newsletter-archive)Newsletter archive Want to take a look at pre­vi­ous newslet­ters? Here are the ten most recent ones. As you can see, we don’t exact­ly spam our sub­scribers’ inbox­es. Old­er issues can be found in our [newslet­ter archive](https://us13.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=f6accdebe71790a1661e12dd2&id=bf6517fa3e). - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sum­mer 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1bc58ab3475a/smoltek-newsletter-summer-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, April 2026](https://mailchi.mp/5f285aaa40c2/smoltek-newsletter-april-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Feb­ru­ary 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1b18cb71b078/smoltek-newsletter-february-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Decem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/17ee18afc3cb/smoltek-newsletter-december-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Novem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/2fb5f414cd18/smoltek-newsletter-november-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/7698bad4a012/smoltek-newsletter-october-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/388fff630937/smoltek-newsletter-september-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, August 2025](https://mailchi.mp/81f966bd206c/smoltek-newsletter-august-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, June 2025](https://mailchi.mp/0b35ff341742/smoltek-newsletter-june-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, May 2025](https://mailchi.mp/768d7fa5f15b/smoltek-newsletter-may-2025) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#press-releases)Press releases You find press releas­es about Smoltek Semi in Smoltek’s news­room at Cision. Below are links to the lat­est releas­es. [You can find them all on Cision.](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/?q=smoltek%20hydrogen) June 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-change-in-management-for-smoltek-hydrogen)[Smoltek announces change in management for Smoltek Hydrogen](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-change-in-management-for-smoltek-hydrogen,c4359868) June 2, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-has-decided-on-a-partially-guaranteed-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million)[Smoltek has decided on a partially guaranteed rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-has-decided-on-a-partially-guaranteed-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million,c4356746) May 11, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-ceo-comments-on-the-first-quarter-of-2026-and-the-companys-focus-going-forward)[Smoltek’s CEO comments on the first quarter of 2026 and the company’s focus going forward](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-ceo-comments-on-the-first-quarter-of-2026-and-the-company-s-focus-going-forward,c4346946) Jan­u­ary 28, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-admitted-into-swedish-german-cleantech-platform-2026-strengthens-position-in-europes-leading-hydrogen-market)[Smoltek Hydrogen admitted into Swedish-German Cleantech Platform 2026 – strengthens position in Europe’s leading hydrogen market](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-admitted-into-swedish-german-cleantech-platform-2026---strengthens-position-in-euro,c4298978) Decem­ber 12, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-marks-20-years-of-nanotechnology-innovation-and-looks-ahead-to-an-era-of-scalable-applications)[Smoltek Marks 20 Years of Nanotechnology Innovation and Looks Ahead to an Era of Scalable Applications](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-marks-20-years-of-nanotechnology-innovation-and-looks-ahead-to-an-era-of-scalable-applicatio,c4280403) Novem­ber 4, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-launch-joint-development-project-in-hydrogen-technology)[Smoltek Hydrogen and Heraeus Precious Metals launch joint development project in hydrogen technology](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-launch-joint-development-project-in-hydrogen-technology,c4261465) Octo­ber 29, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-highlights-global-iridium-shortage-at-hydrogen-event-in-hamburg)[Smoltek highlights global iridium shortage at hydrogen event in Hamburg](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-highlights-global-iridium-shortage-at-hydrogen-event-in-hamburg,c4258418) Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-strengthens-technical-expertise-through-leading-industrial-consortium)[Smoltek Hydrogen strengthens technical expertise through leading industrial consortium](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-strengthens-technical-expertise-through-leading-industrial-consortium,c4243288) June 12, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-completes-successful-fuel-cell-electrode-test-with-leading-automotive-manufacturer)[Smoltek Hydrogen completes successful fuel cell electrode test with leading automotive manufacturer](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-completes-successful-fuel-cell-electrode-test-with-leading-automotive-manufacturer,c4163493) June 12, 2025 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strategic-update-for-smoltek-hydrogen-ab-clear-path-towards-commercialization-of-electrode-technology)[Strategic update for Smoltek Hydrogen AB – clear path towards commercialization of electrode technology](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/strategic-update-for-smoltek-hydrogen-ab---clear-path-towards-commercialization-of-electrode-technol,c4163434) --- title: "Semiconductors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/semiconductor/" date: 2025-07-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-semicon-jpg.webp" --- # Semiconductors Strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares # Summarizing the financial news at the break point between June and July shows strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heavily oversubscribed and Smoltek shares are now available for trading on several international marketplaces in addition to the main listing on the Spotlight Stock Market in Sweden. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) We enable the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to con­tin­ue to devel­op ever­more effi­cient electronics. Smoltek enables the pro­duc­tion of small­er and bet­ter micro­elec­tron­ic com­po­nents through solu­tions for smarter inte­gra­tion. The company’s dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy offers a broad field of pro­duc­tion process­es for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, among those CMOS-com­pli­ant devices, to meet today’s and tomorrow’s mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing challenges. One exam­ple of how and where Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy can be imple­ment­ed is in minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors for inte­gra­tion into semi­con­duc­tor circuits—a crit­i­cal appli­ca­tion in the advanced pack­ag­ing of high-per­for­mance processors. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-semiconductor-market)The semiconductor market The semi­con­duc­tor mar­ket is large, very large. Pure gigan­tic. There are semi­con­duc­tors today in almost every product—which is why we, over the years, have had close dia­logues with sev­er­al large cus­tomers and part­ners, from both a tech­ni­cal and busi­ness per­spec­tive, to iden­ti­fy which part of the semi­con­duc­tor mar­ket we should address with our tech­nol­o­gy. The con­clu­sion is that we will first and fore­most focus on dis­crete super-thin capac­i­tors for mobile appli­ca­tions where the capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers are our customers. This is a huge mul­ti-bil­lion market—where the major play­ers today are on the Unit­ed States’ west coast and South­east Asia. The glob­al semi­con­duc­tor mar­ket is esti­mat­ed to grow at 6% CAGR by $ 84.41 bil­lion dur­ing the fore­cast peri­od 2021–2025. (Mar­ket­watch, July 1, 2021) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#semiconductor-evolution-and-the-problem-we-solve)Semiconductor evolution—and the problem we solve As the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try has been able to con­tin­ue minia­tur­iz­ing the tran­sis­tors in proces­sor chips, the chip’s per­for­mance increas­es, which gives us faster and increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful com­put­ers, tablets, mobile phones, etc. A con­se­quence of this devel­op­ment is that the elec­tri­cal volt­age in the chip must be reduced, which entails an increased need for so-called decou­pling capac­i­tors near the chip. These capac­i­tors need to be extreme­ly thin to place these close enough to the active proces­sor. Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber-based (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tors can solve this par­tic­u­lar problem. A smart­phone con­sists of many com­po­nents. Mind­bog­gling many. For all these parts to work togeth­er, the entire sys­tem, in each mobile, needs the sup­port of about a thou­sand capac­i­tors. Our focus is to sup­port a sub­set of these con­nect­ed to the heart in the mobile device, name­ly the appli­ca­tion proces­sor, a niche that, in prin­ci­ple, all major play­ers are inter­est­ed in. And con­sid­er­ing that about 1.5 bil­lion appli­ca­tion proces­sors are pro­duced annu­al­ly, the num­ber of capac­i­tors that need to be pro­duced will be quite large. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-market-for-our-capacitors)The market for our capacitors The mar­ket for our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is in spe­cial­ized elec­tron­ic com­po­nents used in a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of semi­con­duc­tors and inte­grat­ed cir­cuits. The capac­i­tors are spe­cial­ly designed to offer high capac­i­tance val­ues in a com­pact form factor.  *Exam­ples of areas of appli­ca­tion are:* *Con­sumer elec­tron­ics* – Smart­phones, tablets and portable devices where the capac­i­tors are used in the appli­ca­tion proces­sor, which place high demands on the com­bi­na­tion of high per­for­mance in a small form fac­tor. With our tech­nol­o­gy for ultra-thin capac­i­tors, we can become a lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy sup­pli­er in this seg­ment, as we can meet those require­ments. It enables, for exam­ple, our capac­i­tors to be placed clos­er to the appli­ca­tion proces­sor com­pared to com­pet­ing tech­nolo­gies, which is very impor­tant for, like for exam­ple, mobile phone man­u­fac­tur­ers as it increas­es sys­tem (AP/​SoC – Sys­tem on Chip[1](https://www.smoltek.com#c2d7dbfb-048f-46e0-a96e-7b7aeb621e5d)) per­for­mance. **The auto­mo­tive indus­try** – Our capac­i­tors are suit­able for var­i­ous elec­tri­cal sys­tems in the auto­mo­tive indus­try where tech­nol­o­gy has become more advanced, with exten­sive soft­ware imple­men­ta­tion and many com­plex safe­ty sys­tems. This means that there are strict require­ments for sta­ble volt­age lev­els and reli­able func­tion of impor­tant com­po­nents, which are chal­lenges our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy can meet.  **The aero­space and defense indus­try** – Tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ments require high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors to meet the strict spec­i­fi­ca­tions found in radar sys­tems, com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment, and oth­er avionics.  **Radio fre­quen­cy (RF)** – Our tech­nol­o­gy can be used in so-called RF cir­cuits where there are high require­ments for a very small form fac­tor. In RF, our tech­nol­o­gy can be used to con­trol imped­ance (elec­tri­cal resis­tance to alter­nat­ing cur­rent) and improve the per­for­mance of wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion devices such as mobile phones and Wi-Fi routers.  **Indus­try and man­u­fac­tur­ing** – In indus­tri­al automa­tion and con­trol sys­tems, our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy can be used to ensure the high demands placed on sta­ble and accu­rate volt­age lev­els, con­tribut­ing to the reli­a­bil­i­ty of man­u­fac­tur­ing processes.  In sum­ma­ry, our tech­nol­o­gy is dri­ven by the increas­ing demand for minia­tur­ized, high-per­for­mance elec­tron­ic devices in a vari­ety of indus­tries. As the devel­op­ment of semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues and the need for small­er and more effi­cient com­po­nents increas­es, we expect the mar­ket for our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy to expand.  Today, we focus par­tic­u­lar­ly on the mobile mar­ket (con­sumer elec­tron­ics), where the need for small form fac­tors and high per­for­mance rep­re­sents sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges and opportunities.  As an exam­ple, the mar­ket for land­side-mount­ed decou­pling capac­i­tors for appli­ca­tion proces­sors in pre­mi­um priced mobile phones is pre­dict­ed to have an expect­ed aver­age annu­al growth rate of about 3.6% CAGR, increas­ing from about 3.6 bil­lion decou­pling capac­i­tors in 2023 to about 4.6 bil­lion decou­pling capac­i­tors in 2030. This is a sub-mar­ket that we are ini­tial­ly targeting. Click above to start the film clip. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more)Learn more Rec­om­mend­ed read­ing for you who want to learn more about our ultra-thin CNF-MIN decou­pling capacitors: ### CNF-MIM Capacitors About our ultra-thin decou­pling capacitors [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/semiconductor/capacitors/) ### Whitepaper In-depth on our technology [Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/introducing-smoltek-carbon-nanofiber-technology/5742/) ### News News about Smoltek Semi [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/?s=Semi&ct_post_type=post%3Apage&category_name=news%2Cmedia-mentions%2Cevents&orderby=post_date&order=DESC) ### Press Releases Press releas­es in Swedish [Open in new window](https://news.cision.com/se/?q=smoltek%20semi) --- title: "Smoltek Glossary" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/" date: 2023-10-30 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/glossary-jpg.webp" --- # Smoltek Glossary ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#2d)2D Abbre­vi­a­tion of two-dimen­sion­al. It refers to things that take up space or hap­pen in two dimen­sions (plane). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#2-5d-integration)2.5D-integration An advanced tech­nique for [semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor-packaging) where [dice](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) are placed on an [inter­pos­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#interposer) that uses [through-sil­i­con vias](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#through-silicon-vias-tsv) and [redis­tri­b­u­tion lay­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#redistribution-layers-rdl) for inter­con­nect­ing the dice. Despite being close­ly pack­aged, dice in this con­fig­u­ra­tion com­mu­ni­cate through off-chip sig­nal­ing, akin to their oper­a­tion when placed in sep­a­rate pack­ages on a stan­dard [cir­cuit board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#3d)3D Abbre­vi­a­tion of three-dimen­sion­al. It refers to things that take up space or hap­pen in three dimensions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#3d-packaging)3D-packaging The process of stack­ing dif­fer­ent inte­grat­ed cir­cuit dice with­in a sin­gle pack­age, using inter­posers for elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions. Unlike [3D inte­gra­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#3d-integration), this method does not involve alter­ing the sil­i­con itself but focus­es on pack­age-lev­el stack­ing. It pro­vides ver­sa­til­i­ty in com­bin­ing var­i­ous tech­nolo­gies and mate­ri­als and is less com­plex than 3D inte­gra­tion, offer­ing a prac­ti­cal solu­tion for inte­grat­ing diverse com­po­nents in a sin­gle package. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#3d-ic)3D IC A 3D inte­gra­tion tech­nique that uses 3D inte­gra­tion to cre­ate mul­ti­ple stacks of dice stacked on top of each and 2.5D inte­gra­tion to con­nect the stacks using a sil­i­con inter­pos­er. In jest, this is some­times called the 5.5D IC because it com­bines 2.5D and 3D. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#3d-integration)3D-integration Ver­ti­cal­ly stack­ing and inter­con­nect­ing sil­i­con wafers or dice to func­tion as a sin­gle device. This tech­nique, which uses [through-sil­i­con vias](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#through-silicon-vias-tsv) for direct lay­er-to-lay­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, aims to enhance device per­for­mance and func­tion­al­i­ty in a com­pact space. It is char­ac­ter­ized by its ver­ti­cal inte­gra­tion approach, improved sig­nal trans­mis­sion speed, reduced pow­er con­sump­tion, and the need for pre­cise align­ment and bond­ing meth­ods, mak­ing it a com­plex yet effi­cient man­u­fac­tur­ing process. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a)A See [*ampere*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ampere-a). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#absolute-permittivity)absolute permittivity A mea­sure of a material’s abil­i­ty to [polar­ize](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#polariziation) in response to an applied [elec­tric field](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electric-field) and there­by store elec­tri­cal ener­gy. It is often denot­ed ε. It quan­ti­fies the elec­tric polar­iz­abil­i­ty of a [dielec­tric](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dielectric). The high­er the absolute per­mit­tiv­i­ty, the more a mate­r­i­al can polar­ize and the more ener­gy it can store when sub­ject­ed to an elec­tric field. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ac)AC See [*alter­nat­ing cur­rent*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alternating-current-ac). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#active-component)active component A [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) that requires an exter­nal pow­er source to func­tion or can pro­vide pow­er to a cir­cuit. These com­po­nents are involved in func­tions like ampli­fi­ca­tion, rec­ti­fi­ca­tion, sig­nal pro­cess­ing, and pow­er gen­er­a­tion. Exam­ples include [tran­sis­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#transistor), diodes, [inte­grat­ed cir­cuits](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip), and batteries. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#advanced-packaging)advanced packaging Refers to inno­v­a­tive and sophis­ti­cat­ed tech­niques in [semi­con­duc­tor encap­su­la­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor-encapsulation) that aim to improve per­for­mance, reduce size, and inte­grate addi­tion­al fea­tures. This sub­set of semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing goes beyond tra­di­tion­al meth­ods to address chal­lenges in high-per­for­mance com­put­ing, minia­tur­iza­tion, and com­plex cir­cuit inte­gra­tion. [3D pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#3d-packing) and [Sys­tem in Pack­age (SiP)](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#system-in-package-sip) are key tech­nolo­gies in advanced packaging. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#aem)AEM See [*anion exchange mem­brane*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-aem). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#aem-electrolysis)AEM electrolysis See [*anion exchange mem­brane elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-electrolysis). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#aem-electrolyzer)AEM electrolyzer See [*anion exchange mem­brane elec­trolyz­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#aem-water-electrolysis)AEM water electrolysis See [*anion exchange mem­brane elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-water-electrolysis). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#aem-water-electrolyzer)AEM water electrolyzer See [*anion exchange mem­brane water elec­trolyz­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-water-electrolyzer-aemwe). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ald)ALD See [*atom­ic lay­er depo­si­tion*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#atomic-layer-deposition-ald). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alk)ALK See [*alka­line*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alk-electrolysis)ALK electrolysis See [*alka­line elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-electrolysis). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alk-electrolyzer)ALK electrolyzer See [*alka­line elec­trolyz­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-electrolyzer). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alk-water-electrolysis)ALK water electrolysis See [*alka­line elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-water-electrolysis). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alk-water-electrolyzer)ALK water electrolyzer See [*alka­line water elec­trolyz­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-water-electrolyzer-aklwe). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alkaline)alkaline Adjec­tive describ­ing a sub­stance that is water sol­u­ble and has a pH greater than 7.0 or a solu­tion of such a substance. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alkaline-electrolysis)alkaline electrolysis [Elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolysis) char­ac­ter­ized by hav­ing [elec­trodes](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) oper­at­ing in a liq­uid alka­line [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte) solu­tion, typ­i­cal­ly potas­si­um hydrox­ide (KOH) or sodi­um hydrox­ide (NaOH). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alkaline-electrolyzer)alkaline electrolyzer [Elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer) for [alka­line elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-electrolysis). [Alka­line water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-water-electrolysis-aklwe) is an impor­tant application. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alkaline-water-electrolysis-aklwe)alkaline water electrolysis (AKLWE) Elec­trol­y­sis by means of an [alka­line elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-electrolyzer) for the pur­pose of split­ting water into [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) and oxy­gen. Its major advan­tage is that a high-cost noble met­al cat­a­lyst is not required; a low-cost [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte) solu­tion is used instead. How­ev­er, alka­line water elec­trol­y­sis has sev­er­al draw­backs com­pared to [pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolysis). Most notable are low­er ener­gy effi­cien­cy, sen­si­tiv­i­ty to changes in pow­er input, and less puri­ty of the pro­duced hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alkaline-water-electrolyzer)alkaline water electrolyzer [Alka­line elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-electrolyzer) built for the pur­pose of [water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#water-electrolysis). See also [*alka­line water elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-water-electrolysis-aklwe). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alternating-current-ac)alternating current (AC) A type of elec­tri­cal [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) in which the direc­tion of the flow of elec­trons switch­es back and forth at reg­u­lar inter­vals or cycles. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ampere-a)ampere (A) The SI unit of elec­tric [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) rep­re­sents a flow of one coulomb of charge per second. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anion)anion A neg­a­tive­ly charged [ion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ion) is formed when an atom or mol­e­cule has excess neg­a­tive charge in the form of elec­trons. Dur­ing [elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolysis), anions have a ten­den­cy to accu­mu­late at the [anode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anode) (pos­i­tive elec­trode) in an elec­trolyte solution. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anion-exchange-membrane)anion exchange membrane A [mem­brane](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#membrane) that selec­tive­ly allows the pas­sage of [anions](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anions) while most­ly block­ing [cations](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cations) or neu­tral mol­e­cules com­mon­ly used in var­i­ous [elec­tro­chem­i­cal](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical) process­es like [elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolysis) and [fuel cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fuel-cells). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anion-exchange-membrane-electrolysis)anion exchange membrane electrolysis [Elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolysis) char­ac­ter­ized by hav­ing [elec­trodes](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) on each side of an [anion exchange mem­brane](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anion-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer)anion exchange membrane electrolyzer [Elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer) for [anion exchange mem­brane elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-electrolysis). [Anion exchange mem­brane water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-water-electrolysis-aemwe) is an impor­tant application. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anion-exchange-membrane-water-electrolysis-aemwe)anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) Elec­trol­y­sis by means of an [anion exchange mem­brane elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer) for the pur­pose of split­ting water into [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) and oxy­gen. Its major advan­tage is that a high-cost noble met­al cat­a­lyst is not required; a low-cost tran­si­tion met­al [cat­a­lyst](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalyst) can be used instead. How­ev­er, it is still in the ear­ly research and devel­op­ment stage, while [alka­line water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alkaline-water-electrolysis) is in the mature stage, and [pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolysis) is in the com­mer­cial stage. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anion-exchange-membrane-water-electrolyzer)anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer [Anion exchange mem­brane elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer) built for the pur­pose of [water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#water-electrolysis). See also [*anion exchange mem­brane water elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-water-electrolysis-aemwe). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anode)anode An elec­trode of a polar­ized elec­tri­cal device through which con­ven­tion­al cur­rent enters the device. Elec­trons flow from the device to the anode. In [elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cell), oxi­da­tion occurs at the anode. In pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trolyz­ers, [irid­i­um](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#iridium-ir) is used in the anode. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#anti-corrosion-material)anti-corrosion material Mate­r­i­al that resists cor­ro­sion and is used to pro­tect oth­er mate­ri­als, e.g., [plat­inum](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#platinum-pt), is used in electrolyzers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#atomic-layer-deposition-ald)atomic layer deposition (ALD) A thin film [depo­si­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deposition) tech­nique that deposits mate­ri­als lay­er by lay­er at the atom­ic lev­el. Dur­ing atom­ic lay­er depo­si­tion, [pre­cur­sor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#precursor) gas­es are pulsed into a reac­tion cham­ber sequen­tial­ly, allow­ing for pre­cise film thick­ness and com­po­si­tion con­trol. This method ensures high-qual­i­ty and uni­form films even on com­plex surfaces. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#available-surface-area)available surface area In the con­text of an [elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cell), such as those used in [pro­ton exchange mem­brane (PEM) elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer), avail­able sur­face area refers to the area of the [elec­trode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) sur­faces that active­ly par­tic­i­pate in [elec­tro­chem­i­cal](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical) reactions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#balance-of-plant-bop)balance of plant (BoP) All the sup­port­ing com­po­nents and sys­tems required to oper­ate an [elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer) effec­tive­ly, exclud­ing the [elec­trolyz­er stack](https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smoltek.com%2Fglossary%3Felectrolyzer-stack&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1701294159020151&usg=AOvVaw3r1s3UqPvm_n90AFgf-1nP) itself. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ball-grid-array-bga)ball grid array (BGA) A [chip](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip) [pack­ag­ing scheme](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#packaging-scheme) in which the bot­tom of the pack­age is cov­ered in a grid-like pat­tern of [sol­der balls](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#solder-balls). These sol­der balls pro­vide the elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions between the chip and the [sub­strate it is sol­dered onto, such as a](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board) [print­ed cir­cuit board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bandgap)bandgap The ener­gy dif­fer­ence between the [valence band’s](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#valence-band) top and the [con­duc­tion band’s](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#conduction-band) bot­tom. It is a cru­cial para­me­ter that deter­mines the [elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity) of a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor). A larg­er bandgap means more ener­gy is required for an elec­tron to move from the valence band to the con­duc­tion band. Semi­con­duc­tors with a small bandgap are more eas­i­ly excit­ed and can con­duct elec­tric­i­ty more read­i­ly. In con­trast, those with a large bandgap are less conductive. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bipolar-plate)bipolar plate A slim, flat com­po­nent, often made of graphite or met­al, fea­tur­ing intri­cate chan­nels on its sur­face. It’s used with­in the [elec­trolyz­er stack](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-stack), where it serves a dual pur­pose: con­nect­ing the [anode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anode) of one [cell](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cell) to the [cath­ode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cathode) of anoth­er while also man­ag­ing water and gas flow. Its thin­ness and chan­nel design are cru­cial for effi­cien­cy, mak­ing it a key ele­ment in the stack’s over­all performance. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bga)BGA See [*ball grid array*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ball-grid-array-bga). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#black-hydrogen)black hydrogen [Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) gen­er­at­ed from low­er-grade coal, like lig­nite, through a process known as coal gasi­fi­ca­tion. Black hydro­gen pro­duc­tion is high­ly pol­lut­ing, releas­ing a con­sid­er­able amount of car­bon diox­ide and oth­er harm­ful emis­sions due to the com­bus­tion of coal. See also [*green hydro­gen*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen), [blue hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#blue-hydrogen), [grey hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#grey-hydrogen), and [brown hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#brown-hydrogen). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#blue-hydrogen)blue hydrogen [Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) gen­er­at­ed from nat­ur­al gas through process­es such as steam methane reform­ing or autother­mal reform­ing, where the car­bon emis­sions are cap­tured and stored, reduc­ing its envi­ron­men­tal impact. See also [*green hydro­gen*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen), [grey hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#grey-hydrogen), [brown hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#brown-hydrogen), and [black hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#black-hydrogen). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#brown-hydrogen)brown hydrogen [Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) gen­er­at­ed from high­er-grade coal through a process known as coal gasi­fi­ca­tion. Brown hydrogen’s pro­duc­tion is high­ly pol­lut­ing, releas­ing a con­sid­er­able amount of car­bon diox­ide and oth­er harm­ful emis­sions due to the com­bus­tion of coal. See also [*green hydro­gen*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen), [blue hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#blue-hydrogen), [grey hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#grey-hydrogen), and [black hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#black-hydrogen). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bump)bump See [*sol­der balls*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#solder-balls). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cagr)CAGR See [*com­pound annu­al growth rate*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#compound-annual-growth-rate-cagt). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cap)cap See [*capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#capacitance)capacitance The abil­i­ty of a [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor) to store an elec­tric charge is mea­sured in [farads](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#farads) (F). It rep­re­sents the charge a capac­i­tor can hold for a giv­en [volt­age](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#voltage) across its terminals. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#capacitor)capacitor An elec­tron­ic [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) that stores and releas­es elec­tri­cal ener­gy con­sists of two con­duct­ing plates sep­a­rat­ed by an insu­lat­ing mate­r­i­al, which is [dielec­tric](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dielectric). Some­times abbre­vi­at­ed *cap*. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-dioxide-co2)carbon dioxide (CO2) A col­or­less, odor­less gas that aris­es from var­i­ous nat­ur­al process­es, such as res­pi­ra­tion and vol­canic erup­tions, and human activ­i­ties, pri­mar­i­ly burn­ing fos­sil fuels. Ele­vat­ed car­bon diox­ide lev­els in the atmos­phere are a chief con­trib­u­tor to the [green­house effect](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#greenhouse-effect), [glob­al warm­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#global-warming), and [cli­mate change](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#climate-change). Lim­i­ta­tion of green­house gas emis­sions is a pri­ma­ry goal for those advo­cat­ing for [fos­sil-free](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fossil-free) ener­gy sources. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nano-growth-tool)carbon nano-growth tool Equip­ment designed to facil­i­tate the [growth](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#grow) or syn­the­sis of car­bon-based [nanos­truc­tures](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nanostructure), such as [nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nanofiber), nan­otubes, or graphene. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanofiber-cnf)carbon nanofiber (CNF) A type of [nanofiber](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nanofiber) com­posed of car­bon atoms. These fibers exhib­it unique mechan­i­cal, elec­tri­cal, and ther­mal prop­er­ties, mak­ing them suit­able for var­i­ous appli­ca­tions. Grow­ing car­bon nanofiber is Smoltek’s core competence. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanotechnology)carbon nanotechnology The study, manip­u­la­tion, and appli­ca­tion of car­bon-based nanoscale struc­tures, includ­ing [car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-nanofiber-cnf), nan­otubes, and graphene. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-free)carbon-free Refers to process­es, activ­i­ties, or ener­gy sources that do not release car­bon diox­ide (CO2) into the atmos­phere. For exam­ple, renew­able ener­gy sources like solar and wind pow­er are con­sid­ered car­bon-free because they gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty with­out emit­ting CO2. See also [*car­bon-neu­tral*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-neutral) and [fos­sil-free](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fossil-free). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-neutral)carbon-neutral Means that any CO2 released into the atmos­phere from a cer­tain activ­i­ty is bal­anced out by an equiv­a­lent amount of CO2 being removed. This can be achieved through var­i­ous means, such as car­bon off­set­ting, where CO2 emis­sions are com­pen­sat­ed for by fund­ing renew­able ener­gy projects, tree plant­i­ng, or oth­er activ­i­ties that absorb CO2. See also [*car­bon-free*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-free) and [fos­sil-free](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fossil-free). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#catalyst)catalyst A sub­stance that facil­i­tates a chem­i­cal reac­tion with­out under­go­ing any per­ma­nent chem­i­cal change itself. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#catalyst-support)catalyst support A mate­r­i­al on which a [cat­a­lyst](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalyst) is dis­persed or attached increas­ing the avail­able sur­face area and sta­bil­i­ty of the catalyst. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cathode)cathode An elec­trode of a polar­ized elec­tri­cal device through which con­ven­tion­al cur­rent leaves the device. Elec­trons flow to the device from the cath­ode. In [elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cell), reduc­tion occurs at the cathode. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cation)cation A pos­i­tive­ly charged [ion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ion) is formed when an atom or mol­e­cule has an excess pos­i­tive charge lack­ing one or sev­er­al elec­trons. In an [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte) solu­tion, cations move toward the cath­ode dur­ing electrolysis. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cell)cell See [*elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cell). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cell-area)cell area The sur­face area of the elec­trodes where the elec­tro­chem­i­cal reac­tions occur in an elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#chemical-vapor-deposition-cvd)chemical vapor deposition (CVD) A method used to pro­duce thin films or coat­ings on a sub­strate by chem­i­cal­ly react­ing gaseous [pre­cur­sors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#precursors) at or near the [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate) sur­face. The sub­strate is exposed to one or more vapor­ized pre­cur­sor mate­ri­als dur­ing this process. As these pre­cur­sors come into con­tact with the sub­strate, they react or decom­pose, form­ing a sol­id [deposit](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deposit). Chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion is the main process when grow­ing car­bon nanofibers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#chip)chip See [*inte­grat­ed cir­cuit*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#integrated-circuit-ic). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#chip-on-board-cob)chip-on-board (COB) A chip [pack­ag­ing scheme](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#packaging-scheme) where the [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) [die](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) is mount­ed direct­ly onto a [cir­cuit board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board) and then cov­ered with a pro­tec­tive epoxy or sim­i­lar material. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#circuit-board)circuit board A flat board made from non-con­duc­tive mate­r­i­al with [con­duc­tive](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity) traces etched or print­ed on it, on which elec­tron­ic [com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) are mount­ed and elec­tri­cal­ly connected. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#climate-change)climate change Refers to sig­nif­i­cant changes in glob­al tem­per­a­tures and weath­er pat­terns over extend­ed peri­ods. While cli­mate change is a nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non, cur­rent pat­terns are heav­i­ly influ­enced and accel­er­at­ed by human activ­i­ties, espe­cial­ly the burn­ing of fos­sil fuels. This has led to var­i­ous envi­ron­men­tal and soci­etal chal­lenges, includ­ing more fre­quent and severe weath­er events, altered ecosys­tems, and ris­ing sea lev­els. Var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al frame­works, includ­ing the [Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals](https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.un.org%2Fen%2Fclimatechange%2F17-goals-to-transform-our-world&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1701294159031445&usg=AOvVaw0fKOcM1CIAtNQigteQqr5b), the [UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change](https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Funfccc.int%2Fprocess-and-meetings%2Fthe-convention%2Fwhat-is-the-united-nations-framework-convention-on-climate-change&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1701294159031559&usg=AOvVaw0UuYQWJNZvJ_EvCGZBonA5), and the [Paris Agree­ment](https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.un.org%2Fen%2Fclimatechange%2Fparis-agreement&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1701294159031638&usg=AOvVaw3fqv3RRuCjyXOiNHGdy7a8), out­line nec­es­sary mea­sures to address cli­mate change. These include reduc­ing emis­sions, adapt­ing to cli­mate-relat­ed impacts, and secur­ing the fund­ing need­ed for these adap­ta­tions. Encour­ag­ing the use of [fos­sil-free](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fossil-free) ener­gy sources and [green hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen) is essen­tial in the effort to halt cli­mate change. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#climate-crisis)climate crisis A term empha­siz­ing the urgent and severe nature of [cli­mate change](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#climate-change). It high­lights the imme­di­ate need for action to address the esca­lat­ing chal­lenges of ris­ing tem­per­a­tures, sea-lev­el rise, extreme weath­er events, and oth­er man­i­fes­ta­tions of dis­rupt­ed cli­mate pat­terns. Due to the cri­sis, many new tech­nolo­gies are being devel­oped and are expect­ed to reach large mar­kets in the future. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cmos)CMOS Abbre­vi­a­tion of com­ple­men­tary met­al-oxide-semi­con­duc­tor, which comes from the use of com­ple­men­tary and sym­met­ri­cal pairs of [p‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#p-type) and [n‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#n-type) [MOS­FETs](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#mosfet) where the MOSFET hav­ing a met­al gate [elec­trode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) placed on top of an oxide [insu­la­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#insulator), which in turn is on top of a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) mate­r­i­al. Since one [tran­sis­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#transistor) of the MOSFET pair is always off, the series com­bi­na­tion draws sig­nif­i­cant pow­er only momen­tar­i­ly dur­ing switch­ing between on and off states. Con­se­quent­ly, CMOS devices do not pro­duce as much waste heat as oth­er forms of log­ic. CMOS is also used in a gen­er­al sense to refer to both the type of cir­cuit­ry that uses CMOS tech­nol­o­gy and the process of man­u­fac­tur­ing with CMOS technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf)CNF See [*car­bon nanofiber*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-nanofiber-cnf). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf-mim)CNF-MIM Smoltek’s trade­mark [car­bon nanofiber](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-nanofiber-cnf) enhanced [met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#metal-insulation-metal-capacitor-mim-capacitor). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#co2)CO2 See [*car­bon diox­ide*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-dioxide-CO~2~). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cob)COB See [*chip-on-board*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip-on-board-cob). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor-cmos)complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) See [*CMOS*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cmos). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#component)component A spe­cif­ic device or ele­ment with­in a tech­ni­cal sys­tem, such as an elec­tri­cal or elec­tron­ic cir­cuit, serves a dis­tinct pur­pose, such as mod­i­fy­ing, ampli­fy­ing, or direct­ing elec­tri­cal cur­rent or sig­nals. Elec­tron­ic com­po­nents can be as sim­ple as resis­tors or [capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor) or as com­plex as [inte­grat­ed cir­cuits](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip) and are the fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for design­ing and assem­bling elec­tri­cal cir­cuits and systems. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#compound-annual-growth-rate-cagr)Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) A mea­sure that shows the con­sis­tent growth rate of, for instance, a mar­ket or an invest­ment over mul­ti­ple years. It helps under­stand how much an invest­ment has grown on aver­age each year over a spe­cif­ic period. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conductivity)conductivity See [*elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conduction-band)conduction band A band of ener­gy lev­els above the [valence band](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#valence-band) where elec­trons can move freely through the mate­r­i­al, thus con­tribut­ing to [elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity). When elec­trons in a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) gain enough ener­gy (for exam­ple, from heat or light), they can be excit­ed from the valence band into the con­duc­tion band, allow­ing the mate­r­i­al to con­duct elec­tric current. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#connector)connector A device for con­nect­ing two dif­fer­ent parts to trans­mit elec­tric sig­nals or power. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#corrosion)corrosion The nat­ur­al process by which mate­ri­als dete­ri­o­rate due to reac­tions with their envi­ron­ment, often result­ing in the for­ma­tion of oxides or salts of the orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al. [Anti-cor­ro­sion mate­ri­als](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anti-corrosive-materials) can be used to pro­tect materials. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cu-cu-connection)Cu-Cu connection A type of bond made direct­ly between two cop­per sur­faces, used in [advanced pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#advanced-packaging) [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#current)current Refers to the flow of elec­tric charge car­ri­ers, such as elec­trons or ions, through a con­duc­tor or cir­cuit. It rep­re­sents the rate at which elec­tric charges move past a spec­i­fied point in the cir­cuit, and it’s mea­sured in units of [amperes](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ampere-a) (A). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#current-density)current density The amount of elec­tric [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) flow­ing through a spe­cif­ic cross-sec­tion­al area of a material. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#customer-sample)customer sample See [*engi­neer­ing sam­ple*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#engineering-sample). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cvd)CVD See [*chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chemical-vapor-deposition-cvd). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#d2w)D2W See [*die-to-wafer*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die-to-wafer). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#direct-current-dc)direct current (DC) A type of elec­tri­cal [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) where the flow of elec­trons is con­sis­tent and moves in one direction. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dc)DC See [*direct cur­rent*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#direct-current-dc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#decoupling-capacitor)decoupling capacitor A [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor) is used in cir­cuits to sep­a­rate [AC](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alternating-current-ac) and [DC](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#direct-current-dc) sig­nals, pre­vent­ing noise dis­tur­bances from affect­ing oth­er parts of the circuit. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#deposition)deposition The process of deposit­ing a mate­r­i­al, often in the form of a thin film or coat­ing, onto a sur­face. Depo­si­tion tech­niques are wide­ly used in var­i­ous indus­tries, includ­ing elec­tron­ics and man­u­fac­tur­ing, to cre­ate lay­ers with spe­cif­ic properties. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#design-in)design-in Incor­po­rat­ing a spe­cif­ic com­po­nent or tech­nol­o­gy into a product’s ini­tial design phase. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#design-win)design-win A sit­u­a­tion where a com­po­nent or tech­nol­o­gy sup­pli­er gets its prod­uct cho­sen for use in a new prod­uct devel­oped by a manufacturer. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dice)dice Plur­al form of [die](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#die)die A small block of [semi­con­duc­tor mate­r­i­al](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) has been processed to cre­ate an elec­tri­cal cir­cuit in which a large num­ber of minia­tur­ized [tran­sis­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#transistor) and oth­er [elec­tron­ic com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) are insep­a­ra­bly assem­bled and elec­tri­cal­ly interconnected. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#die-to-wafer-d2w)die-to-wafer (D2W) A man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cept in which indi­vid­ual [dice](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) are elec­tri­cal­ly and mechan­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed to a wafer, often used in [advanced pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#advancedpackaging) and [3D inte­gra­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#3d). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dielectric)dielectric An [insu­lat­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#insulator) mate­r­i­al that an applied [elec­tric field](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electric-field) can [polar­ize](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#polariziation). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dielectric-constant)dielectric constant An old­er term fre­quent­ly used for [rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#relative-permittivity). Stan­dards orga­ni­za­tions have dep­re­cat­ed this term in favor of rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty due to poten­tial ambiguities. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dip)DIP See [*dual in-line pack­age*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dual-in-line-package). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#discrete)discrete [Com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) sep­a­rate or dis­tinct from each oth­er, like resis­tors or [capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor), as opposed to [inte­grat­ed cir­cuits](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#deep-trench-capacitor-dtc)deep trench capacitor (DTC) A [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor) inte­grat­ed into a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate) by cre­at­ing deep recess­es, called trench­es, to max­i­mize the sur­face area and, there­fore, the [capac­i­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitance) in a small [foot­print](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#footprint). Also known as trench sil­i­con capac­i­tors (TSC) and sil­i­con capac­i­tors (SiCap). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#doctor-of-philosophy-ph-d)Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) An advanced aca­d­e­m­ic degree that rep­re­sents the high­est lev­el of for­mal edu­ca­tion in many fields. It is typ­i­cal­ly pur­sued after com­plet­ing under­grad­u­ate (Bachelor’s) and post­grad­u­ate (Master’s) degrees, although in some cas­es, stu­dents can tran­si­tion direct­ly from a Bachelor’s to a Ph.D. pro­gram. It is the high­est lev­el of degree a stu­dent can achieve. Typ­i­cal­ly, earn­ing a Ph.D. involves con­duct­ing orig­i­nal research that con­tributes new knowl­edge or under­stand­ing to a spe­cif­ic field of study. The process usu­al­ly includes exten­sive research, com­ple­tion of a dis­ser­ta­tion or the­sis, and suc­cess­ful defense of this work before a pan­el of experts. Ph.D. pro­grams can vary in length but often take sev­er­al years to com­plete and require a deep lev­el of com­mit­ment to study­ing and research­ing a spe­cial­ized area of interest. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dopants)dopants Impu­ri­ty atoms are added to a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) mate­r­i­al dur­ing a process referred to as [dop­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#doping) to mod­i­fy its elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties. Depend­ing on their atom­ic struc­ture, dopants can intro­duce either extra elec­trons (for [n‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#n-type)) or cre­ate “holes” (for [p‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#p-type)) in the semiconductor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#doping)doping Inten­tion­al­ly adding spe­cif­ic impu­ri­ties, called [dopants](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dopants), into a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) mate­r­i­al to mod­i­fy its elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties. Depend­ing on the type of impu­ri­ty added, a semi­con­duc­tor can become either [n‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#n-type) or [p‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#p-type). Dop­ing con­trols the con­cen­tra­tion and type of charge car­ri­ers in the mate­r­i­al, enabling the cre­ation of var­i­ous semi­con­duc­tor devices. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dtc)DTC See [*deep trench capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deep-trench-capacitor-dtc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dual-in-line-package-dip)dual in-line package (DIP) A chip pack­ag­ing scheme with a rec­tan­gu­lar hous­ing with two par­al­lel rows of elec­tri­cal [pins](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#pin) or leads extend­ing from its sides. These pins facil­i­tate the con­nec­tion of the IC to cir­cuit boards. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ecm)ECM See [*elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-cell-material). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrical-conductivity)electrical conductivity A mate­r­i­al that eas­i­ly allows the flow of elec­tric charge. Met­als are a typ­i­cal exam­ple of high­ly con­duc­tive mate­ri­als, but cer­tain [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) can also be con­duc­tive, par­tic­u­lar­ly when [doped](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#doped) with impu­ri­ties that alter their elec­tri­cal properties. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electric-field)electric field An invis­i­ble field that sur­rounds charged par­ti­cles or objects and extends through­out the space around them. This field exerts elec­tric forces on oth­er charged par­ti­cles with­in its influ­ence, shap­ing the behav­ior of elec­tric charges and their inter­ac­tions. Under­stand­ing elec­tric fields is essen­tial for grasp­ing the dynam­ics of elec­tri­cal­ly charged entities. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electro-deposition)electro-deposition A process that uses an [elec­tric cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) to reduce dis­solved met­al cations so that they form a thin, coher­ent met­al coat­ing on an elec­trode. This method is com­mon­ly used in indus­tries for plat­ing, refin­ing, and syn­the­siz­ing mate­ri­als. Also known as electroplating. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrochemical)electrochemical The branch of chem­istry that deals with the rela­tion­ship between elec­tric­i­ty and chem­i­cal reac­tions. Elec­tro­chem­i­cal process­es involve the move­ment of elec­trons between mol­e­cules, often result­ing in a chem­i­cal change. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrochemical-cell)electrochemical cell A device that can gen­er­ate elec­tri­cal ener­gy from [elec­tro­chem­i­cal](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical) reac­tions occur­ring in it or use the elec­tri­cal ener­gy sup­plied to it to facil­i­tate elec­tro­chem­i­cal reac­tions in it. It typ­i­cal­ly con­sists of two [elec­trodes](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) immersed in an [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte). Bat­ter­ies, [fuel cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fuel-cell), and [elec­trolyz­er cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-cell) are com­mon exam­ples of elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrode)electrode An elec­tri­cal con­duc­tor used to make con­tact with a non­metal­lic part of a cir­cuit (e.g., a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) or an [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte)). See also [*anode*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anode) and [cath­ode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cathode). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolysis)electrolysis An [elec­tro­chem­i­cal](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical) process where an [elec­tric cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) is passed through an [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte) to dri­ve a non-spon­ta­neous chem­i­cal reac­tion. See also [*water elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#water-electrolysis). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolyte)electrolyte A medi­um con­tain­ing [ions](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ion) that are elec­tri­cal­ly con­duct­ing through the move­ment of those ions but not con­duct­ing electrons. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolyzer)electrolyzer A device that car­ries out [elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolysis), e.g., is used to split water into [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) and oxygen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolyzer-cell)electrolyzer cell An [elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cell) used in an elec­trolyz­er. Elec­trol­y­sis takes place in elec­trolyz­er cells. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolyzer-cell-material-ecm)electrolyzer cell material (ECM) Gen­er­al term for mate­ri­als that are part of an [elec­trolyz­er cell](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-cell). The term cov­ers [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte) (the pro­ton exchange mem­brane in a [PEM elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer)), [cat­a­lysts](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalysts) ([irid­i­um](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#iridium) in a PEM elec­trolyz­er), [elec­trodes](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) ([anode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anode) och [cath­ode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cathode)), [porous trans­port lay­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#porous-transport-layer), and [bipo­lar plates](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#bipolar-plate). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolyzer-cell-stack)electrolyzer cell stack See [*elec­trolyz­er stack*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-stack). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolyzer-stack)electrolyzer stack A col­lec­tion of [elec­trolyz­er cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-cell) assem­bled togeth­er in a series or par­al­lel con­fig­u­ra­tion to increase the pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty of the [elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer). Elec­trolyz­ers uti­lize elec­trolyz­er stacks rather than indi­vid­ual elec­trolyz­er cells. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolyzer-test-system-ets)electrolyzer test system (ETS) A spe­cial­ized set­up used for eval­u­at­ing and test­ing the per­for­mance of [elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer). An elec­trolyz­er test sys­tem is designed to sim­u­late var­i­ous oper­at­ing con­di­tions and para­me­ters that an elec­trolyz­er might encounter in real-world applications. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electroplating)electroplating See [*elec­tro-depo­si­tion*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electro-deposition). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#embedded-capacitor)embedded capacitor A [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor) is embed­ded with­in a [print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB)](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#printed-circuit-board-pcb), a [sub­strate-like PCB (SLP)](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate-like-pcb-slp), or anoth­er [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate) instead of being mount­ed onto a PCB, SLP, or oth­er sub­strate. Embed­ding capac­i­tors allows for more effi­cient use of space and can improve the per­for­mance of high-speed circuits. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#engineering-sample)engineering sample A pre-pro­duc­tion ver­sion of a future prod­uct pro­vid­ed to prospec­tive cus­tomers for test­ing, feed­back, or mar­ket­ing purposes. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#equivalent-series-inductance-esl)equivalent series inductance (ESL) A mea­sure of the inher­ent induc­tive [reac­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#reactance) found in real-world [capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor). While an ide­al capac­i­tor is con­sid­ered to have no induc­tive reac­tance, actu­al capac­i­tors exhib­it some due to their mate­ri­als and con­struc­tion. This [induc­tive](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductance) behav­ior is rep­re­sent­ed as an [induc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductor) in series with the ide­al capac­i­tor and is termed the equiv­a­lent series inductance. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#equivalent-series-resistance-esr)equivalent series resistance (ESR) A mea­sure of the inher­ent [resis­tive](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#resistance) loss­es with­in a real-world [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor) or [induc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductor). While ide­al capac­i­tors and induc­tors are con­sid­ered to have no resis­tance, actu­al com­po­nents exhib­it some [resis­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#resistance) due to their mate­ri­als and con­struc­tion. This resis­tive char­ac­ter­is­tic is effec­tive­ly rep­re­sent­ed as a [resis­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#resistor) in series with the ide­al com­po­nent and is termed the equiv­a­lent series resistance. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#esl)ESL See [*equiv­a­lent series induc­tance*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#equivalent-series-inductance-esl). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#esr)ESR See [*equiv­a­lent series resis­tance*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#equivalent-series-resistance-esr). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ets)ETS See [*the elec­trolyz­er test sys­tem*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-test-system-ets). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#f)F See [*farad*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#farad-f). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fabless)fabless A com­pa­ny that designs [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) devices but relies on third-par­ty man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties for pro­duc­tion, i.e., does not own its fab­ri­ca­tion facilities. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#farad-f)farad (F) The SI unit of [capac­i­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitance). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#film-catalyst)film catalyst A thin lay­er of [cat­alyt­ic](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalytic) mate­r­i­al used to facil­i­tate or enhance cer­tain chem­i­cal reac­tions dur­ing the [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) man­u­fac­tur­ing process. These reac­tions can be essen­tial for process­es like [chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chemical-vapor-deposition-cvd-cvd) or oth­er growth mechanisms. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#flip-chip)flip chip A method where the [die](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) is “flipped” so that its active area faces down­ward, mak­ing direct elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions to the sub­strate or pack­age. This is in con­trast to tra­di­tion­al meth­ods where the chip’s active area faces upward, and con­nec­tions are made via wire bonding. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#footprint)footprint The phys­i­cal space occu­pied by a [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) on a [cir­cuit board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board) or with­in an [inte­grat­ed cir­cuit](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip) lay­out. This term can describe both the size and shape of the com­po­nent, as well as its ori­en­ta­tion and place­ment. A small­er foot­print gen­er­al­ly allows for a denser pack­ing of com­po­nents, which can be cru­cial in minia­tur­ized electronics. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#form-factor)form-factor Refers to the phys­i­cal shape and size of an [elec­tron­ic com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component). When con­sid­er­ing inte­grat­ing com­po­nents into prod­ucts, space con­straints and com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with oth­er com­po­nents are crucial. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fossil-free)fossil-free Describes ener­gy sources, tech­nolo­gies, or prac­tices not depen­dent on coal, oil, or nat­ur­al gas. Fos­sil-free alter­na­tives reduce envi­ron­men­tal harm, pro­mot­ing a health­i­er plan­et. In the con­text of [green hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen), fos­sil-free sig­ni­fies hydro­gen pro­duc­tion meth­ods that exclude the use of fos­sil fuels, there­by pro­duc­ing clean­er ener­gy. See also [*car­bon-free*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-free) and [car­bon-neu­tral](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-neutral). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fuel-cell)fuel cell A device that con­verts chem­i­cal ener­gy from a fuel into elec­tric­i­ty through an [elec­tro­chem­i­cal](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical) reac­tion. It typ­i­cal­ly con­sists of an [anode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anode), a [cath­ode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cathode), and an [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte). Com­mon fuels include [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) or methanol, and the most com­mon oxi­dant is oxy­gen from the air. Unlike bat­ter­ies, which store ener­gy, fuel cells con­tin­u­ous­ly gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty as long as fuel and an oxi­dant are supplied. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gas-diffusion-layer-gdl)gas diffusion layer (GDL) An elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al with a porous struc­ture designed to facil­i­tate the trans­port of gas­es, enhanc­ing the cell’s per­for­mance. See also [*the porous trans­port lay­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#porous-transport-layer-ptl). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#global-warming)global warming The long-term increase in Earth’s aver­age sur­face tem­per­a­ture is pri­mar­i­ly due to the high­er con­cen­tra­tions of [green­house gas­es](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#greenhouse-gas) in the atmos­phere. This warm­ing is pri­mar­i­ly attrib­uted to human activ­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the com­bus­tion of fos­sil fuels. Glob­al warm­ing is a sig­nif­i­cant dri­ver behind the broad­er changes observed in our cli­mate system. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gdl)GDL See [*gas dif­fu­sion lay­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#gas-diffusion-layer-gdl). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gray-hydrogen)gray hydrogen See [*grey hydro­gen*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#grey-hydrogen). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#green-hydrogen)green hydrogen [Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) pro­duced using renew­able ener­gy sources like wind, solar, or hydro­elec­tric pow­er. Typ­i­cal­ly, green hydro­gen is pro­duced with [PEM elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer). See also [*blue hydro­gen*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#blue-hydrogen), [grey hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#grey-hydrogen), [brown hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#brown-hydrogen), and [black hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#black-hydrogen). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#greenhouse-effect)greenhouse effect A nat­ur­al process in which cer­tain gas­es in the Earth’s atmos­phere, like [car­bon diox­ide](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-dioxide-CO~2~) and methane, trap heat from the sun. This trapped heat warms the plan­et and makes it hos­pitable for life. How­ev­er, human activ­i­ties, espe­cial­ly the burn­ing of fos­sil fuels, have increased the con­cen­tra­tions of these gas­es, inten­si­fy­ing the green­house effect and lead­ing to a rise in glob­al temperatures. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#greenhouse-gas)greenhouse gas Gas­es that trap heat in the Earth’s atmos­phere, con­tribut­ing to the [green­house effect](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#greenhouse-effect) and, con­se­quent­ly, [glob­al warm­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#global-warming). The pri­ma­ry green­house gas­es include [car­bon diox­ide](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-dioxide-CO~2~), methane, nitrous oxide, and flu­o­ri­nat­ed gas­es. Reduc­ing the emis­sion of these gas­es, espe­cial­ly from human activ­i­ties, is cru­cial for slow­ing or revers­ing the impacts of cli­mate change. Pro­mot­ing [fos­sil-free](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fossil-free) ener­gy and [green hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen) can help in mit­i­gat­ing these emissions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#grey-hydrogen)grey hydrogen [Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) gen­er­at­ed from nat­ur­al gas through process­es such as steam methane reform­ing or autother­mal reform­ing, where the car­bon emis­sions are not cap­tured and stored, result­ing in sig­nif­i­cant car­bon diox­ide emis­sions into the atmos­phere. See also [*green hydro­gen*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen), [blue hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#blue-hydrogen), [brown hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#brown-hydrogen), and [black hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#black-hydrogen). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#grow)grow The syn­the­sis or for­ma­tion of mate­ri­als, espe­cial­ly crys­tals, under con­trolled conditions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#h)H See [*hen­ry*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#henry-h) or [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#h2)H2 See [*hydro­gen gas*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-gas). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#h2lab)H2LAB Smoltek’s in-house [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) laboratory. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#henry-h)henry (H) The SI unit of [induc­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductance). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#heterogeneous-integration)heterogeneous integration The process of inte­grat­ing dif­fer­ent [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) tech­nolo­gies into a sin­gle sys­tem. This can involve com­bin­ing [com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) of dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als or using dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es to achieve a sys­tem with opti­mized per­for­mance, func­tion­al­i­ty, and pow­er efficiency. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#high-performance-computing-hpc)high-performance computing (HPC) A branch of com­put­ing that deals with devel­op­ing and using super­com­put­ers and par­al­lel pro­cess­ing tech­niques to solve com­plex com­pu­ta­tion­al prob­lems. High-per­for­mance com­put­ing sys­tems are char­ac­ter­ized by their abil­i­ty to quick­ly process vast amounts of data. They are used in sci­en­tif­ic research, engi­neer­ing sim­u­la­tions, and data analysis. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#homogeneous-integration)homogeneous integration The inte­gra­tion of [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) devices or sys­tems made from the same mate­r­i­al sys­tem or process. It’s about com­bin­ing like with like to achieve a par­tic­u­lar functionality. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hpc)HPC See [*high-per­for­mance com­put­ing*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#high-performance-computing-hpc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrogen-h)hydrogen (H) A chem­i­cal ele­ment with the sym­bol H and atom­ic num­ber 1. It’s a col­or­less, odor­less, and high­ly flam­ma­ble gas and is the universe’s light­est and most abun­dant ele­ment. At stan­dard con­di­tions, hydro­gen is a gas of H2 molecules. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrogen-gas)hydrogen gas Gaseous [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) con­sist­ing of mol­e­cules with two hydro­gen atoms (H2). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ic)IC See [*inte­grat­ed cir­cuit*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#integrated-circuit-ic). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#impedance)impedance A mea­sure of the oppo­si­tion a [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) or cir­cuit presents to the flow of [alter­nat­ing cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alternating-current-ac) (AC). Imped­ance encom­pass­es both [resis­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#resistance) and [reac­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#reactance). It is typ­i­cal­ly rep­re­sent­ed in [ohms](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ohm-ω) (Ω) and deter­mines how a com­po­nent or cir­cuit will respond to an applied AC voltage. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#inductance)inductance A prop­er­ty of a [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) in a cir­cuit that oppos­es changes in [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) flow. It results from the mag­net­ic field gen­er­at­ed around an elec­tri­cal con­duc­tor when cur­rent flows through it. Induc­tance is mea­sured in [hen­rys](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#henrys) (H). It plays a cru­cial role in [AC](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alternating-current-ac) cir­cuits, espe­cial­ly in fil­ter­ing and ener­gy stor­age applications. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#inductor)inductor An [elec­tron­ic com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) that stores ener­gy in the form of a mag­net­ic field when [elec­tric cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) flows through it. Typ­i­cal­ly con­struct­ed as a coil of wire, its pri­ma­ry prop­er­ty is [induc­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductance), which oppos­es rapid changes in cur­rent flow. Induc­tors are com­mon­ly used in fil­ter­ing appli­ca­tions, ener­gy stor­age, and cir­cuits where mag­net­ic fields are necessary. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#insulator)insulator A mate­r­i­al that does not con­duct elec­tric­i­ty. Insu­la­tors are used to pre­vent the flow of elec­tric current. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#integrated-circuit-ic)integrated circuit (IC) ① Syn­ony­mous with die. ② The final, func­tion­al unit con­sist­ing of one or more dice enclosed in a pro­tec­tive cas­ing. This encap­su­la­tion pro­vides not only phys­i­cal pro­tec­tion but also facil­i­tates exter­nal con­nec­tiv­i­ty through pins or leads and aids in heat man­age­ment. In this form, the IC is ready for inte­gra­tion into elec­tron­ic systems. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#intellectual-property-ip)intellectual property (IP) Refers to cre­ations of the mind, such as inven­tions, lit­er­ary and artis­tic works, designs, sym­bols, names, and images used in com­merce. Intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty is pro­tect­ed by law, allow­ing cre­ators or IP hold­ers to earn recog­ni­tion or finan­cial ben­e­fits from what they invent or cre­ate. In com­put­ing, this can include soft­ware code, algo­rithms, patents on hard­ware designs, trade­marks, and copy­rights on soft­ware applications. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#interconnect)interconnect An elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive path that con­nects tran­sis­tors and oth­er elec­tron­ic com­po­nents in an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit. It can also refer to an elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive path that con­nects a die to the package’s con­nec­tors or two dice. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#internet-of-things-iot)internet of things (IoT) A con­cept where­in every­day objects are embed­ded with sen­sors, soft­ware, and oth­er tech­nolo­gies to con­nect and exchange data with oth­er devices and sys­tems over the inter­net. This inter­con­nect­ed­ness allows for more direct inte­gra­tion of the phys­i­cal world into com­put­er-based sys­tems, lead­ing to improved effi­cien­cy, accu­ra­cy, and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits. Exam­ples include smart ther­mostats, wear­able fit­ness track­ers, and con­nect­ed house­hold appliances. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#interposer)interposer A [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate), often made of sil­i­con, glass, or organ­ic mate­ri­als, that is used in [advanced pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#advanced-packaging). It acts as an inter­me­di­ary lay­er where one or more [dice](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) are mount­ed and elec­tri­cal­ly con­nect­ed through inter­nal [inter­con­nects](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#interconnect). These inter­con­nects facil­i­tate com­mu­ni­ca­tion between dif­fer­ent dice or tran­si­tion from a fine pitch on a die to a wider pitch on the pack­age through a [Redis­tri­b­u­tion Lay­er (RDL)](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#redistribution-layer-rdl). Inter­posers may also inte­grate addi­tion­al func­tion­al­i­ties like [capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitors). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ion)ion An atom or mol­e­cule that has acquired a net elec­tric charge due to the gain or loss of one or more elec­trons. Ions are essen­tial in var­i­ous chem­i­cal and [elec­tro­chem­i­cal](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical) process­es, includ­ing con­duct­ing elec­tric­i­ty in solu­tions and form­ing ion­ic compounds. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#iot)IoT See [*the inter­net of things*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#internet-of-things-iot). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ip)IP See [*intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#intellectual-property-ip). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ir)Ir See [*irid­i­um*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#iridium-ir). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#iridium-ir)iridium (Ir) A shiny, sil­very-white noble met­al with the sym­bol Ir. Irid­i­um is one of the most cor­ro­sion-resis­tant met­als. It is one of the rarest ele­ments in Earth’s crust, with esti­mat­ed annu­al pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of only 7–8 tonnes, mak­ing it very expen­sive. It is the only met­al that can be used in [PEM elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer) as a [cat­a­lyst](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalyst). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#jda)JDA See [*joint devel­op­ment agree­ment*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#joint-development-agreement-jda). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#joint-development-agreement-jda)joint development agreement (JDA) A con­trac­tu­al rela­tion­ship between two or more enti­ties to col­lab­o­rate on a spe­cif­ic project or ini­tia­tive, typ­i­cal­ly involv­ing research, devel­op­ment, or inno­va­tion. Such agree­ments out­line each party’s respon­si­bil­i­ties, roles, and rights, as well as the allo­ca­tion of any poten­tial rev­enues, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights, and oth­er key terms relat­ed to the project. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#joint-venture-jv)joint venture (JV) A con­trac­tu­al rela­tion­ship between two or more enti­ties to col­lab­o­rate by pool­ing resources to achieve a spe­cif­ic task or busi­ness goal. In a joint ven­ture, each par­tic­i­pant is respon­si­ble for prof­its, loss­es, and costs asso­ci­at­ed with the ven­ture. How­ev­er, the enter­prise oper­ates inde­pen­dent­ly from the par­tic­i­pants’ oth­er busi­ness interests. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#joint-venture-agreement-jva)joint venture agreement (JVA) Agree­ment between two or more par­ties gov­ern­ing the for­ma­tion and oper­a­tion of a [joint ven­ture](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#joint-venture). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#jv)JV See [*joint ven­ture*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#joint-venture). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#jva)JVA See [*joint ven­ture agree­ment*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#joint-venture-agreement-jva). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#landside)landside Refers to the side of a [semi­con­duc­tor pack­age](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor-packaging) that has [inter­con­nec­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#interconnects) intend­ed for con­nec­tion to a cir­cuit board. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#landside-capacitor-lsc)landside capacitor (LSC) A capac­i­tor attached to the [land­side](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#land-side) of an [inte­grat­ed cir­cuit](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip). When serv­ing as a [decou­pling capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#decoupling-capacitor), its prox­im­i­ty to the [die](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) allows it to effec­tive­ly main­tain a sta­ble pow­er sup­ply to the inte­grat­ed cir­cuit. Con­straints like [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate) size and the height of [sol­der balls](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#solder-ball) or con­nec­tions often influ­ence its dimen­sions and form factor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#letter-of-intent-loi)Letter of Intent (LoI) A writ­ten doc­u­ment express­ing two or more par­ties’ inten­tion to enter into a par­tic­u­lar agree­ment. It is often used in busi­ness trans­ac­tions such as merg­ers and acqui­si­tions. While typ­i­cal­ly not legal­ly bind­ing in terms of the deal itself, it can include bind­ing pro­vi­sions relat­ed to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, exclu­siv­i­ty, or time­lines. An LOI is a pre­cur­sor to a for­mal con­tract, indi­cat­ing seri­ous inter­est from the sender about a par­tic­u­lar action or event. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#licc)LICC See [*low induc­tance chip capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#low-inductance-chip-capacitor-licc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#loi)LoI See [*let­ter of intent*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#letter-of-intent-loi). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#long-run-tests)Long run tests Exper­i­ments or eval­u­a­tions con­duct­ed over an extend­ed peri­od (typ­i­cal­ly 1,000 hours or more) to assess the per­for­mance, dura­bil­i­ty, and reli­a­bil­i­ty of a sys­tem, com­po­nent, or process. These tests are cru­cial for under­stand­ing how a prod­uct or sys­tem behaves under pro­longed use or expo­sure to var­i­ous conditions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#lifetime)Lifetime The dura­tion for which a prod­uct, sys­tem, or com­po­nent is expect­ed to func­tion effec­tive­ly before it requires replace­ment or becomes too inef­fi­cient or unre­li­able to use. It’s a mea­sure of the longevi­ty and dura­bil­i­ty of an item under nor­mal oper­at­ing conditions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#low-inductance-chip-capacitor-licc)low inductance chip capacitor (LICC) A capac­i­tor designed to have low induc­tance, min­i­miz­ing the unwant­ed effects of induc­tance in elec­tron­ic cir­cuits. These capac­i­tors are often used in high-fre­quen­cy appli­ca­tions where reduc­ing induc­tance is crit­i­cal for main­tain­ing sig­nal integrity. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#lsc)LSC See [*land­side capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#landside-capacitor-lsc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#m)m See [*mil­li*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#milli-m). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ma)mA Mil­liampere; see [mil­li](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#milli-m) and [ampere](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ampere-a). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#make-to-order-mto)make-to-order (MTO) A man­u­fac­tur­ing strat­e­gy where prod­ucts are pro­duced based on cus­tomer orders. Instead of main­tain­ing large inven­to­ries, com­pa­nies using MTO process­es man­u­fac­ture goods as orders are received, allow­ing for cus­tomiza­tion and reduc­ing excess inventory. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#make-to-stock-mts)make-to-stock (MTS) A man­u­fac­tur­ing approach where prod­ucts are pro­duced in antic­i­pa­tion of cus­tomer demand and stocked in inven­to­ry. This strat­e­gy is suit­able for prod­ucts with sta­ble and pre­dictable demand, allow­ing for faster deliv­ery to customers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mea)MEA See [*mem­brane elec­trode assem­bly*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#membrane-electrode-assembly-mea). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#membrane)membrane A thin lay­er of mate­r­i­al that serves a spe­cif­ic func­tion in [elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cells), such as bat­ter­ies, [fuel cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fuel-cell), and [elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer). A mem­brane acts as a phys­i­cal bar­ri­er between dif­fer­ent com­part­ments of the cell, like sep­a­rat­ing the [anode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anode) and [cath­ode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cathode) in an elec­trolyz­er, selec­tive­ly allow­ing cer­tain [ions](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ion) or mol­e­cules to pass through while block­ing oth­ers. While allow­ing ions to pass, mem­branes also pro­vide [elec­tri­cal insu­la­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#insulator) between the two sides of the cell. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#membrane-electrode-assembly-mea)membrane electrode assembly (MEA) A pre-assem­bled part used in fuel cells, [PEM elec­trol­y­sers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyser) and [AEM elec­trol­y­sers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#aem-electrolyser). In the mid­dle, there is a [mem­brane](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#membrane) ( [PEM](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-pem) or [AEM](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anion-exchange-membrane-aem)). One side is called the [anode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#anode) side, and the oth­er is called the [cath­ode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cathode) side, depend­ing on whether they are con­nect­ed to the pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive ter­mi­nal of a pow­er source. Adja­cent to the sides of the mem­brane is a [cat­a­lyst](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalyst). A PEM elec­trolyz­er uses [irid­i­um](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#iridium) on the anode side and [plat­inum](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#platinum) on the cath­ode side. At the end of each side is a [porous trans­port lay­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#porous-transport-layer) that allows water and gas to be trans­port­ed to or from the mem­brane and cat­a­lyst, depend­ing on the function. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#memorandum-of-understanding-mou)memorandum of understanding (MoU) A for­mal but non-bind­ing agree­ment between two or more par­ties out­lin­ing the terms and details of an under­stand­ing, includ­ing the require­ments and respon­si­bil­i­ties of each par­ty. It can include bind­ing pro­vi­sions relat­ed to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, exclu­siv­i­ty, or time­lines. An MoU is often used in sit­u­a­tions where par­ties either don’t imply a legal com­mit­ment or in sit­u­a­tions where the par­ties can­not cre­ate a legal­ly enforce­able agree­ment. It serves as a guide to the expec­ta­tions and is often a pre­cur­sor to a for­mal contract. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#metal-insulation-metal-capacitor-mim-capacitor)metal-insulation-metal capacitor (MIM capacitor) A type of capac­i­tor struc­ture where a [dielec­tric](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dielectric) mate­r­i­al is sand­wiched between two met­al lay­ers, com­mon­ly used with [inte­grat­ed cir­cuits](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#micro-%c2%b5)micro (µ) A pre­fix indi­cat­ing one-mil­lionth (10-6) of a unit, such as a microsec­ond or a micrometer. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#microchip)microchip See [*inte­grat­ed cir­cuit*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#integrated-circuit-ic). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#milli-m)milli (m) A pre­fix indi­cat­ing one-thou­sandth (10-3</) of a unit, such as a mil­ligram (mg) or a mil­lime­ter (mm). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mim)MIM See [*met­al-insu­la­tion-met­al*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#metal-insulation-metal-mim). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mlcc)MLCC See [*mul­ti-lay­er ceram­ic capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#multi-layer-ceramic-capacitor-mlcc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#moores-law)Moore’s law An obser­va­tion made by Gor­don Moore in 1965 which pre­dicts that the num­ber of [tran­sis­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#transistor) on a chip will dou­ble approx­i­mate­ly every two years, lead­ing to expo­nen­tial increas­es in com­put­ing pow­er and decreas­es in cost per transistor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mosfet)MOSFET MOSFET is a met­al-oxide-semi­con­duc­tor field-effect [tran­sis­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#transistor). It is a type of tran­sis­tor often used in elec­tron­ic cir­cuits for ampli­fi­ca­tion and switch­ing pur­pos­es. It is known for its high effi­cien­cy, fast switch­ing speeds, and com­pact size. MOS­FETs have three ter­mi­nals: gate, source, and drain. By apply­ing a volt­age to the gate ter­mi­nal, an elec­tric field is cre­at­ed, allow­ing or block­ing the flow of cur­rent between the source and drain ter­mi­nals. Due to their low pow­er con­sump­tion and high-speed switch­ing capa­bil­i­ties, MOS­FETs are foun­da­tion­al com­po­nents in dig­i­tal [inte­grat­ed cir­cuits](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mou)MoU See [*mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#memorandum-of-understanding-mou). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mto)MTO See [*make-to-order*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#make-to-order-mto). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mts)MTS See [*make-to-stock*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#make-to-stock-mts). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#multi-layer-ceramic-capacitor-mlcc)multi-layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) A type of [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitor) con­struct­ed with mul­ti­ple lay­ers of [dielec­tric](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dielectric) and met­al lay­ers, result­ing in a com­pact struc­ture with high [capac­i­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitance). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#m%cf%89)mΩ Mil­liohm; see [mil­li](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#milli-m) and [ohm](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ohm-ω). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#n)n See [*nano*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nano-n). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#n-type)n‑type Refers to a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) in which the major­i­ty of charge car­ri­ers are elec­trons. This is achieved by intro­duc­ing [dopants](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dopants) into the semi­con­duc­tor mate­r­i­al with few­er [valence elec­trons](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#valence-electron) than the mate­r­i­al itself. The “n” stands for neg­a­tive, indi­cat­ing the electron’s neg­a­tive charge. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nano-n)nano (n) A pre­fix indi­cat­ing one-bil­lionth (10-9) of a unit, such as a nanosec­ond or nanometer. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nanofiber)nanofiber A fiber with a diam­e­ter on the [nanoscale](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nanoscale). Due to their minute size, nanofibers pos­sess high sur­face area-to-vol­ume ratios, lead­ing to enhanced mate­r­i­al prop­er­ties that dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly from those of their bulk counterparts. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nanoscale)nanoscale The scale of mea­sure­ment at the nanome­ter lev­el. A nanome­ter (nm) is a unit of length equal to one bil­lionth of a meter. When some­thing is described as being on the nanome­ter scale, it typ­i­cal­ly means that its dimen­sions or fea­tures are less than 100 nanometers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nanostructure)nanostructure A struc­ture with at least one dimen­sion in the [nanoscale](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nanoscale). These struc­tures often exhib­it phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal prop­er­ties dis­tinct from bulk mate­ri­als due to their small size and high sur­face area. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nda)NDA See [*the non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#non-disclosure-agreement-nda). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nf)nF Nano­farad; see [nano](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nano-n) and [farad](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#farad-f). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nm)nm Nanome­ter; see [nano](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nano-n). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#non-disclosure-agreement-nda)non-disclosure agreement (NDA) A legal­ly bind­ing con­tract between two or more par­ties that estab­lish­es a con­fi­den­tial rela­tion­ship. The agree­ment spec­i­fies that cer­tain infor­ma­tion shared between the par­ties must not be dis­closed to third par­ties. Often used in busi­ness set­tings when pro­pri­etary infor­ma­tion, trade secrets, or sen­si­tive data is shared, the non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment ensures that such details remain con­fi­den­tial and are not used for any pur­pose oth­er than what’s out­lined in the agree­ment. Vio­lat­ing the terms can result in legal penalties. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ohm-%cf%89)ohm (Ω) The SI unit for mea­sur­ing [resis­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#resistance) in [elec­tri­cal com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#components). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#p)p See [*pico*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#pico-p). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#p-type)p‑type Refers to a semi­con­duc­tor in which the major­i­ty of charge car­ri­ers are “holes” (miss­ing elec­trons, cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive charge). This is achieved by intro­duc­ing dopants into the semi­con­duc­tor mate­r­i­al with few­er [valence elec­trons](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#valence-electron) than the mate­r­i­al itself. The “p” stands for pos­i­tive, indica­tive of the pos­i­tive charge of the hole. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#p-n-junction)p–n junction A bound­ary or inter­face between two regions of a [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) material—one [doped](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#doped) with pos­i­tive charge car­ri­ers ( [p‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#p-type)) and the oth­er doped with neg­a­tive charge car­ri­ers ( [n‑type](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#n-type)). The p–n junc­tion is a fun­da­men­tal com­po­nent in semi­con­duc­tor devices. When a [volt­age](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#voltage) is applied across the junc­tion in a spe­cif­ic direc­tion, it allows cur­rent to flow (for­ward bias). In the oppo­site direc­tion, it blocks the cur­rent flow (reverse bias). This behav­ior is cru­cial for the func­tion­al­i­ty of diodes, tran­sis­tors, and oth­er semi­con­duc­tor devices in elec­tron­ic circuits. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#package)package See [*semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor-packaging). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pad)pad An exposed region of met­al on a sub­strate, such as a cir­cuit board or a die, to which an elec­tri­cal inter­con­nects to anoth­er device or sys­tem is created. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#passive-component)passive component A com­po­nent that does not require an exter­nal pow­er source to oper­ate and does not ampli­fy sig­nals. Pas­sive com­po­nents can store, fil­ter, or dis­si­pate ener­gy. Exam­ples include [resis­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#resistors), [capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitors), and [induc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductors). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pattern-catalyst)pattern catalyst A [cat­a­lyst](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalyst) that is selec­tive­ly placed or formed in spe­cif­ic pat­terns, typ­i­cal­ly on a [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate) or sur­face. This pat­terned arrange­ment can be vital in process­es like grow­ing [car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-nanofibers-cnf), as it dic­tates the growth sites and direc­tion­al­i­ty of the [nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#nanofibers). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pcb)PCB See [*cir­cuit board*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pecvd)PECVD See [*plas­ma-enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#plasma-enhanced-chemical-vapor-deposition-pecvd). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pem)PEM See [*pro­ton exchange mem­brane*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-pem). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pem-electrolysis)PEM electrolysis See [*pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolysis). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pem-electrolyzer)PEM electrolyzer See [*pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trolyz­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pem-water-electrolysis)PEM water electrolysis See [*pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-water-electrolysis-pemwe). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pem-water-electrolyzer)PEM water electrolyzer See [*pro­ton exchange mem­brane water elec­trolyz­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-water-electrolyzer). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#permittivity)permittivity See [*absolute per­mit­tiv­i­ty*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#absolute-permittivity). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ph)pH ① A scale used to spec­i­fy the acid­i­ty or basic­i­ty of an aque­ous solution. ② Pico­hen­ry; see [pico](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#pico-p) and [hen­ry](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#henry-h). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ph-d)**Ph.D.** See [*Doc­tor of Phi­los­o­phy*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#doctor-of-philosophy). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pico-p)pico ℗ A pre­fix indi­cat­ing one-tril­lionth (10-12) of a unit, such as a picosec­ond or picometer. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pin)pin A con­nec­tor designed as a pin intend­ed to be sol­dered into holes on a cir­cuit board. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#plasma)plasma One of the four fun­da­men­tal states of mat­ter, along­side sol­id, liq­uid, and gas. It is char­ac­ter­ized by the elec­trons being sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ent atoms or mol­e­cules. This sep­a­ra­tion of charged par­ti­cles gives plas­ma unique prop­er­ties, includ­ing [elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity) and the abil­i­ty to respond to elec­tro­mag­net­ic fields. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#plasma-enhanced-chemical-vapor-deposition-pecvp)plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVP) A process used to [deposit](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deposition) thin film mate­ri­als from a gas state (vapor) to a sol­id state on a [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate). The process uti­lizes [plas­ma](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#plasma) to reduce the required tem­per­a­ture com­pared to stan­dard [chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chemical-vapor-deposition-cvd-cvd) (CVD). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#platinum-pt)platinum (Pt) Plat­inum (Pt) is a shiny, sil­very-white met­al with the sym­bol Pt. Known for its remark­able resis­tance to cor­ro­sion and high melt­ing point, plat­inum is a high­ly durable noble met­al. It is rel­a­tive­ly scarce in the Earth’s crust, con­tribut­ing to its high val­ue and cost. In the realm of [pro­ton exchange mem­brane](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-pem) (PEM) [fuel cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fuel-cell) and [elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer), plat­inum plays a cru­cial role as a [cat­a­lyst](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalyst), par­tic­u­lar­ly on the [cath­ode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cathode) side, where it effi­cient­ly facil­i­tates the reduc­tion of oxy­gen in fuel cells and the pro­duc­tion of [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) in electrolyzers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#polarization-curve)polarization curve A graph­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the volt­age ver­sus cur­rent of an [elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrochemical-cell), which pro­vides infor­ma­tion about the per­for­mance and effi­cien­cy of the cell. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#polarization)polarization The phe­nom­e­non where there is a sep­a­ra­tion or shift in the cen­ters of pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive charges with­in a mate­r­i­al leads to an inter­nal elec­tric dipole. This can be induced by an exter­nal [elec­tric field](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electric-field) or as an inher­ent prop­er­ty of the mate­r­i­al. The extent of this sep­a­ra­tion deter­mines the material’s polar­iz­abil­i­ty, which influ­ences var­i­ous elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties, such as [capac­i­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitance) and [per­mit­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#absolute-permittivity). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#porous-transport-electrode-pte)porous transport electrode (PTE) An [elec­trode](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) with a [porous trans­port lay­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#porous-transport-layer-ptl). The term is used in PEM elec­trolyz­ers to include the cat­a­lyst depo­si­tion on the elec­trode in con­trast to the MEA, where the cat­a­lyst is usu­al­ly coat­ed on the PEM membrane. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#porous-transport-layer-ptl)porous transport layer (PTL) An [elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer-cell-material-ecm) with a porous struc­ture designed to facil­i­tate the trans­port of gas­es or liq­uids, enhanc­ing the cell’s performance. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#power-rails)power rails Lines or tracks in an elec­tron­ic cir­cuit that deliv­er pow­er to the [com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) of the circuit. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#precursors)precursors Start­ing mate­ri­als that under­go a change to pro­duce some­thing else. In the con­text of [chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chemical-vapor-deposition-cvd-cvd) and [plas­ma-enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#plasma-enhanced-chemical-vapor-deposition-pecvd), pre­cur­sors are the spe­cif­ic gas­es or vapors intro­duced into the reac­tion cham­ber that will react to form the desired sol­id mate­r­i­al on a surface. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#printed-circuit-board-pcb)printed circuit board (PCB) See [*cir­cuit board*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#proton-exchange-membrane-pem)proton exchange membrane (PEM) A syn­thet­ic poly­mer [mem­brane](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#membrane) that is a [sol­id-state elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#solid-state-electrolyte-sse), often used in [PEM-elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzers) for [water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#water-electrolysis) and [fuel cells](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#fuel-cells). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolysis)proton exchange membrane electrolysis [Elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolysis) char­ac­ter­ized by hav­ing [elec­trodes](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrode) on each side of a [pro­ton exchange mem­brane](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer)proton exchange membrane electrolyzer An [elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer) using a [pro­ton exchange mem­brane](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-pem). This device is employed for the pro­duc­tion of [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) through [water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#water-electrolysis). The pro­ton exchange mem­brane plays a piv­otal role by allow­ing pro­tons to pass through while block­ing elec­trons, facil­i­tat­ing the sep­a­ra­tion of hydro­gen and oxy­gen from water. PEM-elec­trolyz­ers are uti­lized in var­i­ous indus­tries, includ­ing ener­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing, for gen­er­at­ing [green hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#green-hydrogen), a valu­able resource in pur­su­ing sus­tain­able and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prac­tices. A mas­sive indus­tri­al scale-up of pro­duc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­ers is ongo­ing to meet the needs of the extreme­ly fast-grow­ing green hydro­gen market. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#proton-exchange-membrane-water-electrolysis-pemwe)proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) Elec­trol­y­sis using a [pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer) to split water into [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) and oxy­gen. Its main advan­tages are rapid adap­ta­tion to fluc­tu­a­tions in elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply, high ener­gy effi­cien­cy, and very clean hydro­gen. How­ev­er, the main dis­ad­van­tage is the use of [irid­i­um](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#iridium-ir) as a [cat­a­lyst](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#catalyst); irid­i­um is a rare and expen­sive metal. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#proton-exchange-membrane-water-electrolyzer)proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer [Pro­ton exchange mem­brane elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-electrolyzer) built for the pur­pose of [water elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#water-electrolysis). See also [*pro­ton exchange mem­brane water elec­trol­y­sis*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#proton-exchange-membrane-water-electrolysis-pemwe). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pt)Pt See [*plat­inum*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#platinum-pt). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pte)PTE See [*porous trans­port elec­trode*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#porous-transport-electrode-pte). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ptl)PTL See [*porous trans­port lay­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#porous-transport-layer-ptl). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#raman-spectroscopy)raman spectroscopy A tech­nique used to study the make­up and char­ac­ter­is­tics of mate­ri­als by shin­ing a laser light on them and observ­ing how the wave­length shifts in scat­tered light. The shift­ed inten­si­ty can reveal infor­ma­tion about the mol­e­cules in the mate­r­i­al. This method is wide­ly used to iden­ti­fy sub­stances and under­stand their properties. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#rdl)RDL See [*the redis­tri­b­u­tions lay­er*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#redistributions-layer). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#reactance)reactance A com­po­nent of [imped­ance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#impedance) that explic­it­ly rep­re­sents oppo­si­tion to changes in [alter­nat­ing cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#alternating-current-ac) (AC) due to either [capac­i­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#capacitance) or [induc­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductance). Reac­tance does not dis­si­pate ener­gy as [induc­tance](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#inductance) does. Instead, it results in a phase shift between [volt­age](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#voltage) and [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) in an AC cir­cuit. It’s mea­sured in [ohms](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ohm-ω) (Ω) and can be either capac­i­tive (neg­a­tive reac­tance) or induc­tive (pos­i­tive reactance). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#redistribution-layer-rdl)redistribution layer (RDL) A lay­er in [advanced pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#advanced-packaging) of [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) that reroutes and redis­trib­utes elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions from the ini­tial lay­out to a dif­fer­ent layout. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#relative-permittivity)relative permittivity The ratio of a material’s [absolute per­mit­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#absolute-permittivity) (ε) to the absolute per­mit­tiv­i­ty of a vac­u­um (ε0). It is often denot­ed εr or κ. Rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty is a dimen­sion­less quan­ti­ty and pro­vides a com­par­a­tive mea­sure of how well a mate­r­i­al can become [polar­ized](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#polarized) in response to an [elec­tric field](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electric-field) rel­a­tive to the absolute per­mit­tiv­i­ty of a vacuum. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#resistance)resistance A prop­er­ty of a [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) in a cir­cuit that quan­ti­fies the loss in flow of elec­tric cur­rent, result­ing in the con­ver­sion of elec­tri­cal ener­gy into heat. Resis­tance is quan­ti­fied in [ohms](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ohm-ω) (Ω) and is a fun­da­men­tal con­cept in elec­tron­ic cir­cuits, deter­min­ing how much a com­po­nent or mate­r­i­al will resist the [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) flow. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#resistor)resistor An elec­tron­ic [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) designed to intro­duce a spe­cif­ic amount of resis­tance into a cir­cuit, there­by lim­it­ing or con­trol­ling the flow of elec­tric [cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#semiconductor)semiconductor ① A mate­r­i­al whose [elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity) lies between that of con­duc­tors (like met­als) and [insu­la­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#insulator) (like glass). Semi­con­duc­tors can con­duct more elec­tric­i­ty by [dop­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#doping), mak­ing them essen­tial for mod­ern elec­tron­ics. Devices like [tran­sis­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#transistor), diodes, and inte­grat­ed cir­cuits are built using semi­con­duc­tors. Com­mon semi­con­duc­tor mate­ri­als include sil­i­con and gal­li­um arsenide. ② In com­mon par­lance, it may also refer to com­po­nents, usu­al­ly inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, made from semi­con­duc­tor materials. ③ In com­mon par­lance, it may also refer to the indus­try pro­duc­ing semi­con­duc­tor components. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#semiconductor-packaging)semiconductor packaging The process of enclos­ing or encap­su­lat­ing a [die](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) or dice to pro­vide mechan­i­cal sup­port, pro­tect from phys­i­cal dam­age, dis­si­pate heat, and pro­vide elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions. Exam­ples of elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions are [dual in-line pack­age](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dual-in-line-package-dip) (DIP), [ball grid array](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ball-grid-array-bga) (BGA), and [chip-on-board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip-on-board-cob) (COB). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#silicon-capacitor-sicap)silicon capacitor (SiCap) See [*deep trench capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deep-trench-capacitor-dtc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sicap)SiCap See [*deep trench capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deep-trench-capacitor-dtc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sip)SiP See [*sys­tem-in-pack­age*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#system-in-package-sip). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#slp)SLP See [*sub­strate-like PCB*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate-like-pcb-slp). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smd)SMD See [*sur­face-mount­ed device*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#surface-mounted-device-smd). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolgrow)SmolGrow Smoltek’s trade­mark for a pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy to grow [car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-nanofiber-cnf) in pre­cise­ly defined patterns. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-ecm)Smoltek ECM Smoltek’s trade­mark for a [porous trans­port lay­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#porous-transport-layer-ptl) enhanced with [car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#carbon-nanofiber-cnf) cov­ered by an atom­ic lay­er of [plat­inum](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#platinum-pt) for [cor­ro­sion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#corrosion) pro­tec­tion and with [irid­i­um](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#iridium) atoms on the outside. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#soc)SoC See [*sys­tem-on-chip*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#system-on-chip-soc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#solder-ball)solder ball A con­nec­tor shaped like a ball intend­ed to be sol­dered to a pad on a [cir­cuit board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board) or anoth­er [sub­strate](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#substrate). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#solder-bump)solder bump See [*sol­der balls*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#solder-ball). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#solid-state-electrolyte-sse)solid-state electrolyte (SSE) An [elec­trolyte](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyte) that is in a sol­id form. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sputter)sputter Sput­ter­ing is a method where atoms are eject­ed from a sol­id or liq­uid tar­get mate­r­i­al due to the bom­bard­ment of the tar­get by ener­getic par­ti­cles, typ­i­cal­ly [ions](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ion) of an inert gas like argon. The dis­lodged atoms con­dense onto a near­by sub­strate, form­ing a thin film. This tech­nique is com­mon­ly used in indus­tries such as elec­tron­ics for deposit­ing met­als or [con­duc­tive](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity) films onto surfaces. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#substrate)substrate The under­ly­ing mate­r­i­al or lay­er often serv­ing as a base on which process­es occur or mate­ri­als are deposit­ed, espe­cial­ly in elec­tron­ics and [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#substrate-like-pcb-slp)substrate-like PCB (SLP) An advanced type of PCB that close­ly mim­ics the prop­er­ties of a semi­con­duc­tor sub­strate, offer­ing enhanced elec­tri­cal per­for­mance and minia­tur­iza­tion capa­bil­i­ties. Char­ac­ter­ized by their ultra-fine line and space widths, typ­i­cal­ly below 25 microm­e­ters, SLPs enable the inte­gra­tion of more com­po­nents on a small­er sur­face area, mak­ing them ide­al for com­pact, high-per­for­mance elec­tron­ic devices. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#surface-mounted-device)surface-mounted device An [elec­tron­ic com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) designed to be mount­ed and sol­dered direct­ly onto the sur­face of a [cir­cuit board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board) or oth­er substrate. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#system-in-package-sip)system-in-package (SiP) A [semi­con­duc­tor pack­age](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor-packaging) that con­tains mul­ti­ple [com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component), such as proces­sors, mem­o­ry, and capac­i­tors, in a sin­gle pack­age allow­ing for a more com­pact and inte­grat­ed solution. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#system-on-chip-soc)system-on-chip (SoC) An inte­grat­ed cir­cuit that con­sol­i­dates the nec­es­sary elec­tron­ic cir­cuits of var­i­ous com­put­er com­po­nents on a sin­gle chip. Well-known exam­ples are proces­sors for com­put­ers or mobile phones, which have ded­i­cat­ed func­tions for graph­ic pro­cess­ing (GPU), cen­tral pro­cess­ing (CPU), cache mem­o­ry, neur­al engines, and the like, all inte­grat­ed on a sin­gle chip. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#titanium-ti)titanium (Ti) A strong, lus­trous met­al with a sil­very-gray appear­ance and the chem­i­cal sym­bol Ti. Renowned for its excep­tion­al strength-to-weight ratio, tita­ni­um is high­ly resis­tant to cor­ro­sion, even in sea­wa­ter. It is the ninth most abun­dant ele­ment in the Earth’s crust, but its extrac­tion and pro­cess­ing are chal­leng­ing, which con­tributes to its val­ue. In the con­text of elec­tro­chem­i­cal appli­ca­tions, tita­ni­um is not typ­i­cal­ly used as a cat­a­lyst in PEM elec­trolyz­ers.\[[b\]](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#cmnt2) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#through-silicon-vias-tsv)through-silicon vias (TSV) Ver­ti­cal elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions that pass com­plete­ly through a sil­i­con [wafer](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#wafer) or [die](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die). Through-sil­i­con vias are used to con­nect the front and back sides of a wafer or die, enabling [the 3D inte­gra­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#3d-integration) of [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) [com­po­nents](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#transistor)transistor A [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) [com­po­nent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#component) used to ampli­fy or switch elec­tron­ic sig­nals and pow­er is fun­da­men­tal to mod­ern elec­tron­ic devices. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#trench-silicon-capacitor-tsc)trench silicon capacitor (TSC) See [*deep trench capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deep-trench-capacitor-dtc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#tsc)TSC See [*deep trench capac­i­tor*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#deep-trench-capacitor-dtc). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ultra-thin-capacitor)ultra-thin capacitor A [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#3capacitor) with an extreme­ly small phys­i­cal thick­ness. A [dis­crete](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#discrete) ultra-thin capac­i­tor typ­i­cal­ly has a thick­ness in the range of 100 µm (0.1 mm). They are used in appli­ca­tions where space is at a pre­mi­um, like smart­phones and smartwatches. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#v)V See [*volt*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#volt-v). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#valence-band)valence band The ener­gy lev­els of the [valence elec­trons](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#valence-electron). This band is com­plete­ly filled with elec­trons in intrin­sic (pure) [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) at absolute zero tem­per­a­ture. When ener­gy is pro­vid­ed (e.g., through heat), elec­trons in the valence band can gain enough ener­gy to jump to the [con­duc­tion band](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#conduction-band), leav­ing behind holes. The move­ment of these elec­trons and holes under an elec­tric field enables semi­con­duc­tors to con­duct electricity. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#valence-electron)valence electron An elec­tron in the out­er­most shell of an atom. These elec­trons deter­mine an atom’s chem­i­cal prop­er­ties and its abil­i­ty to bond with oth­er atoms. In the con­text of [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor), the behav­ior of valence elec­trons plays a crit­i­cal role in deter­min­ing the [con­duc­tiv­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrical-conductivity) of the mate­r­i­al, espe­cial­ly when [dopants](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#dopants) are introduced. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#volatile)volatile A term describ­ing sub­stances that can quick­ly turn into a gas or vapor. For exam­ple, water is volatile because it evap­o­rates eas­i­ly when heated. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#volt-v)volt (V) The SI unit of elec­tri­cal poten­tial ener­gy and [volt­age](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#voltage). One volt is equiv­a­lent to one joule of elec­tric poten­tial ener­gy per coulomb of charge. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#voltage)voltage The dif­fer­ence in elec­tri­cal poten­tial ener­gy. It acts as an elec­tri­cal pres­sure that dri­ves the [elec­tric cur­rent](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#current) in a cir­cuit. It is mea­sured in [volts](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#volt-v). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#w2w)W2W See [*wafer-to-wafer*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#wafer-to-wafer-w2w). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#wafer)wafer A thin slice of [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor), such as sil­i­con, used for the fab­ri­ca­tion of [inte­grat­ed cir­cuits](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#chip). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#wafer-bonding)wafer bonding A process for join­ing two [wafers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#wafer) togeth­er direct­ly or using an inter­me­di­ate lay­er. This tech­nique can be used for cre­at­ing com­plex mul­ti-lay­ered [semi­con­duc­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor) struc­tures or devices. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#wafer-level-package-wlp)wafer level package (WLP) A type of [semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#semiconductor-packaging) where the pack­ag­ing process is applied direct­ly at the [wafer](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#wafer) lev­el, rather than to indi­vid­ual [die](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#die) after the wafer has been diced. This can result in a more com­pact and cost-effec­tive pack­age com­pared to tra­di­tion­al pack­ag­ing methods. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#wafer-to-wafer-w2w)wafer-to-wafer (W2W) A process in which entire [wafers](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#wafer) are bond­ed or aligned to one anoth­er, often used in [advanced pack­ag­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#advanced-packaging) and [3D inte­gra­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#3d-integration). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#water-electrolysis)water electrolysis [Elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolysis) of water for the pur­pose of split­ting water into [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) and oxygen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#water-electrolyzer)water electrolyzer An [elec­trolyz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#electrolyzer) used to split water into [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#hydrogen-h) and oxygen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#wire-bonding)wire bonding A tech­nique that uses thin wires, often made of gold or alu­minum, to cre­ate elec­tri­cal inter­con­nects, typ­i­cal­ly between a die and a [cir­cuit board](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#circuit-board). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#year-over-year-yoy)year-over-year (YoY) A com­par­i­son of a sta­tis­tic or met­ric between two con­sec­u­tive years. It’s used to see if some­thing has grown, shrunk, or stayed the same from one year to the next, typ­i­cal­ly shown as a percentage. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#yoy)YoY See [*year-over-year*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#year-over-year-yoy). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#%ce%b5)ε See [*absolute per­mit­tiv­i­ty*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#absolute-permittivity). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#%ce%b50)ε0 See [*rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#relative-permittivity). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#%ce%b5r)εr See [*rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#relative-permittivity). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#%ce%ba)κ See [*rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#relative-permittivity). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#%c2%b5)µ See [*micro*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#micro-µ). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#%c2%b5f)µF Micro­farad; see [micro](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#micro-μ) and [farad](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#farad-f). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#%cf%89)Ω See [*ohm*](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/#ohm-ω). --- title: "Solutions" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/solutions/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cnf-mim-wafer-01-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" --- # Solutions ![E4e89e 19ae472b765a4644bf326a0a66b6dcebmv2](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_19ae472b765a4644bf326a0a66b6dcebmv2-1200x707.webp) # Solutions Smoltek enables the pro­duc­tion of small­er and bet­ter micro­elec­tron­ic com­po­nents through solu­tions for smarter inte­gra­tion. The company’s dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy offers a broad field of pro­duc­tion process­es for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, among those CMOS-com­pli­ant devices, to meet today’s and tomorrow’s mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing challenges. One exam­ple of how and where Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy can be imple­ment­ed is in minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors for inte­gra­tion into semi­con­duc­tor circuits—a crit­i­cal appli­ca­tion in the advanced pack­ag­ing of high-per­for­mance processors. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#semiconductor-evolution-and-the-problem-we-solve)Semiconductor evolution—and the problem we solve As the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try has been able to con­tin­ue minia­tur­iz­ing the tran­sis­tors in proces­sor chips, the chip’s per­for­mance increas­es, which gives us faster and increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful com­put­ers, tablets, mobile phones, etc. A con­se­quence of this devel­op­ment is that the elec­tri­cal volt­age in the chip must be reduced, which entails an increased need for so-called decou­pling capac­i­tors near the chip. These capac­i­tors need to be extreme­ly thin to place these close enough to the active proces­sor. Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber-based (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tors can solve this par­tic­u­lar problem.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-market-for-our-capacitors)The market for our capacitors The mar­ket for our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is in spe­cial­ized elec­tron­ic com­po­nents used in a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of semi­con­duc­tors and inte­grat­ed cir­cuits. The capac­i­tors are spe­cial­ly designed to offer high capac­i­tance val­ues in a com­pact form factor.  *Exam­ples of areas of appli­ca­tion are:* *Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) and edge devices* – The CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy address­es some of the most press­ing bot­tle­necks in next-gen­er­a­tion AI proces­sors, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC), and edge com­put­ing. These advanced appli­ca­tions require capac­i­tors that are not only extreme­ly thin to be inte­grat­ed direct­ly under proces­sor chips but also pro­vide high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, low ESL/​ESR, excel­lent reli­a­bil­i­ty, and ener­gy effi­cien­cy. Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) is the col­lec­tive term for tech­nolo­gies that enable com­put­ers to per­form tasks that nor­mal­ly require human intel­li­gence – such as rec­og­niz­ing images, under­stand­ing lan­guage, play­ing games or mak­ing deci­sions. It is based on algo­rithms, math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els and (now main­ly) Machine Learn­ing (ML) and Deep Learn­ing (DL), where neur­al net­works are trained on large data sets. **Con­sumer elec­tron­ics** – Smart­phones, tablets and portable devices where the capac­i­tors are used in the appli­ca­tion proces­sor, which place high demands on the com­bi­na­tion of high per­for­mance in a small form fac­tor. With our tech­nol­o­gy for ultra-thin capac­i­tors, we can become a lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy sup­pli­er in this seg­ment, as we can meet those require­ments. It enables, for exam­ple, our capac­i­tors to be placed clos­er to the appli­ca­tion proces­sor com­pared to com­pet­ing tech­nolo­gies, which is very impor­tant for, like for exam­ple, mobile phone man­u­fac­tur­ers as it increas­es sys­tem (AP/​SoC – Sys­tem on Chip[1](https://www.smoltek.com#c2d7dbfb-048f-46e0-a96e-7b7aeb621e5d)) per­for­mance. **The auto­mo­tive indus­try** – Our capac­i­tors are suit­able for var­i­ous elec­tri­cal sys­tems in the auto­mo­tive indus­try where tech­nol­o­gy has become more advanced, with exten­sive soft­ware imple­men­ta­tion and many com­plex safe­ty sys­tems. This means that there are strict require­ments for sta­ble volt­age lev­els and reli­able func­tion of impor­tant com­po­nents, which are chal­lenges our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy can meet.  **The aero­space and defense indus­try** – Tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ments require high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors to meet the strict spec­i­fi­ca­tions found in radar sys­tems, com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment, and oth­er avionics.  **Radio fre­quen­cy (RF)** – Our tech­nol­o­gy can be used in so-called RF cir­cuits where there are high require­ments for a very small form fac­tor. In RF, our tech­nol­o­gy can be used to con­trol imped­ance (elec­tri­cal resis­tance to alter­nat­ing cur­rent) and improve the per­for­mance of wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion devices such as mobile phones and Wi-Fi routers.  **Indus­try and man­u­fac­tur­ing** – In indus­tri­al automa­tion and con­trol sys­tems, our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy can be used to ensure the high demands placed on sta­ble and accu­rate volt­age lev­els, con­tribut­ing to the reli­a­bil­i­ty of man­u­fac­tur­ing processes.  In sum­ma­ry, our tech­nol­o­gy is dri­ven by the increas­ing demand for minia­tur­ized, high-per­for­mance elec­tron­ic devices in a vari­ety of indus­tries. As the devel­op­ment of semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues and the need for small­er and more effi­cient com­po­nents increas­es, we expect the mar­ket for our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy to expand.  *The scal­ing of micro­elec­tron­ics paves the way for minia­tur­ized capacitors* --- title: "Solutions" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/solutions/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/karsten-wurth-zkwgoruyumk-unsplash.webp" --- # Solutions ![Pemwe in landscape](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/pemwe-in-landscape-1200x800.webp) # Solutions Smoltek hydro­gen is paving the way for a sus­tain­able future as we are mak­ing pro­duc­tion of green hydro­gen viable. By intro­duc­ing a porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) for PEM elec­trolyz­ers that increas­es the active sur­face area by 30 times and reduces the need for irid­i­um by up to 95 per­cent, while main­tain­ing high per­for­mance, we are enabling the scale-up of next gen­er­a­tion PEM electolyzers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#partner-with-us-for-cost-leadership)Partner with us – for cost leadership Smoltek Hydro­gen can cre­ate a high­ly attrac­tive mar­ket posi­tion based on sub­stan­tial cost lead­er­ship as we have devel­oped a solu­tion to the most crit­i­cal obsta­cle lim­it­ing the large-scale adop­tion of green hydro­gen: the extreme scarci­ty and high cost of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst used in PEM electrolyzers. Our inno­v­a­tive PTE tech­nol­o­gy suc­ceeds where com­peti­tors have strug­gled in try­ing to refine the coat­ing of the mem­brane (CCM). By tak­ing a Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Sub­strate (CCS) approach – coat­ing of the metal­lic sub­strate instead of the plas­tic mem­brane – we now have the solu­tion for cost-effec­tive fos­sil-free hydro­gen production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-iridium-challenge)The Iridium Challenge Iridium’s scarci­ty and cost pose a major bar­ri­er to scal­ing green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. Glob­al out­put is lim­it­ed to just 7–8 tons per year—enough for only 4–5 GW of PEM elec­trolyz­er capac­i­ty at today’s usage rates (1–2 mg/​cm²). That’s just 2% of pro­ject­ed 2030 demand. Con­ven­tion­al Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Mem­branes (CCM) waste much of this pre­cious met­al, as only sur­face atoms are active while the rest remain unused. At 2 mg/​cm², irid­i­um costs reach $60 mil­lion per gigawatt. Reduc­ing usage to 0.1 mg/​cm² would cut that to just $3 million—a crit­i­cal step toward eco­nom­ic viability. Despite years of research, indus­try has stalled at 0.5 mg/cm²—still five times above the target.  Smoltek Hydro­gen offers a solu­tion for the porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE): a Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Sub­strate (CCS) using our pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy. By increas­ing the active sur­face area 30-fold, we enable near­ly full cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion and achieve the 0.1 mg/​cm² milestone—unlocking scal­able, cost-effec­tive green hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#lower-iridium-loading-without-compromising-performance)Lower iridium loading without compromising performance Smoltek Hydro­gen has suc­cess­ful­ly reduced the load­ing of Ir-based cat­a­lyst to 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2, with­out com­pro­mis­ing the over­all per­for­mance of the PEM elec­tolyz­er. The reduc­tion of irid­i­um is crit­i­cal in order to enable glob­al mass man­u­fac­tur­ing tar­gets for green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion using PEM electrolysis. **Key fea­tures of Smoltek Hydrogen’s Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE):** - Max­i­miz­ing the avail­able sur­face area - Max­i­miz­ing Ir cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion, achiev­ing load­ing lev­els as low as 0.1 mg/​cm2 - Reduc­ing con­tact resis­tance between the cat­a­lyst lay­er and the PTL substrate ![Smoltek ECM effect comparison 02](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/smoltek-ecm-effect-comparison-02-1200x339.png) Smoltek Hydro­gens tech­nol­o­gy for the anode side elec­trode – reduc­ing the irid­i­um load towards 0.1 mg/​cm2 * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrogen-market-market-overview)Hydrogen market – market overview ### 1. Fuel cells in electric vehicles when batteries are not suitable Elec­tric heavy-duty vehi­cles are the key to fos­sil-free trans­port. When bat­ter­ies would not pro­vide a long enough range, fuel cells are the alter­na­tive. The vehi­cle is loaded with hydro­gen, which the fuel cell trans­fers into elec­tric­i­ty. This will be used for heavy-duty trucks, coach­es, long-range pas­sen­ger vehi­cles, and trains. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/pexels-quintin-gellar-2199293-1200x799.webp) Hydro­gen will pow­er long-haul trans­ports to reduce car­bon emissions ### 2. Synthetic fuels for marine applications For long dis­tances, heavy marine trans­ports syn­thet­ic fuel is a con­ve­nient way to make the trans­ports green. Exist­ing com­bus­tion engines are run on syn­thet­ic fuels pro­duced from green H2. Also, bio­fu­els, lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies, and fuel cells will be used to make the sec­tor fos­sil-free. Still, syn­thet­ic fuels are con­sid­ered most attrac­tive, giv­en that the cost of pro­duc­ing hydro­gen can be reduced. ### 3. Replacing today’s fossil hydrogen in agriculture fertilizer Ammo­nia is the sec­ond most com­mon­ly pro­duced chem­i­cal in the world, and it is derived from hydro­gen. More than 80 per­cent is used as feed­stock for fer­til­iz­er. The rest are used in mak­ing paint, plas­tic, tex­tiles, explo­sives, and oth­er chem­i­cals. Ammo­nia pro­duc­tion in 2018 gen­er­at­ed around 500 mil­lion tons of car­bon diox­ide, where a large part comes from hydro­gen pro­duced by steam methane reform­ing. Mak­ing this from green hydro­gen instead implies an immense growth of the elec­trolyz­er market. ### 4. Fossil-free steel works New steel works are being built all around Europe, some­thing that has not hap­pened for hun­dreds of years. The new steel­works will be using green hydro­gen instead of fos­sil gas. Each ton of steel pro­duced today is esti­mat­ed to emit 2.2 tons of car­bon dioxide—equating to about 11 per­cent of glob­al car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. In Swe­den, two well-known exam­ples are the HYBRIT project run by SSAB, LKAB, and Vat­ten­fall, and H2 Green Steel, a new ambi­tious com­pa­ny build­ing new steel­works in Swe­den and Iberia. Sim­i­lar projects are seen, for instance, in Ger­many. For each new steel­works, a new large-scale hydro­gen plant is being built. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/green-steel-on-conveyor-1920x600.webp) ### 5. Heating in cement production Green hydro­gen can be used for high-grade indus­tri­al heat­ing in, for exam­ple, the cement indus­try, which accounts for 8 per­cent of glob­al car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. Emis­sions can be reduced by a third by using green hydro­gen to heat the cement kilns. (The remain­ing two-thirds come from the chem­i­cal reac­tion that pro­duces cement and must be cap­tured and stored or reduced by oth­er means.)  ### 6. Electrical grid balancing Hydro­gen can play a major role in bal­anc­ing the elec­tri­cal grid, espe­cial­ly as more vari­able renew­ables like solar and wind are added. Elec­tric grids must always bal­ance sup­ply and demand in real time to main­tain fre­quen­cy, oth­er­wise the grid can cause insta­bil­i­ty or black­outs. To sta­bi­lize the grid hydro­gen can be used to absorb excess elec­tric­i­ty when there’s a sur­plus, store it, and then release it lat­er when need­ed. This makes hydro­gen a kind of “ener­gy sponge” or long-dura­tion bat­tery for the grid. ![Green Hydrogen Energy Storage](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/green-hydrogen-energy-storage-1200x375.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanostructures-in-the-hydrogen-industry)Carbon nanostructures in the hydrogen industry Our main objec­tive is to devel­op robust solu­tions for indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant cat­a­lyst coat­ings in the ener­gy con­ver­sion sec­tor for the future. We build on our expe­ri­ence to scale up nanos­truc­tures devel­oped for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to also incor­po­rate thin films that can cat­alyze effec­tive­ly the reac­tions need­ed in gas dif­fu­sion elec­trodes for water elec­trol­y­sis. The goal is to offer our cus­tomers supe­ri­or prop­er­ties in terms of sta­bil­i­ty and activity. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#rapid-increase-in-demand-for-green-hydrogen)Rapid increase in demand for green hydrogen Green hydro­gen means that elec­tric­i­ty from renew­able sources is used, like wind, water, and solar ener­gy. The wind and solar pow­er capac­i­ty are planned to be built up at a large scale glob­al­ly to match the demand. The large vol­ume pro­duc­tion com­bined with the tech­nol­o­gy run­ning down the expe­ri­ence curve indi­cates an attrac­tive cost per kilo­watt from green elec­tric­i­ty. For exam­ple, wind pow­er is increas­ing­ly being pro­duced in large off­shore wind farms in the com­ing decade. Wind pow­er already reach­es a low­er cost per kilo­watt than new nuclear power. --- title: "Ultra-thin capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/semiconductor/capacitors/" date: 2025-07-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sem-image-of-the-cnf-mim-prototype-only-38-microns-thick.jpg" --- # Ultra-thin capacitors ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Ultra-thin capacitors Smoltek has devel­oped a pro­to­type of the thinnest dis­crete capac­i­tor in the world. Its total build­ing height is less than 40 microm­e­ters (38.2 µm to be exact). You have to stack a bunch of them on top of each oth­er to reach the same height as today’s indus­try-stan­dard regard­ing sur­face-mount­ed dis­crete capac­i­tors. The capac­i­tor, with­out encap­su­la­tion and sub­strate, is mere­ly 0.5 to 10 µm in height. It can be built direct­ly onto an inte­grat­ed circuit’s die or built into its interposer. The most amaz­ing thing about this micro­scop­ic capac­i­tor is its per­for­mance. One square mil­lime­ter has a capac­i­tance of a whop­ping 650 nano­farads (650 nF/​mm2). Its inter­nal resis­tance (ESR) is less than forty mil­liohms (40 mΩ), and its inter­nal induc­tance (ESL) is below fif­teen pico­hen­ry (15 pH). We describe our capac­i­tor as a CNF-MIM capac­i­tor since it is a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor where car­bon nanofibers (CNF) are used to cre­ate a much larg­er sur­face area, hence high­er capac­i­tance than the form fac­tor suggests. ![Chip with capacitors placed on the underside](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/decoupling-capacitors-on-processor-chip-900x600.webp) The decou­pling capac­i­tors are locat­ed on the under­side of the appli­ca­tion proces­sor chip. We are devel­op­ing ultra-thin and high-per­for­mance nanofiber-based capac­i­tors for mobile appli­ca­tion proces­sors. The dri­ving volt­age decreas­es in today’s proces­sors because more and more tran­sis­tors can fit on a giv­en sur­face. The low­er dri­ve volt­age makes the proces­sors increas­ing­ly sen­si­tive to inter­fer­ence, and a num­ber of so-called decou­pling capac­i­tors are required to sta­bi­lize the pow­er supply. To increase per­for­mance and reduce pow­er con­sump­tion, these capac­i­tors must be placed as close to the proces­sor chip as pos­si­ble. For the capac­i­tors to be placed as close to the proces­sor chip as pos­si­ble, they must be extreme­ly thin. They must also be high-per­for­mance, i.e. sta­ble at high fre­quen­cies and with low inter­nal losses. Our car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy makes it pos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture capac­i­tors with a unique com­bi­na­tion of supe­ri­or elec­tri­cal per­for­mance at very high fre­quen­cies and an extreme­ly small form factor—ultra-thin capacitors. Smoltek’s upcom­ing prod­uct fam­i­ly for decou­pling capac­i­tors for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is intend­ed to be placed in the appli­ca­tion proces­sor chip. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#technical-data-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology)Technical data—CNF-MIM capacitor technology - Sol­id-state construction - Capac­i­tance den­si­ty: > 650 nF/​mm2 - Equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR): < 40 mΩ - Equiv­a­lent series induc­tance (ESL): < 15 pH - Break­down volt­age: Up to ~ 25 V - Leak­age cur­rent: ~ 4 mA/​F - Excel­lent capac­i­tance sta­bil­i­ty up to 150 °C ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#applications-for-discrete-cnf-mim-capacitors)Applications for discrete CNF-MIM capacitors A dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tor has a small­er foot­print (area) and much thin­ner pro­file (z‑dimension) than any oth­er capac­i­tor with the same capac­i­tance. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors up to more than 650 nF can be made less than 40 µm in height. The actu­al form fac­tor can be var­ied accord­ing to the design and need. As shown in the illus­tra­tions, a dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can be - mount­ed on print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) - embed­ded in PCB - mount­ed on chip interposer - embed­ded in chip interposer - mount­ed on chip die - Dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are com­pat­i­ble with wafer-to-wafer (W2W) or die-to-wafer bond­ing (D2W). [![cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on a print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) [![cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in a print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on a chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in a chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete-1.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete-1.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on chip die Click on an image to see it in full size. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#applications-for-integrated-cnf-mim-capacitors)Applications for integrated CNF-MIM capacitors A CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can also be inte­grat­ed direct­ly into chip die or chip inter­pos­er. The height of the inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors is a mere 0.5 to 10 µm. The ben­e­fits of inte­grat­ed CNF-MIM are many: - CMOS-com­pat­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing process - Unpar­al­leled design free­dom for cir­cuit designers - Pos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture direct­ly on-chip - Clos­er to the cir­cuit where it is needed - Extreme­ly small 2D footprint - Very com­pact 3D volume - Elim­i­nates the need for inte­grat­ed dis­crete capacitors As shown in the illus­tra­tions, a CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can be - inte­grat­ed with chip interposer - inte­grat­ed with built-on-chip die [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors inte­grat­ed with chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors inte­grat­ed with chip die Click on an image to see it in full size. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#discrete-cnf-mim-capacitor-compared-to-alternatives)Discrete CNF-MIM capacitor compared to alternatives Mul­ti­lay­er Ceram­ic Capac­i­tors (MLCC) form the indus­try stan­dard for sur­face-mount­ed device (SMD) capac­i­tors. Every year, tril­lions of MLCCs are built into elec­tron­ic devices. They are 300 µm high. CNF-MIM offers the same capac­i­tance at a tenth of that height. The minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ics is cre­at­ing a grow­ing need for ever-small­er capac­i­tors. And some cir­cuits (such as Apple’s) use capac­i­tors that are state of the art. These use improve­ments of MLCC and Low Induc­tance Chip Capac­i­tors (LICCs) and Trench Sil­i­con Capac­i­tors (TSCs), all of which have a height of 80–100 µm. How­ev­er, MLCC, LICC, and TSC strug­gle to go down in height due to mate­ri­als involved, pro­cess­ing schemes, and the cost of raw mate­ri­als and pro­cess­ing. At the same time, SiP and SoC con­tin­ue to become more com­pact. There is less and less space between inter­con­nects (bumps), and they are get­ting short­er. To fit capac­i­tors between the bumps, the capac­i­tors must have a small­er foot­print and, above all, be shorter—preferably less than 20 µm. This is the prob­lem that CNF-MIM capac­i­tors solve. They have a much small­er foot­print and, above all, a much low­er height. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-to-make-the-worlds-thinnest-capacitor)How to make the world’s thinnest capacitor To cre­ate a capac­i­tor with a min­i­mal foot­print and height, we use car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) to mul­ti­ply the con­tact area between the two met­als and the inter­me­di­ary dielectric. Con­sid­er a sin­gle CNF with a diam­e­ter of 10 nm and a length of 5 µm. Its man­tle sur­face is 2,000 times larg­er than the area it occu­pies. Thus, a for­est of such CNFs would mul­ti­ply the sur­face, but not by as much as 2,000. We can’t cov­er the entire orig­i­nal sur­face with CNFs; there must be space between them to allow access to the con­tact sur­face. But if the for­est of CNFs cov­ers about half the sur­face, then the sur­face mul­ti­pli­ca­tion would be in the range of 1,000 times. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-1200x800.webp) Car­bon nanofiber met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capacitor. CNF has many metal­lic prop­er­ties, includ­ing being a good con­duc­tor of cur­rent. There­fore a met­al plate cov­ered to fifty per­cent by CNFs is a sin­gle elec­trode with a sur­face area about 1,000 times larg­er than the area of the met­al plate itself. A MIM capac­i­tor is obtained by coat­ing this elec­trode with a uni­form­ly thick lay­er of a dielec­tric and then coat­ing this in turn with a met­al. Of course, the dielec­tric should have a high rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty to max­i­mize the capacitance. Since the CNF has a length much larg­er than the diam­e­ter, we can neglect what hap­pens to the elec­tric field near the base and top of each CNF. Essen­tial­ly it will be a uni­form field, just as in a par­al­lel plate capacitor. Since the capac­i­tance of a par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor is direct­ly pro­por­tion­al to the sur­face area, we con­clude that CNFs have increased the capac­i­tance den­si­ty by 1,000 times. But it doesn’t end there. If the sec­ond lay­er of met­al is made uni­form­ly thick, both sides of it will have the same shape as the first elec­trode. So anoth­er MIM capac­i­tor is obtained by coat­ing it with anoth­er dielec­tric lay­er and then coat­ing it with met­al. It will have the same capac­i­ty as the first. And by elec­tri­cal­ly con­nect­ing the first and the third met­al lay­er, we achieve a par­al­lel con­nec­tion, which dou­bles the capac­i­tance. This can be repeat­ed as long as desired, and there is space between the car­bon nanofibers. The last lay­er of met­al does not need to be uni­form­ly thick but can fill any remain­ing spaces between the car­bon nanofibers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more)Learn more Don’t hes­i­tate to [con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/contact/semiconductor/) with your questions. --- title: "What" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/what/" date: 2025-07-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/smoltek-hydrogn-what.webp" --- # What ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # The Porous Transport Electrode Breakthrough Smoltek Hydrogen’s break­through in reduc­ing irid­i­um usage cen­ters on our PTE tech­nol­o­gy. Instead of apply­ing cat­a­lyst to the mem­brane (CCM approach), we coat the elec­trode sub­strate (CCS approach) with a cru­cial inno­va­tion: mul­ti­ply­ing the avail­able sur­face area. By grow­ing ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers direct­ly onto a porous tita­ni­um lay­er, we cre­ate a for­est-like struc­ture that increas­es the active sur­face area 30-fold. These nanofibers, 14,000 times thin­ner than a human hair, trans­form a stan­dard A4-sized elec­trode into an effec­tive cat­alyt­ic sur­face exceed­ing 1.8 mil­lion mm². Our man­u­fac­tur­ing process is straightforward: 1. Car­bon nanofibers are grown on tita­ni­um substrate 2. An ultra-thin plat­inum coat­ing pro­tects against cor­ro­sion while main­tain­ing conductivity 3. Irid­i­um is pre­cise­ly deposit­ed atom-by-atom, cre­at­ing max­i­mum active cat­a­lyst sites 4. The com­plet­ed PTE is qual­i­ty test­ed and pack­aged for deliv­ery to elec­trolyz­er manufacturers ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#performance-validation)Performance Validation Our tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers proven results, which con­firm that we have achieved TRL 4 (val­i­dat­ed in a lab­o­ra­to­ry environment): - **Iden­ti­cal per­for­mance:** We achieve the same per­for­mance with only 0.1 mg/​cm² irid­i­um com­pared to con­ven­tion­al elec­trodes requir­ing 2.0 mg/​cm². - **Proven dura­bil­i­ty:** Suc­cess­ful 1,000-hour tests com­plet­ed with­out signs of irre­versible degradation. - **Inde­pen­dent ver­i­fi­ca­tion:** PEM expert Dr. Felix Büchi has inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied and con­firmed our technology’s capabilities. We are cur­rent­ly per­form­ing tests under indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant con­di­tions to val­i­date TRL 5, a step we expect to reach short­ly. There­after, our pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ties, start­ing in 2026, will accel­er­ate fur­ther devel­op­ment towards TRL 6–7. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#intellectual-property-business-model)Intellectual Property & Business Model Our tech­nol­o­gy is under­pinned by a com­pre­hen­sive intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty port­fo­lio com­pris­ing over 110 patents grant­ed or pend­ing across 22 patent fam­i­lies. This pro­tec­tion cov­ers core CNF syn­the­sis, elec­trode struc­ture design, and man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es, cre­at­ing a sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­er to entry with strate­gic cov­er­age in key mar­kets includ­ing Europe (EPO), USA, Chi­na, Tai­wan, South Korea, Japan, and India, among others. Our busi­ness mod­el focus­es on man­u­fac­tur­ing and sell­ing the com­plete Smoltek PTE to our cus­tomers, enabling them to achieve near­ly 100% cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion, with each irid­i­um atom active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in the reactions. The same plat­form tech­nol­o­gy can rev­o­lu­tion­ize fuel cells and oth­er elec­tro­chem­i­cal appli­ca­tions, posi­tion­ing Smoltek as a fun­da­men­tal enabler of the hydro­gen economy. --- title: "What" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/what/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_ab98088d633745d39bce8f1f68d3ec28mv2.png" --- # What ![Smoltek mc2 02 2000x1125](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/smoltek-mc2-02-2000x1125-1-1200x675.webp) # **CNF-MIM: The Future of Ultra-Thin Capacitors** By cre­at­ing an array of ver­ti­cal and free-stand­ing car­bon nanofibers (CNF) and using them as a scaf­fold for met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) lay­ers, Smoltek Semi cre­ates CNF-MIM capac­i­tors that can be placed direct­ly under proces­sors while tak­ing up min­i­mal space. These CNF-MIM capac­i­tors deliv­er more ener­gy stor­age capac­i­ty clos­er to where it’s need­ed most, while requir­ing few­er man­u­fac­tur­ing steps than com­pet­ing tech­nolo­gies. The result is a capac­i­tor that not only per­forms bet­ter but also costs less to pro­duce – address­ing both the tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges of pow­er­ing tomorrow’s electronics. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-clear-technology-roadmap)**A Clear Technology Roadmap** | | | | | |---------------------------------------|----------------|----------------|------------------| | Para­me­ter | Gen-One (2025) | Gen-Two (2026) | Gen-Three (2027) | | Capac­i­tance density | 745 nF/​mm² | 1,704 nF/​mm² | 3,097 nF/​mm² | | Equiv­a­lent Series Resis­tance (ESR) | 50 mΩ | 20 mΩ | 10 mΩ | | Die Thick­ness (before casing) | 100 µm | 80 µm | 60 µm | Our devel­op­ment fol­lows a struc­tured gen­er­a­tional path­way, with each mile­stone bring­ing sig­nif­i­cant per­for­mance improvements: - **Gen-Zero (Com­plet­ed 2024):** Our ini­tial proof-of-con­cept, exe­cut­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Yageo Group, has suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ed func­tion­al capac­i­tors with prop­er coat­ing of high-aspect-ratio car­bon nanofibers with­out cre­at­ing short cir­cuits or leak­age paths. - **Gen-One (Under­way 2025):** Ini­tial tech­nol­o­gy val­i­da­tion shows promis­ing results with longer car­bon nanofibers main­tain­ing the same device foot­print. We’re tar­get­ing near­ly tripled vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty while reduc­ing ESR by a fac­tor of 30. Test units will be avail­able for cus­tomer eval­u­a­tion dur­ing Q4 2025, pro­vid­ing cru­cial real-world per­for­mance data. - **Gen-Two (Tar­get 2026):** Mov­ing toward vol­ume pro­duc­tion, we’ll main­tain the same device area while mak­ing capac­i­tors 20% thin­ner. The 1,704 nF/​mm² capac­i­tance den­si­ty will enable appli­ca­tions in advanced mobile proces­sors where space con­straints are crit­i­cal, while the 20 mΩ ESR meets require­ments for high­er-fre­quen­cy fil­ter­ing in mod­ern com­put­ing architectures. **Gen-Three (Tar­get 2027):** Our most advanced tar­get aims to be 40% thin­ner than Gen­er­a­tion Zero while deliv­er­ing over 12 times more capac­i­tance. The pro­ject­ed 10 mΩ ESR will enable direct chip inte­gra­tion for AI accel­er­a­tors and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing, where ultra-low pow­er deliv­ery imped­ance is essen­tial for sta­ble oper­a­tion under vari­able workloads. --- title: "Why" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/why/" date: 2025-07-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/smoltek-hydrogen-why.webp" --- # Why ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Enabling the Green Hydrogen Revolution Hydro­gen is the foun­da­tion of mod­ern indus­try, with glob­al demand at 100 mil­lion tons per year – expect­ed to dou­ble by 2030 and reach 550 mil­lion tons by 2050. Today, it’s essen­tial for fer­til­iz­er pro­duc­tion, chem­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing and oil refin­ing. Tomor­row, it will be the cor­ner­stone of glob­al decar­boniza­tion efforts, trans­form­ing heavy indus­try, trans­porta­tion and ener­gy sys­tems worldwide. But here’s the stark real­i­ty: 96% of all hydro­gen today comes from fos­sil fuels, releas­ing a stag­ger­ing 10 kg of CO₂ for every kilo­gram of hydro­gen produced. There is wide­spread agree­ment that the solu­tion lies in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, which con­vert elec­tric­i­ty from inter­mit­tent fos­sil-free sources (hydro, wind, solar) into hydro­gen. But this crit­i­cal tran­si­tion is not hap­pen­ing fast enough because glob­al enter­pris­es build­ing large-scale PEM elec­trolyz­er facil­i­ties are con­strained by the lim­it­ed sup­ply of iridium. The glob­al pro­duc­tion of irid­i­um is only 7–9 tons per year, pri­mar­i­ly as a by-prod­uct of plat­inum and nick­el min­ing in South Africa and Zim­bab­we. This severe sup­ply con­straint cre­ates a fun­da­men­tal phys­i­cal bar­ri­er pre­vent­ing elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers from scal­ing pro­duc­tion to meet the rapid­ly grow­ing demand for green hydro­gen. While renew­able elec­tric­i­ty costs rep­re­sent the largest part of green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion expens­es, this irid­i­um lim­i­ta­tion is the crit­i­cal bot­tle­neck that must be solved to enable the mas­sive scale-up need­ed for emerg­ing fos­sil-free appli­ca­tions across for instance steel pro­duc­tion, trans­porta­tion, and ener­gy storage. This cre­ates an urgent need for a rad­i­cal solu­tion: the amount of irid­i­um required in PEM elec­trolyz­ers must be dras­ti­cal­ly reduced while main­tain­ing or improv­ing performance. Smoltek Hydro­gen has risen to the chal­lenge: to reduce the need for pre­cious met­al cat­a­lysts in PEM elec­trolyz­ers while main­tain­ing per­for­mance and mak­ing them even more effi­cient and cost effective. This allows man­u­fac­tur­ers to over­come the irid­i­um sup­ply con­straint and scale up the pro­duc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­ers, mak­ing clean hydro­gen eco­nom­i­cal­ly com­pet­i­tive with fos­sil-based alter­na­tives. For investors, this rep­re­sents an extra­or­di­nary oppor­tu­ni­ty across the hydro­gen ecosystem. --- title: "Why" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/why/" date: 2025-07-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/lab-01-2000x1123-1-jpg.webp" --- # Why ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Pushing the limits of Moore’s Law Moore’s Law has described expo­nen­tial growth in com­put­ing pow­er for decades, dou­bling tran­sis­tor den­si­ty approx­i­mate­ly every two years. This remark­able pro­gres­sion has enabled trans­for­ma­tive advances from per­son­al com­put­ers and smart­phones to cloud com­put­ing and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. How­ev­er, this con­tin­ued advance­ment now faces a crit­i­cal bar­ri­er: sta­ble pow­er delivery. As tran­sis­tors become more dense­ly packed and switch at faster rates in today’s advanced proces­sors, volt­age fluc­tu­a­tions in the pow­er sup­ply cre­ate increas­ing inter­fer­ence prob­lems. These fluc­tu­a­tions, known as tran­sients, can cause seri­ous errors in chip oper­a­tion and have emerged as the pri­ma­ry obsta­cle to fur­ther per­for­mance gains in AI, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing, and mobile applications. The solu­tion to this chal­lenge requires ener­gy reser­voirs – *capac­i­tors* – posi­tioned as close as pos­si­ble to the tran­sis­tors to smooth out these pow­er fluc­tu­a­tions. For the most advanced chips, these capac­i­tors must be mount­ed direct­ly under­neath the proces­sor pack­age in the extreme­ly lim­it­ed space between the chip and the cir­cuit board. This place­ment is not option­al but essen­tial, as it’s the clos­est pos­si­ble posi­tion with­out inte­grat­ing capac­i­tors into the chip itself. This neces­si­ty cre­ates spe­cif­ic and demand­ing tech­ni­cal requirements: 1. **Ultra-thin pro­file:** The capac­i­tors must be no high­er than the sol­der balls or bumps con­nect­ing the chip to the cir­cuit board – typ­i­cal­ly just tens of microns thick. 2. **Min­i­mal foot­print:** They must fit between the increas­ing­ly dense inter­con­nects on the under­side of the chip package. 3. **High capac­i­tance:** Despite these size con­straints, they must store suf­fi­cient ener­gy to effec­tive­ly sta­bi­lize the pow­er supply. Crit­i­cal­ly, exist­ing tech­nolo­gies are fail­ing to meet these com­bined require­ments cost-effectively: - Mul­ti­lay­er ceram­ic capac­i­tors (MLCCs) have reached their fun­da­men­tal minia­tur­iza­tion limits. - Deep trench capac­i­tors (DTCs) face pro­hib­i­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing costs and inher­ent phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions in their sub­trac­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing approach. This cre­ates both a sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket gap and an excep­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty for innovation. Smoltek Semi direct­ly address­es this unmet need with our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy. By uti­liz­ing car­bon nanofibers in an addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing process, we cre­ate capac­i­tors that deliv­er the nec­es­sary capac­i­tance with­in these extreme phys­i­cal con­straints – and at a low­er pro­duc­tion cost than com­pet­ing approach­es. This allows us to enable the con­tin­ued scal­ing that next-gen­er­a­tion elec­tron­ics require, effec­tive­ly push­ing back the lim­its that threat­en Moore’s Law. By solv­ing this crit­i­cal pow­er deliv­ery chal­lenge, Smoltek Semi enables the con­tin­ued advance­ment of elec­tron­ic per­for­mance for smart­phones, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing sys­tems, and AI servers that will dri­ve the next wave of tech­no­log­i­cal innovation. --- title: "Future applications" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/technology/future/" date: 2023-04-26 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/adobestock-572487068-scaled.webp" --- # Future applications ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) The enor­mous poten­tial with­in the wide Smoltek IP-plat­form is the base for our pur­suit in var­i­ous tech­nol­o­gy sec­tors. By eval­u­ate dif­fer­ent chal­lenges in each mar­ket we iden­ti­fy new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us to pro­vide rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing solu­tions for future applications. Besides serv­ing the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­tries with new, dis­rup­tive appli­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies we have already set up plans to scope new areas that can be ben­e­fi­cial of our tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions, such as the ener­gy stor­age sec­tor and the med-tech sec­tor. This, how­ev­er, are fields where we not yet have had enough time and recours­es to ful­ly explore. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-solutions-within-energy-storage)Future solutions within energy storage We con­tin­u­ous­ly eval­u­ate dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tions in ener­gy stor­age, and here bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy is an inter­est­ing area where sur­face con­di­tions are cen­tral to per­for­mance, as today’s mate­ri­als lim­it effi­cien­cy, ser­vice life and safe­ty. As an exam­ple we can look at (Li-ion) sol­id-state bat­ter­ies which with our nan­otech­nol­o­gy could offer high­er ener­gy den­si­ty, extend­ed charg­ing capac­i­ty, bet­ter tem­per­a­ture per­for­mance and reduced flam­ma­bil­i­ty com­pared to today’s batteries. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-solutions-within-semiconductors)Future solutions within semiconductors We have pre­vi­ous­ly devel­oped a num­ber of tech­nol­o­gy con­cepts for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. These are at dif­fer­ent stages of devel­op­ment, but all of them have had to stand back due to our cur­rent devel­op­ment of ultra-thin capac­i­tors. As the com­pa­ny devel­ops, there is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to resume some of them again. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/adobestock-589513644-scaled.webp "AdobeStock_589513644") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-tiger-smart-assembly-platform)SMOLTEK Tiger™ – smart assembly platform Smoltek Tiger is an assem­bly plat­form con­cept for advanced pack­ag­ing and het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion that con­sists of inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors, inter­con­nects and inter­posers that are incap­su­lat­ed by a ther­mal heat dis­si­pa­tion film. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolinco-component-integration-interconnects)SmolINCO – component integration interconnects The SmolIN­CO con­cept improves the over­all per­for­mance and reli­a­bil­i­ty of exist­ing Cu-based microbump tech­nol­o­gy and smoothens the scal­ing path down to \~5μm pitch, and beyond that sol­der free ther­mal com­pres­sion bonding. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolinpo-interposers-concept)**SmolINPO – Interposers concept** SmolIN­PO is our inter­pos­er con­cept based on super con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures. It facil­i­tates ultra-fine pitch inte­gra­tion of mul­ti-die SiP (Sys­tem-in-Pack­age) com­po­nents as well as with inte­grat­ed sol­id-state mini-super­ca­pac­i­tors for mul­ti­ple functions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltim-thermal-enhancement-materials)SmolTIM – Thermal enhancement materials SmolTIM is Smoltek’s heat dis­si­pa­tion con­cept that facil­i­tates high­er per­for­mance and sus­tained life­time for RF and Pow­er Elec­tron­ics components. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolnil-nano-imprint-lithography)SmolNIL – Nano imprint lithography Smol­NIL is our nanoscale imprint tech­nol­o­gy that enables us to fab­ri­cate high aspect ratio (>1:10) imprint mold/​mask with pre­de­fined shapes. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolcap-supercapacitors-concept)SmolCAP – Supercapacitors concept Smol­CAP is an ultra­thin high per­for­mance super­ca­pac­i­tor con­cept based on our car­bon nanofiber technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more)Learn more Want to know more about our dis­rup­tive nan­otech­nol­o­gy and how it can be imple­ment­ed in dif­fer­ent indus­try sec­tors? [Con­tact us!](https://www.smoltek.com/contact/) --- title: "Gender equality plan" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/gender-equality-plan/" date: 2023-05-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/smoltek-rd-team-meeting-jpg.webp" --- # Gender equality plan ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Gender equality plan Smoltek as a group is com­mit­ted to a sus­tain­able future by devel­op­ing car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy solu­tions that improve the prop­er­ties of advanced and expen­sive mate­ri­als that enables reduced ener­gy con­sump­tion, low­er oper­at­ing costs that sup­ports the tran­si­tion to a car­bon neu­tral society. Includ­ing Smoltek’s sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals, gen­der equal­i­ty and equal treat­ment are also essen­tial for the com­pa­ny. In favor of achiev­ing this, Smoltek works active­ly to ensure gen­der equal­i­ty and equal treat­ment in all our operations. We cre­ate a diverse and bet­ter work­ing envi­ron­ment where every­one feels val­ued, sup­port­ed and appre­ci­at­ed. Actions and strate­gies are being devel­oped based on this goal. We fol­low four specifics for­mu­lat­ed in our pol­i­cy based on lit­er­a­ture review, review of plans and solu­tions used in Swedish com­pa­nies, and that serves the needs of our organization. - Rais­ing aware­ness and train­ing on gen­der equal­i­ty, main­ly con­cern­ing uncon­scious gen­der bias. - Increas­ing a diverse team in lead­er­ship and deci­sion-mak­ing posi­tions, includ­ing diverse gen­ders, ages, nation­al­i­ties, cul­tures and opinions. - Ensur­ing equal oppor­tu­ni­ties and that every­one is val­ued pro­fes­sion­al­ly in the recruit­ment and pro­mo­tion of employees. - Ensur­ing that all employ­ees have their needs lis­ten­ing and invit­ed to col­lab­o­rate to the gen­der equal­i­ty and equal treat­ment plan development. Our pur­pose is that the pol­i­cy (plan) imple­men­ta­tion pro­motes equal oppor­tu­ni­ties and bet­ter work con­di­tions and envi­ron­ment in our company. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#great-place-to-work-certification)**Great Place to Work certification** Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing lives up to the set require­ments for what dis­tin­guish­es a good work­place and, after a thor­ough eval­u­a­tion, has been award­ed the Great Place to Work cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Our cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is proof that the employ­ees expe­ri­ence a very high degree of cred­i­bil­i­ty, respect, fair­ness, pride and cama­raderie with­in the organization. ![Gptw Cert 2024](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/GPTW_cert-2024-225x383.png) --- title: "International Investors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/international-investors/" date: 2026-05-21 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # International Investors Smoltek takes the next step towards com­mer­cial­iza­tion – car­ries out rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 million # Smoltek is facing a crucial phase in the company’s development. After several years of technology development and strategic partnerships, the company is now conducting a rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million to accelerate commercialization in two markets with strong structural growth: semiconductors and green hydrogen. ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) *Back to [Eng­lish page for investors](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/)* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#trading-in-smoltek-as-an-international-investor)Trading in Smoltek as an international investor **Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing (publ), (“Smoltek” or “The Com­pa­ny”) informs inter­na­tion­al investors that trad­ing the company’s shares on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket is con­duct­ed on Nas­daq INET Nordic along with CCP clear­ance. This means that inter­na­tion­al investors can trade Smoltek’s share through the same stan­dard bro­ker­age infra­struc­ture used for larg­er Nordic stocks.** Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB is list­ed on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket, Stock­holm Sweden. - Tick­er: SMOL - ISIN code: SE0010820381 - Spot­light MIC: XSAT - CFI code: ESVUFR - FSIN code: SMOLTEKNAN/​SH ### Information for international investors Trad­ing in Smoltek’s share is con­duct­ed on [Nas­daq INET Nordic](https://www.nasdaq.com/solutions/technical-information-inet-nordic-trading-platform) and cleared through CCP, which means it can be accessed through many inter­na­tion­al bro­kers that sup­port Nordic equities. This set­up makes trad­ing com­pat­i­ble with stan­dard Euro­pean mar­ket infra­struc­ture and sim­pli­fies set­tle­ment for par­tic­i­pat­ing bro­kers. To buy Smoltek shares, investors should con­tact their bank or bro­ker and con­firm access to Spot­light Stock Mar­ket and trad­ing in Swedish list­ed shares.  Sev­er­al banks offer direct access to Spot­light, includ­ing Nordic banks and cer­tain inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions. U.S. insti­tu­tions that may trade on Spot­light include, for exam­ple, Gold­man Sachs, J.P. Mor­gan, Mor­gan Stan­ley, and Instinet.  Where a bank or bro­ker does not have direct access to Spot­light, the order is rout­ed through the banks part­ner insti­tu­tion or oth­er inter­me­di­ary with access to the mar­ket. To ensure that the bank can iden­ti­fy the rel­e­vant secu­ri­ty cor­rect­ly, the investor should pro­vide the nec­es­sary ref­er­ence infor­ma­tion when plac­ing the order. In par­tic­u­lar, the investor should be pre­pared to spec­i­fy the Spot­light MIC (*XSAT*)) and the ISIN code (*SE0010820381*) of the security.  Read more on how to: [Trade on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket](https://spotlightstockmarket.com/en/guides/trade-on-spotlight/). *As with any small-cap stock, liq­uid­i­ty may be lim­it­ed and the share price may be more volatile than on larg­er exchanges. The share is trad­ed in Swedish kro­nor (SEK), so for­eign investors should also con­sid­er exchange-rate risk.* --- title: "Investors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/" date: 2023-04-14 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Investors Col­lab for Next-Gen­er­a­tion Ultra-Low Irid­i­um Elec­trol­y­sis Technology # Together with Heraeus Precious Metals Smoltek Hydrogen develops next-generation, ultra-low iridium Porous Transport Electrodes (PTEs) for Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) water electrolysis. As a major milestone in this partnership, the companies will initiate a rigorous 3,000-hour long-term durability test this autumn. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp) *För infor­ma­tion på sven­s­ka, besök vår [sven­s­ka sida för invester­are](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/ "Investerarrelationer").* **Wel­come to invest in an inno­v­a­tive com­pa­ny list­ed on Spot­light Stock Market.** Our pur­pose is to con­tribute to bet­ter per­form­ing appli­ca­tions and devices that makes com­mu­ni­ca­tion faster and life more sustainable. We enable the next tech­nol­o­gy leap in the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­try by devel­op­ing new, and more cost-effi­cient, mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing solu­tions for next-gen capac­i­tors and electrolyzers. * * * **Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB is list­ed on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket, in Stock­holm, under the tick­er SMOL.** Trad­ing on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket is con­duct­ed on Nas­daq INET Nordic sys­tem along with CCP clear­ing. Read more about how to [trade Smoltek on Spotlight.](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/international-investors/) - Tick­er: SMOL - ISIN code: SE0010820381 - Spot­light MIC: XSAT - CFI code: ESVUFR - FSIN code: SMOLTEKNAN/​SH * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#press-releases)Press releases Lat­est Reg­u­la­to­ry Non-reg­u­la­to­ry August 10, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-advance-next-generation-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis-technology)[Smoltek Hydrogen and Heraeus Precious Metals Advance Next-Generation Ultra-Low Iridium Electrolysis Technology](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-advance-next-generation-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis-,c4381147) August 3, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-termination-of-liquidity-guarantee-agreement)[Smoltek announces termination of liquidity guarantee agreement](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-termination-of-liquidity-guarantee-agreement,c4379461) July 16, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-joins-maxbatt-together-with-industrial-oems-for-scaling-battery-production)[Smoltek joins MAXBATT together with industrial OEMs for scaling battery production](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-joins-maxbatt-together-with-industrial-oems-for-scaling-battery-production,c4375118) July 14, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-last-day-of-trading-in-btus-first-day-of-trading-in-warrants-of-series-to-9-and-completion-of-additional-conversion-of-convertible-loan)[Smoltek announces last day of trading in BTUs, first day of trading in warrants of series TO 9 and completion of additional conversion of convertible loan](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-last-day-of-trading-in-btus--first-day-of-trading-in-warrants-of-series-to-9-and-c,c4374489) July 1, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-share-now-available-for-trading-also-in-germany-and-the-us)[Smoltek’s share now available for trading also in Germany and the US](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-share-now-available-for-trading-also-in-germany-and-the-us,c4370076) August 3, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-termination-of-liquidity-guarantee-agreement)[Smoltek announces termination of liquidity guarantee agreement](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-termination-of-liquidity-guarantee-agreement,c4379461) July 14, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-last-day-of-trading-in-btus-first-day-of-trading-in-warrants-of-series-to-9-and-completion-of-additional-conversion-of-convertible-loan)[Smoltek announces last day of trading in BTUs, first day of trading in warrants of series TO 9 and completion of additional conversion of convertible loan](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-last-day-of-trading-in-btus--first-day-of-trading-in-warrants-of-series-to-9-and-c,c4374489) July 1, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#correction-smoltek-announces-final-outcome-in-heavily-oversubscribed-rights-issue-of-units-and-decides-on-over-allotment-issue)[Correction: Smoltek announces final outcome in heavily oversubscribed rights issue of units and decides on Over-allotment Issue](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/correction--smoltek-announces-final-outcome-in-heavily-oversubscribed-rights-issue-of-units-and-deci,c4369727) June 30, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-final-outcome-of-significantly-oversubscribed-rights-issue-of-units-and-resolves-on-over-allotment-issue)[Smoltek announces final outcome of significantly oversubscribed rights issue of units and resolves on Over-allotment Issue](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-final-outcome-of-significantly-oversubscribed-rights-issue-of-units-and-resolves-o,c4369591) June 26, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-preliminary-outcome-of-the-rights-issue-of-units-indicating-that-the-issue-is-significantly-oversubscribed)[Smoltek announces preliminary outcome of the rights issue of units, indicating that the issue is significantly oversubscribed](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-preliminary-outcome-of-the-rights-issue-of-units--indicating-that-the-issue-is-sig,c4368117) June 12, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-subscription-period-for-smolteks-rights-issue-of-units-begins-today)[The subscription period for Smoltek’s rights issue of units begins today](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/the-subscription-period-for-smoltek-s-rights-issue-of-units-begins-today,c4362075) June 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-publishes-information-documents-in-connection-with-the-rights-issue-of-units)[Smoltek publishes information documents in connection with the rights issue of units](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-publishes-information-documents-in-connection-with-the-rights-issue-of-units,c4359668) June 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-announces-change-in-management-for-smoltek-hydrogen)[Smoltek announces change in management for Smoltek Hydrogen](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-change-in-management-for-smoltek-hydrogen,c4359868) June 4, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#additional-conversion-of-convertible-loan-in-smoltek-completed)[Additional conversion of convertible loan in Smoltek completed](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/additional-conversion-of-convertible-loan-in-smoltek-completed,c4358230) June 2, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-has-decided-on-a-partially-guaranteed-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million)[Smoltek has decided on a partially guaranteed rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-has-decided-on-a-partially-guaranteed-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million,c4356746) August 10, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-advance-next-generation-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis-technology)[Smoltek Hydrogen and Heraeus Precious Metals Advance Next-Generation Ultra-Low Iridium Electrolysis Technology](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-advance-next-generation-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis-,c4381147) July 16, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-joins-maxbatt-together-with-industrial-oems-for-scaling-battery-production)[Smoltek joins MAXBATT together with industrial OEMs for scaling battery production](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-joins-maxbatt-together-with-industrial-oems-for-scaling-battery-production,c4375118) July 1, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-share-now-available-for-trading-also-in-germany-and-the-us)[Smoltek’s share now available for trading also in Germany and the US](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-share-now-available-for-trading-also-in-germany-and-the-us,c4370076) June 10, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-ceo-explains-the-companys-financing-strategy)[Smoltek’s CEO explains the company’s financing strategy](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-ceo-explains-the-company-s-financing-strategy,c4359994) June 3, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-sees-opportunities-in-japans-big-investments-in-semiconductors-for-ai-and-high-performance-computing)[Smoltek sees opportunities in Japan’s big investments in semiconductors for AI and High-Performance Computing](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-sees-opportunities-in-japan-s-big-investments-in-semiconductors-for-ai-and-high-performance-,c4355154) June 2, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-presents-at-aktiedagarna-in-stockholm-wednesday-june-10)[Smoltek presents at Aktiedagarna in Stockholm, Wednesday June 10](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-presents-at-aktiedagarna-in-stockholm--wednesday-june-10,c4356656) May 11, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-ceo-comments-on-the-first-quarter-of-2026-and-the-companys-focus-going-forward)[Smoltek’s CEO comments on the first quarter of 2026 and the company’s focus going forward](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-ceo-comments-on-the-first-quarter-of-2026-and-the-company-s-focus-going-forward,c4346946) April 28, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-visits-taiwan-for-meetings-with-industrial-partners-and-participation-in-yageo-group-ai-summit)[Smoltek visits Taiwan for meetings with industrial partners and participation in Yageo Group AI Summit](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-visits-taiwan-for-meetings-with-industrial-partners-and-participation-in-yageo-group-ai-summ,c4342863) April 20, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-strengthens-liquidity-by-raising-a-loan-of-sek-11-million-with-a-conversion-option)[Smoltek strengthens liquidity by raising a loan of SEK 11 million with a conversion option](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-strengthens-liquidity-by-raising-a-loan-of-sek-11-million-with-a-conversion-option,c4336925) April 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-appoints-gabriel-altby-as-cfo)[Smoltek appoints Gabriel Altby as CFO](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-appoints-gabriel-altby-as-cfo,c4332711) [All press releases](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#investor-presentations)Investor presentations ![2026 05 Smoltek Nanotech AGM](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-smoltek-nanotech-agm-1200x677.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-presentation-from-agm-2026)Smoltek’s presentation from AGM 2026 [2026-05 Smoltek Nan­otech AGM web](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-smoltek-nanotech-agm-web.pdf) Watch our CEO, Mag­nus Ander­s­son present our dis­rup­tive nan­otech for next-gen capac­i­tors for semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions at the investor event Red­eye AI 2026.  Watch SmolTALK – a pod­cast about deep tech. In the first episode, Smoltek’s CEO and CTO dis­cuss Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions in gen­er­al, and capac­i­tors in particular. Watch SmolTALK – a pod­cast about deep tech. In the sec­ond episode Smoltek’s CEO and Head of Tech­nol­o­gy of Smoltek Hydro­gen talk about Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy for hydro­gen appli­ca­tions, such as PEM elec­trolyz­ers and PEM fuel cells. * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#financial-reports)Financial reports - [Inter­im Report Q2 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/snh-q2-2026-en-2-2-2/) - [Inter­im Report Q1 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/snh-q1-2026-en-2-2-2/) - [Inter­im Report Q4 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/snh-q4-2025-en-2-2-2/) - [Inter­im Report Q3 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/snh-q3-2025-en-2-2-2-2-2/) [All reports](https://news.cision.com/se/?q=smoltek&m=Financial) (in Swedish) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#financial-calendar)Financial calendar - Aug 26, 2026 | Inter­im Report Q2 2026 - Nov 05, 2026 | Inter­im Report Q3 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#annual-report-2025-in-swedish)Annual Report 2025 (in Swedish) Get your copy of our most recent annu­al report. [Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/snh-ar-2025.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-smoltek-share)The Smoltek share Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB is list­ed on [*Spot­light Stock Mar­ket*](https://spotlightstockmarket.com/sv/bolag/irabout?InstrumentId=XSAT000047P8) since Feb­ru­ary 26, 2018. The share is trad­ed, by banks and stock bro­kers, through Nas­daq INET Nordic; tick­er SMOL. Share short name: SMOL Share ISIN-code: SE0010820381 Share CFI-code: ESVUFR Share FISN-code: SMOLTEKNAN/​SH ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#it-starts-with-multi-billion-usd-markets-but-it-doesnt-stop-there)It starts with multi-billion USD markets – but it doesn’t stop there Smoltek is an inno­v­a­tive indus­tri­al com­pa­ny with patent-pro­tect­ed and proven effec­tive car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy. We have two clear busi­ness areas, [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/) and [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/), both with great poten­tial upside thanks to dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy. What is more, we have oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand the tech­nol­o­gy plat­form to more mar­kets in the future, for exam­ple with­in the medtech industry. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#other-financial-documents-in-swedish)Other financial documents (in Swedish) - [Smoltek Arti­cles of Association](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/snh-bolagsordning-2025-03.pdf "Smoltek Bolagsordning 2025-03") - [Smoltek – Infor­ma­tion Mem­o­ran­dum 2024-05](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-informationsmemorandum-2024-05-30.pdf "Smoltek – Informationsmemorandum 2024-05-30") - [Smoltek – EU Prospec­tus 2022-10](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/smoltek-eu-prospekt-2022-10.pdf "Smoltek – EU-Prospekt 2022-10") - [Smoltek con­vert­ible deben­tures 2024–2027](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/convertible-loan-smoltek-nanotech-holding-2024-2027.pdf) - [Terms and con­di­tions for con­vert­ible deben­tures Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/konvertibelvillkor-smoltek-nanotech-holding-bilaga-a.pdf) --- title: "Organization" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/about/organization/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/smoltek-wafer-logo-2000x1331-1-jpg.webp" --- # Organization ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Organization Smoltek is a cor­po­rate group con­sist­ing of a par­ent com­pa­ny and three whol­ly owned subsidiaries. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/group-organization-2022-10.png) **Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB** is the par­ent com­pa­ny of the group. The com­pa­ny is list­ed on [Spot­light Stock Mar­ket in Stock­holm](https://spotlightstockmarket.com/sv/bolag/irabout?InstrumentId=XSAT000047P8), and the share is trad­ed under short name: SMOL. Please vis­it our [investor page](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/) for more information. **Smoltek AB** is the orig­i­nal com­pa­ny found­ed in 2005. Today it is a ded­i­cat­ed research and devel­op­ment com­pa­ny for the group. The com­pa­ny is also respon­si­ble for Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio and future inno­va­tion devel­op­ment based on the core technology. **Smoltek Semi AB** is a busi­ness divi­sion com­pa­ny with focus on the semi­con­duc­tor industry. **Smoltek Hydro­gen AB** is a busi­ness divi­sion com­pa­ny with focus on the hydro­gen industry.  There are sev­er­al rea­sons why Smoltek has this struc­ture. Here are some impor­tant ones: - Clear diver­si­fi­ca­tion of the company’s devel­op­ment risks between sev­er­al dif­fer­ent mar­kets and applications. - Facil­i­tates the cre­ation of inde­pen­dent and goal-focused orga­ni­za­tions with­in each busi­ness area. - Allows exter­nal financ­ing for a spe­cif­ic busi­ness area. - Increas­es flex­i­bil­i­ty for cre­at­ing poten­tial joint ven­tures with indus­tri­al partners. - The hold­ing com­pa­ny owns Smoltek’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights to guard against oper­a­tional risks. --- title: "Semiconductor inquiries" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/contact/" date: 2021-11-27 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Semiconductor inquiries ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Semiconductor inquiries Do you work in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, per­haps are you inter­est­ed in becom­ing a cus­tomer or col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner of ours? Regard­less, you can use this form to send a mes­sage direct­ly to us who devel­op solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. We will reply to your mes­sage as soon as possible. ### Phone [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46317010305) ### Address [Otter­häl­le­gatan 1 411 18 Göte­borg Swe­den](https://maps.app.goo.gl/cbtjxAeDGP6fMEfr5) ### Email [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) --- title: "Semiconductor inquiries" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/contact/semiconductor/" date: 2025-07-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Semiconductor inquiries ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Smoltek Semi inquiries Do you work in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, per­haps are you inter­est­ed in becom­ing a cus­tomer or col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner of ours? Regard­less, you can use this form to send a mes­sage direct­ly to us who devel­op solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. We will reply to your mes­sage as soon as possible. ### Phone [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46317010305) ### Address [Otter­häl­le­gatan 1 411 18 Göte­borg Swe­den](https://maps.app.goo.gl/cbtjxAeDGP6fMEfr5) ### Email [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) --- title: "Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/plasma-arches-from-ai-chip-on-pcb-1.webp" --- # Smoltek Busi­ness Swe­den, Japan 2026 # Powering the world through nanoscale innovation ![Farzan Ghavanini, CTO](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp) Smoltek devel­ops and com­mer­cial­izes deep tech solu­tions based on our patent pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form through our port­fo­lio com­pa­nies – Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen. We are pow­er­ing the com­put­ing rev­o­lu­tion and sus­tain­able ener­gy evo­lu­tion with cost-effec­tive solutions. - [**Smotek Semi**](http://www.smolteksemi.com) devel­ops ultra-thin capac­i­tors, pow­er­ing next-gen­er­a­tion advanced semi­con­duc­tor chips, like for AI, HPC and edge computing. - [**Smoltek Hydro­gen**](http://www.smoltekhydrogen.com) devel­ops new elec­tro­chem­i­cal com­po­nents, like elec­trodes with min­i­mal pre­cious met­als for sus­tain­able ener­gy production. Smoltek is a pub­lic deep tech com­pa­ny in Gothen­burg, Swe­den. By pio­neer­ing car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy, we are push­ing the lim­its of what is tech­no­log­i­cal pos­si­ble in sev­er­al indus­try sectors. Our patent-pro­tect­ed nanos­truc­ture tech­nol­o­gy rad­i­cal­ly increas­es the avail­able sur­face area for chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal process­es, enabling more com­pact, ener­gy-effi­cient, pow­er­ful and cost-effi­cient prod­ucts, start­ing with the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen industries. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#our-portfolio-companies)Our portfolio companies ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-semi)Smoltek Semi Smoltek Semi solves a key bot­tle­neck in AI chip per­for­mance: pow­er deliv­ery. Our ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors inte­grate direct­ly under­neath proces­sors, ensur­ing sta­ble, ener­gy-effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment. This break­through unlocks the full poten­tial of next-gen­er­a­tion AI com­put­ing, at com­pet­i­tive cost. [Vis­it Smoltek Semi](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen)Smoltek Hydrogen Smoltek Hydro­gen is advanc­ing break­through solu­tions for green hydro­gen. Our porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) cuts irid­i­um use in PEM elec­trolyz­ers by up to 95%, while boost­ing effi­cien­cy and per­for­mance. This inno­va­tion dra­mat­i­cal­ly improves the cost-per­for­mance of hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, enabling scal­able fos­sil-free energy. [Vis­it Smoltek Hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#latest-news)Latest news News ![Collab for Next-Generation Ultra-Low Iridium Electrolysis Technology](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp) August 10, 2026 ### [Collab for Next-Generation Ultra-Low Iridium Electrolysis Technology](https://www.smoltek.com/green-light-for-next-generation-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis-technology/23924/) Togeth­er with Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als Smoltek Hydro­gen devel­ops next-gen­er­a­tion, ultra-low irid­i­um Porous Trans­port Elec­trodes (PTEs) for Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane (PEM) water elec­trol­y­sis. As a major mile­stone in this part­ner­ship, the com­pa­nies will ini­ti­ate a rig­or­ous 3,000-hour long-term dura­bil­i­ty test this autumn.  News ![Smoltek joins MAXBATT for scaling battery production](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/cnfs-on-a-glowing-substrate-web.webp) July 27, 2026 ### [Smoltek joins MAXBATT for scaling battery production](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-joins-maxbatt-for-scaling-battery-production/23912/) Smoltek joins MAXBATT – a nation­al indus­try con­sor­tium led by Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, where lead­ing play­ers such as Sca­nia, AB Vol­vo and Vol­vo Cars are col­lab­o­rat­ing to devel­op the bat­tery pro­duc­tion of the future. For Smoltek, the mem­ber­ship rep­re­sents a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant val­i­da­tion of the company’s nanotechnology. News ![Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) July 2, 2026 ### [Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/strong-interest-in-smoltek-and-trading-in-smoltek-shares/23859/) Sum­ma­riz­ing the finan­cial news at the break point between June and July shows strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed and Smoltek shares are now avail­able for trad­ing on sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­places in addi­tion to the main list­ing on the Spot­light Stock Mar­ket in Sweden.  ![Start banner image](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/start-banner-image-jpg.webp "start-banner-image") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pushing-the-limits-of-nanotechnology)Pushing the limits of nanotechnology Smoltek is devel­op­ing process tech­nol­o­gy and con­cepts for appli­ca­tions in order to solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems. By pio­neer­ing car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy we are lit­er­al­ly push­ing the lim­its of what is pos­si­ble in the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen industries. Our patent pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form is based on car­bon nanofibers (CNFs), which have very excit­ing prop­er­ties, that may dis­rupt tech­ni­cal solu­tions where today’s mate­ri­als have reached their lim­it of performance. As an exam­ple, we have devel­oped a pro­to­type of the world’s small­est capac­i­tor and we are devel­op­ing a new cell-mate­r­i­al with the ambi­tion to dou­ble (or even triple) the area-effi­cien­cy of PEM water-electrolyzers. [Learn about our technology](https://www.smoltek.com/technology/) ![landing-passion_sq](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/landing-passion-sq-900x900.webp "landing-passion_sq") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-passion-that-never-fades)A passion that never fades We are sci­en­tists and engi­neers with a pas­sion for nan­otech­nol­o­gy. We are in the nev­er-end­ing search of how to enhance and fab­ri­cate car­bon nanos­truc­tures, with unique prop­er­ties, in pre-defined pat­terns to enable bet­ter solu­tions with­in sev­er­al industries. [Read about Smoltek](https://www.smoltek.com/about/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#join-the-journey-as-investor)Join the journey as investor The Smoltek share is list­ed on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket. We are now in an indus­tri­al­iza­tion phase where we focus on two sec­tors with enor­mous poten­tial: Semi­con­duc­tors and Hydro­gen. We plan to begin vol­ume pro­duc­tion in 2026–2027. Join our journey! [Dis­cov­er our share](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/) ![landing-investors-sq](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/landing-investors-sq-900x900.webp "landing-investors-sq") ![landing-career-sq](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/landing-career-sq-900x900.webp "landing-career-sq") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-career-in-nanotechnology)A career in nanotechnology Smoltek is on a mis­sion to deliv­er dis­rup­tive solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­tries, based on our nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form. Does this sound inter­est­ing? Join us, and become a super­star with­in ground­break­ing technology! [Make your move](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. --- title: "Ultra-thin capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/" date: 2022-06-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sem-image-of-the-cnf-mim-prototype-only-38-microns-thick.jpg" --- # Ultra-thin capacitors ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Ultra-thin capacitors Smoltek has devel­oped a pro­to­type of the thinnest dis­crete capac­i­tor in the world. Its total build­ing height is less than 40 microm­e­ters (38.2 µm to be exact). You have to stack a bunch of them on top of each oth­er to reach the same height as today’s indus­try-stan­dard regard­ing sur­face-mount­ed dis­crete capac­i­tors. The capac­i­tor, with­out encap­su­la­tion and sub­strate, is mere­ly 0.5 to 10 µm in height. It can be built direct­ly onto an inte­grat­ed circuit’s die or built into its interposer. The most amaz­ing thing about this micro­scop­ic capac­i­tor is its per­for­mance. One square mil­lime­ter has a capac­i­tance of a whop­ping 650 nano­farads (650 nF/​mm2). Its inter­nal resis­tance (ESR) is less than forty mil­liohms (40 mΩ), and its inter­nal induc­tance (ESL) is below fif­teen pico­hen­ry (15 pH). We describe our capac­i­tor as a CNF-MIM capac­i­tor since it is a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor where car­bon nanofibers (CNF) are used to cre­ate a much larg­er sur­face area, hence high­er capac­i­tance than the form fac­tor suggests. ![Chip with capacitors placed on the underside](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/decoupling-capacitors-on-processor-chip-900x600.webp) The decou­pling capac­i­tors are locat­ed on the under­side of the appli­ca­tion proces­sor chip. We are devel­op­ing ultra-thin and high-per­for­mance nanofiber-based capac­i­tors for mobile appli­ca­tion proces­sors. The dri­ving volt­age decreas­es in today’s proces­sors because more and more tran­sis­tors can fit on a giv­en sur­face. The low­er dri­ve volt­age makes the proces­sors increas­ing­ly sen­si­tive to inter­fer­ence, and a num­ber of so-called decou­pling capac­i­tors are required to sta­bi­lize the pow­er supply. To increase per­for­mance and reduce pow­er con­sump­tion, these capac­i­tors must be placed as close to the proces­sor chip as pos­si­ble. For the capac­i­tors to be placed as close to the proces­sor chip as pos­si­ble, they must be extreme­ly thin. They must also be high-per­for­mance, i.e. sta­ble at high fre­quen­cies and with low inter­nal losses. Our car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy makes it pos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture capac­i­tors with a unique com­bi­na­tion of supe­ri­or elec­tri­cal per­for­mance at very high fre­quen­cies and an extreme­ly small form factor—ultra-thin capacitors. Smoltek’s upcom­ing prod­uct fam­i­ly for decou­pling capac­i­tors for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is intend­ed to be placed in the appli­ca­tion proces­sor chip. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#technical-data-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology)Technical data—CNF-MIM capacitor technology - Sol­id-state construction - Capac­i­tance den­si­ty: > 650 nF/​mm2 - Equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR): < 40 mΩ - Equiv­a­lent series induc­tance (ESL): < 15 pH - Break­down volt­age: Up to ~ 25 V - Leak­age cur­rent: ~ 4 mA/​F - Excel­lent capac­i­tance sta­bil­i­ty up to 150 °C ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#applications-for-discrete-cnf-mim-capacitors)Applications for discrete CNF-MIM capacitors A dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tor has a small­er foot­print (area) and much thin­ner pro­file (z‑dimension) than any oth­er capac­i­tor with the same capac­i­tance. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors up to more than 650 nF can be made less than 40 µm in height. The actu­al form fac­tor can be var­ied accord­ing to the design and need. As shown in the illus­tra­tions, a dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can be - mount­ed on print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) - embed­ded in PCB - mount­ed on chip interposer - embed­ded in chip interposer - mount­ed on chip die - Dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are com­pat­i­ble with wafer-to-wafer (W2W) or die-to-wafer bond­ing (D2W). [![cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on a print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) [![cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in a print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on a chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in a chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete-1.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete-1.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on chip die Click on an image to see it in full size. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#applications-for-integrated-cnf-mim-capacitors)Applications for integrated CNF-MIM capacitors A CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can also be inte­grat­ed direct­ly into chip die or chip inter­pos­er. The height of the inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors is a mere 0.5 to 10 µm. The ben­e­fits of inte­grat­ed CNF-MIM are many: - CMOS-com­pat­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing process - Unpar­al­leled design free­dom for cir­cuit designers - Pos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture direct­ly on-chip - Clos­er to the cir­cuit where it is needed - Extreme­ly small 2D footprint - Very com­pact 3D volume - Elim­i­nates the need for inte­grat­ed dis­crete capacitors As shown in the illus­tra­tions, a CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can be - inte­grat­ed with chip interposer - inte­grat­ed with built-on-chip die [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors inte­grat­ed with chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors inte­grat­ed with chip die Click on an image to see it in full size. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#discrete-cnf-mim-capacitor-compared-to-alternatives)Discrete CNF-MIM capacitor compared to alternatives Mul­ti­lay­er Ceram­ic Capac­i­tors (MLCC) form the indus­try stan­dard for sur­face-mount­ed device (SMD) capac­i­tors. Every year, tril­lions of MLCCs are built into elec­tron­ic devices. They are 300 µm high. CNF-MIM offers the same capac­i­tance at a tenth of that height. The minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ics is cre­at­ing a grow­ing need for ever-small­er capac­i­tors. And some cir­cuits (such as Apple’s) use capac­i­tors that are state of the art. These use improve­ments of MLCC and Low Induc­tance Chip Capac­i­tors (LICCs) and Trench Sil­i­con Capac­i­tors (TSCs), all of which have a height of 80–100 µm. How­ev­er, MLCC, LICC, and TSC strug­gle to go down in height due to mate­ri­als involved, pro­cess­ing schemes, and the cost of raw mate­ri­als and pro­cess­ing. At the same time, SiP and SoC con­tin­ue to become more com­pact. There is less and less space between inter­con­nects (bumps), and they are get­ting short­er. To fit capac­i­tors between the bumps, the capac­i­tors must have a small­er foot­print and, above all, be shorter—preferably less than 20 µm. This is the prob­lem that CNF-MIM capac­i­tors solve. They have a much small­er foot­print and, above all, a much low­er height. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-to-make-the-worlds-thinnest-capacitor)How to make the world’s thinnest capacitor To cre­ate a capac­i­tor with a min­i­mal foot­print and height, we use car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) to mul­ti­ply the con­tact area between the two met­als and the inter­me­di­ary dielectric. Con­sid­er a sin­gle CNF with a diam­e­ter of 10 nm and a length of 5 µm. Its man­tle sur­face is 2,000 times larg­er than the area it occu­pies. Thus, a for­est of such CNFs would mul­ti­ply the sur­face, but not by as much as 2,000. We can’t cov­er the entire orig­i­nal sur­face with CNFs; there must be space between them to allow access to the con­tact sur­face. But if the for­est of CNFs cov­ers about half the sur­face, then the sur­face mul­ti­pli­ca­tion would be in the range of 1,000 times. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-1200x800.webp) Car­bon nanofiber met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capacitor. CNF has many metal­lic prop­er­ties, includ­ing being a good con­duc­tor of cur­rent. There­fore a met­al plate cov­ered to fifty per­cent by CNFs is a sin­gle elec­trode with a sur­face area about 1,000 times larg­er than the area of the met­al plate itself. A MIM capac­i­tor is obtained by coat­ing this elec­trode with a uni­form­ly thick lay­er of a dielec­tric and then coat­ing this in turn with a met­al. Of course, the dielec­tric should have a high rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty to max­i­mize the capacitance. Since the CNF has a length much larg­er than the diam­e­ter, we can neglect what hap­pens to the elec­tric field near the base and top of each CNF. Essen­tial­ly it will be a uni­form field, just as in a par­al­lel plate capacitor. Since the capac­i­tance of a par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor is direct­ly pro­por­tion­al to the sur­face area, we con­clude that CNFs have increased the capac­i­tance den­si­ty by 1,000 times. But it doesn’t end there. If the sec­ond lay­er of met­al is made uni­form­ly thick, both sides of it will have the same shape as the first elec­trode. So anoth­er MIM capac­i­tor is obtained by coat­ing it with anoth­er dielec­tric lay­er and then coat­ing it with met­al. It will have the same capac­i­ty as the first. And by elec­tri­cal­ly con­nect­ing the first and the third met­al lay­er, we achieve a par­al­lel con­nec­tion, which dou­bles the capac­i­tance. This can be repeat­ed as long as desired, and there is space between the car­bon nanofibers. The last lay­er of met­al does not need to be uni­form­ly thick but can fill any remain­ing spaces between the car­bon nanofibers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more)Learn more Don’t hes­i­tate to [con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/contact/) with your questions. Whitepa­per ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#introducing-smoltek-carbon-nanofiber-technology)Introducing Smoltek carbon nanofiber technology A deep dive into the tech­nol­o­gy behind CNF-MIM – free from Smoltek. This is not a mar­ket­ing brochure, but a 10-page tech­ni­cal whitepa­per authored by our nan­otech­nol­o­gy experts. Learn about the fun­da­men­tal prop­er­ties of car­bon nanofibers, the cat­alyt­ic growth process, and the appli­ca­tions enabled by the technology. [Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/smoltek-whitepaper-cnf-technology-2015-2023-1.pdf) ![Whitepaper cnf 2](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/whitepaper-cnf-2.webp "whitepaper-cnf-2") --- title: "Carbon nanotechnology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/technology/carbon-nanotechnology/" date: 2022-06-20 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cnf-5um-jpg.webp" --- # Carbon nanotechnology ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Carbon nanotechnology Smoltek’s patent-pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form enables con­trolled growth of pre­cise­ly local­ized and defined nanos­truc­tures, as indi­vid­ual fibers or clus­ters, in pre­de­fined pat­terns or films. This is done in a through cat­alyt­ic growth in a vac­u­um cham­ber using gas and cat­a­lysts. Mate­ri­als and process con­di­tions are com­pat­i­ble with indus­tri­al requirements. We have devel­oped unique growth recipes using which we can grow car­bon nanos­truc­tures at exact posi­tions with exact required prop­er­ties. This is our core tech­nol­o­gy, and it goes by the name Smol­GROW™. Part­ners can license our tech­nol­o­gy to accom­plish solu­tions tai­lored to their unique needs and requirements. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-are-cnfs-manufactured)How are CNFs manufactured? Smolek’s fab­ri­ca­tion of car­bon nanofibers is done with *Plas­ma Enhand­ed Chem­i­cal Vapor Depo­si­tion* (*PECVD*). In this process we apply ener­gy to a car­bon-based gas, in the form of heat­ing or light­ning dis­charges, releas­ing car­bon ions that can deposit on sur­faces pre­pared with cat­alyt­ic metal. In our Smol­GROW™ process we can exact­ly con­trol where the released car­bon atoms set­tle and how they are formed into car­bon nanofibers (or nanos­truc­tures). This gives us a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to tai­lor car­bon nanofibers with desired prop­er­ties. We have also devel­oped the tech­nol­o­gy to use com­par­a­tive­ly low tem­per­a­tures (375 °C), which allows our man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nique to be used in pro­duc­tion lines in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. The Smol­GROW™ CNF man­u­fac­tur­ing process (overview): 1. The sub­strate on which the car­bon nanofibers will grow, e.g., sil­i­con wafer, is pre­pared by deposit­ing var­i­ous mate­ri­als that form an under­lay­er on which the car­bon nanofibers will grow. 2. A cat­a­lyst is deposit­ed as dots or pads where car­bon nanofibers will grow on top of the under­lay­er. These facil­i­tate a con­trolled growth of indi­vid­ual nanos­truc­tures in pre­cise locations. 3. The sub­strate is put into the PECVD-tool, which is her­met­i­cal­ly sealed and emp­tied of air, mak­ing a vac­u­um inside. ![220608 smoltek cvd room 06](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/220608-smoltek-cvd-room-06-1200x675.webp) A pre­pared sub­strate is placed in Smoltek’s PECVD-tool. 4. A car­bon-based gas is intro­duced into the reac­tor cham­ber along with oth­er gas­es that facil­i­tate the reac­tion. Typ­i­cal­ly, acety­lene is used to grow the fibers and the ammo­nia to clear excess deposition. 5. Inside the cham­ber, a huge dif­fer­ence in elec­tri­cal volt­age cre­ates an arc of light (elec­tri­cal dis­charge). This heats the gas so that elec­trons are sep­a­rat­ed from the nuclei and can move freely. The result is a soup, called plas­ma, of elec­trons and ions. The dis­charges are repeat­ed sev­er­al times per sec­ond to main­tain the plas­ma. One of the cru­cial prop­er­ties of plas­ma is that the elec­trons have an ener­gy equiv­a­lent to sev­er­al thou­sand degrees Cel­sius. At the same time, the rest of the gas is rel­a­tive­ly cool. 6. The elec­trons’ ener­gy induces the depo­si­tion of car­bon on the cat­alyt­ic dots and pads, which form a car­bon nanos­truc­ture. Smoltek can cre­ate var­i­ous car­bon nanos­truc­tures by con­trol­ling the deposit, includ­ing car­bon nanofibers with desired properties. 7. When the car­bon nanofibers have reached the desired length, the process is stopped, and the remain­ing gas­es are vent­ed out of the cham­ber again. We are left with the sub­strate with the car­bon nanofibers. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy works not only with car­bon nanofibers. It is pos­si­ble to cre­ate oth­er car­bon nanos­truc­tures, like car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs), and use mate­ri­als oth­er than carbon. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/pecvp-reaction-chamber-1-1200x461.png) *Schemat­ic dia­gram show­ing how car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) are placed for growth in a*  *Plas­ma Enhanced Chem­i­cal Vapor Depo­si­tion (PEVCD) reac­tion chamber.* --- title: "Hydrogen inquiries" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/contact/" date: 2021-11-27 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Hydrogen inquiries ![CNF MIM for AI top image](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-top-image-2.webp) # Hydrogen inquiries Do you work in the hydro­gen indus­try, per­haps are you inter­est­ed in becom­ing a cus­tomer or col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner of ours? Regard­less, you can use this form to send a mes­sage direct­ly to us who devel­op solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. We will reply to your mes­sage as soon as possible. ### Phone [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46317010305) ### Address [Otter­häl­le­gatan 1 411 18 Göte­borg Swe­den](https://maps.app.goo.gl/cbtjxAeDGP6fMEfr5) ### Email [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) --- title: "Hydrogen inquiries" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/contact/hydrogen/" date: 2025-07-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Hydrogen inquiries ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Smoltek Hydrogen inquiries Do you work in the hydro­gen indus­try, per­haps are you inter­est­ed in becom­ing a cus­tomer or col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner of ours? Regard­less, you can use this form to send a mes­sage direct­ly to us who devel­op mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing solu­tions for the hydro­gen indus­try. We will reply to your mes­sage as soon as possible. ### Phone [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46317010305) ### Address [Otter­häl­le­gatan 1 411 18 Göte­borg Swe­den](https://maps.app.goo.gl/cbtjxAeDGP6fMEfr5) ### Email [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) --- title: "Investerare" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/" date: 2023-04-14 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Investerare Col­lab for Next-Gen­er­a­tion Ultra-Low Irid­i­um Elec­trol­y­sis Technology # Together with Heraeus Precious Metals Smoltek Hydrogen develops next-generation, ultra-low iridium Porous Transport Electrodes (PTEs) for Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) water electrolysis. As a major milestone in this partnership, the companies will initiate a rigorous 3,000-hour long-term durability test this autumn. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp) *For infor­ma­tion in Eng­lish, please vis­it our [Eng­lish page for investors](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/ "Investor relations").* **Välkom­men att investera i ett inno­v­a­tivt före­tag noter­at på Spot­light Stock Market.** Vårt syfte är att bidra till bät­tre presterande app­lika­tion­er och pro­duk­ter som gör kom­mu­nika­tion effek­ti­vare och ska­par en mer håll­bar framtid. Vi möjlig­gör näs­ta tekniksprång inom indus­tri­er­na för halvledare och vät­gas genom att utveck­la nya mate­ri­al­tekniska lös­ningar för näs­ta gen­er­a­tion kon­den­sator­er och elektrolysörer. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pressmeddelanden)Pressmeddelanden Senaste Reg­u­la­toriska Icke-reg­u­la­toriska August 10, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-och-heraeus-precious-metals-utvecklar-nasta-generations-teknik-for-ultralag-iridiumelektrolys)[Smoltek Hydrogen och Heraeus Precious Metals utvecklar nästa generations teknik för ultralåg iridiumelektrolys](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-och-heraeus-precious-metals-utvecklar-nasta-generations-teknik-for-ultralag-iridium,c4381146) August 3, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-meddelar-uppsagning-av-avtalet-om-likviditetsgaranti)[Smoltek meddelar uppsägning av avtalet om likviditetsgaranti](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-meddelar-uppsagning-av-avtalet-om-likviditetsgaranti,c4379460) July 16, 2026 ## 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[](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-besoker-taiwan-for-moten-med-industriella-samarbetspartners-och-deltagande-i-yageo-group-ai-summit)[Smoltek besöker Taiwan för möten med industriella samarbetspartners och deltagande i Yageo Group AI Summit](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-besoker-taiwan-for-moten-med-industriella-samarbetspartners-och-deltagande-i-yageo-group-ai-,c4340806) March 27, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-cnf-mim-teknik-fortsatter-visa-stabil-prestanda-i-utokat-livslangdstest-utfort-av-global-kondensatortillverkare)[Smolteks CNF-MIM-teknik fortsätter visa stabil prestanda i utökat livslängdstest utfört av global kondensatortillverkare](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smolteks-cnf-mim-teknik-fortsatter-visa-stabil-prestanda-i-utokat-livslangdstest-utfort-av-global-ko,c4327692) March 16, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-presenterar-pa-redeye-artificial-intelligence-i-stockholm-onsdag-18-mars)[Smoltek presenterar på Redeye Artificial Intelligence i Stockholm, onsdag 18 mars](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-presenterar-pa-redeye-artificial-intelligence-i-stockholm--onsdag-18-mars,c4321710) [Alla pressmed­de­landen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-presenterar-vid-redeye-ai-2026)Smoltek presenterar vid Redeye AI 2026 Vd och kon­cernchef, Mag­nus Ander­s­son pre­sen­ter­ar vår ban­bry­tande nan­oteknik för näs­ta gen­er­a­tions kon­den­sator­er för halvledarap­p­lika­tion­er på invester­areven­e­manget Red­eye AI 2026. **Övri­ga bolagsp­re­sen­ta­tion­er:** Aktieda­gar­na i Stock­holm 2026, inter­vju med Fin­wire från juni 2026 samt strate­gisk upp­da­ter­ing, från juni 2025. 1 av 2: Smolteks kon­cern-vd Mag­nus Ander­s­son pre­sen­ter­ar bolaget hos Akties­parar­na, 10 juni 2026 2 av 2: Smolteks kon­cern-vd Mag­nus Ander­s­son i inter­vju hos Finwire ![2026 05 Smoltek Nanotech AGM](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-smoltek-nanotech-agm-1200x677.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-presentation-fran-arsstamman)Smolteks presentation från årsstämman: [2026-05-12 Smoltek Nan­otech årsstämma](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-smoltek-nanotech-agm-web.pdf) * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#finansiella-rapporter)Finansiella rapporter - [2026-08-26 | Delårsrap­port Q2 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-q2-2026-2-2-2/) - [2026-04-29 | Delårsrap­port Q1 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-q1-2026-2-2-2-2/) - [2026-02-23 | Bok­slut­skom­mu­niké Q4 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-q4-2025-2-2-2/) - [2025-11-06 | Delårsrap­port Q3 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-q3-2025-xii-final-vo-2-2-2-2/) [Alla rap­porter](https://news.cision.com/se/?q=smoltek&m=Financial) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#finansiell-kalender)Finansiell kalender - 2026-04-29 | Delårsrap­port Q1 2026 - 2026-08-26 | Delårsrap­port Q2 2026 - 2026-11-05 | Delårsrap­port Q3 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#arsredovisningar)Årsredovisningar - [Årsre­dovis­ning 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/snh-ar-2025-2-2-2/) - [Årsre­dovis­ning 2024](https://www.smoltek.com/snh-ar-2024-2-2-2/) - [Årsre­dovis­ning 2023](https://www.smoltek.com/snh-ar-2023-2-2-2/) - [Årsre­dovis­ning 2022](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-ar-2022-final-secure-2-3-2-2/) - [Årsre­dovis­ning 2021](https://www.smoltek.com/snh-ar-2021-2-2-2/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-aktie) * * * ## Smolteks aktie Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB är noter­at på [Spot­light Stock Mar­ket](http://Smoltek%20Nanotech%20Holding%20AB%20är%20noterat%20på%20Spotlight%20Stock%20Market%20sedan%20den%2026%20februari%202018.%20Aktien%20handlas%20via%20banker%20och%20aktiemäklare.) sedan den 26 feb­ru­ari 2018. Aktien hand­las, via banker och aktiemäk­lare, genom Nas­daq INET Nordic; tick­er SMOL. Aktiens kort­namn: SMOL Aktiens ISIN-kod: SE0010820381 Aktiens CFI-kod: ESVUFR Aktiens FISN-kod: SMOLTEKNAN/​SH ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. Smoltek är ett inno­v­a­tivt indus­triföre­tag med patentsky­d­dad och bevisat effek­tiv kol­nan­oteknik. Vi har två tydli­ga affär­som­rå­den, [halvledare](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/) och [vät­gas](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/), båda med stor poten­tiell upp­si­da tack vare vår ban­bry­tande nan­oteknik. Dessu­tom har vi möj­ligheter att utvidga teknikplat­tfor­men till fler mark­nad­er i framti­den till exem­pel inom den med­i­cin­tekniska industrin. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ovriga-finansiella-dokument)Övriga finansiella dokument - [Smoltek bolag­sor­d­ning](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/smoltek-bolagsordning-2026-05.pdf "Smoltek – bolagsordning 2026-05") - [Smoltek – Infor­ma­tion­s­mem­o­ran­dum 2024-05](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-informationsmemorandum-2024-05-30.pdf "Smoltek – Informationsmemorandum 2024-05-30") - [Smoltek – EU-prospekt 2022-10](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/smoltek-eu-prospekt-2022-10.pdf "Smoltek – EU-Prospekt 2022-10") - [Smoltek kon­vert­ibel­lån 2024–2027](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/konvertibellan-smoltek-nanotech-holding-2024-2027.pdf) - [Kon­vert­ibelvil­lkor Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing – Bila­ga A](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/konvertibelvillkor-smoltek-nanotech-holding-bilaga-a.pdf) --- title: "Investerare (DUPLICATE)" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/investerare-duplicate/" date: 2025-09-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-semicon-jpg.webp" --- # Investerare (DUPLICATE) Smoltek takes the next step towards com­mer­cial­iza­tion – car­ries out rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 million # Smoltek is facing a crucial phase in the company’s development. After several years of technology development and strategic partnerships, the company is now conducting a rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million to accelerate commercialization in two markets with strong structural growth: semiconductors and green hydrogen. ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) *For infor­ma­tion in Eng­lish, please vis­it our [Eng­lish page for investors](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/ "Investor relations").* **Välkom­men att investera i ett inno­v­a­tivt före­tag noter­at på Spot­light Stock Market.** Vårt syfte är att bidra till bät­tre presterande app­lika­tion­er och pro­duk­ter som gör kom­mu­nika­tion effek­ti­vare och ska­par en mer håll­bar framtid. Vi möjlig­gör näs­ta tekniksprång inom indus­tri­er­na för halvledare och vät­gas genom att utveck­la nya, och mer kost­nad­sef­fek­ti­va, mate­ri­al­tekniska lös­ningar för näs­ta gen­er­a­tion kon­den­sator­er och elektrolysörer. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pressmeddelanden)Pressmeddelanden Senaste Reg­u­la­toriska Icke-reg­u­la­toriska June 26, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-offentliggor-preliminart-utfall-i-foretradesemissionen-av-units-som-indikerar-att-emissionen-ar-kraftigt-overtecknad)[Smoltek offentliggör preliminärt utfall i företrädesemissionen av units som indikerar att emissionen är kraftigt övertecknad](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-offentliggor-preliminart-utfall-i-foretradesemissionen-av-units-som-indikerar-att-emissionen,c4368116) June 12, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#teckningsperioden-i-smolteks-foretradesemission-av-units-inleds-idag)[Teckningsperioden i Smolteks företrädesemission av units inleds idag](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/teckningsperioden-i-smolteks-foretradesemission-av-units-inleds-idag,c4362074) June 10, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-vd-forklarar-bolagets-finansieringsstrategi)[Smolteks vd förklarar bolagets finansieringsstrategi](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smolteks-vd-forklarar-bolagets-finansieringsstrategi,c4359993) June 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-offentliggor-informationsdokument-i-samband-med-foretradesemissionen-av-units)[Smoltek offentliggör informationsdokument i samband med företrädesemissionen av units](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-offentliggor-informationsdokument-i-samband-med-foretradesemissionen-av-units,c4359667) June 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-meddelar-forandring-i-ledningen-for-smoltek-hydrogen)[Smoltek meddelar förändring i ledningen för Smoltek Hydrogen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-meddelar-forandring-i-ledningen-for-smoltek-hydrogen,c4359867) June 26, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-offentliggor-preliminart-utfall-i-foretradesemissionen-av-units-som-indikerar-att-emissionen-ar-kraftigt-overtecknad)[Smoltek offentliggör preliminärt utfall i företrädesemissionen av units som indikerar att emissionen är kraftigt övertecknad](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-offentliggor-preliminart-utfall-i-foretradesemissionen-av-units-som-indikerar-att-emissionen,c4368116) June 12, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#teckningsperioden-i-smolteks-foretradesemission-av-units-inleds-idag)[Teckningsperioden i Smolteks företrädesemission av units inleds idag](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/teckningsperioden-i-smolteks-foretradesemission-av-units-inleds-idag,c4362074) June 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-offentliggor-informationsdokument-i-samband-med-foretradesemissionen-av-units)[Smoltek offentliggör informationsdokument i samband med företrädesemissionen av units](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-offentliggor-informationsdokument-i-samband-med-foretradesemissionen-av-units,c4359667) June 9, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-meddelar-forandring-i-ledningen-for-smoltek-hydrogen)[Smoltek meddelar förändring i ledningen för Smoltek Hydrogen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-meddelar-forandring-i-ledningen-for-smoltek-hydrogen,c4359867) June 4, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ytterligare-konvertering-av-konvertibelt-lan-i-smoltek-genomford)[Ytterligare konvertering av konvertibelt lån i Smoltek genomförd](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/ytterligare-konvertering-av-konvertibelt-lan-i-smoltek-genomford,c4358229) June 2, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-har-beslutat-om-en-partiellt-garanterad-foretradesemission-om-cirka-60-msek)[Smoltek har beslutat om en partiellt garanterad företrädesemission om cirka 60 MSEK](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-har-beslutat-om-en-partiellt-garanterad-foretradesemission-om-cirka-60-msek,c4356745) May 12, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#kommunike-fran-arsstamma-2026-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-publ)[Kommuniké från årsstämma 2026 i Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB (publ)](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/kommunike-fran-arsstamma-2026-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab--publ-,c4347776) April 29, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-publ-delarsrapport-q1-2026)[Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB (publ), delårsrapport Q1 2026](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab--publ--delarsrapport-q1-2026,c4341999) April 23, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ytterligare-konvertering-av-konvertibler-i-smoltek-genomford)[Ytterligare konvertering av konvertibler i Smoltek genomförd](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/ytterligare-konvertering-av-konvertibler-i-smoltek-genomford,c4332234) April 21, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-nanotek-holding-ab-publ-arsredovisning-2025)[Smoltek Nanotek Holding AB (publ), årsredovisning 2025](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-nanotek-holding-ab--publ--arsredovisning-2025,c4337554) June 10, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-vd-forklarar-bolagets-finansieringsstrategi)[Smolteks vd förklarar bolagets finansieringsstrategi](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smolteks-vd-forklarar-bolagets-finansieringsstrategi,c4359993) June 3, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-ser-mojligheter-i-japans-stora-investeringar-i-halvledare-for-ai-och-hogpresterande-datorteknik)[Smoltek ser möjligheter i Japans stora investeringar i halvledare för AI och högpresterande datorteknik](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-ser-mojligheter-i-japans-stora-investeringar-i-halvledare-for-ai-och-hogpresterande-datortek,c4355153) June 2, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-presenterar-pa-aktiedagarna-i-stockholm-onsdag-10-juni)[Smoltek presenterar på Aktiedagarna i Stockholm, onsdag 10 juni](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-presenterar-pa-aktiedagarna-i-stockholm--onsdag-10-juni,c4356655) May 11, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-vd-kommenterar-forsta-kvartalet-2026-och-bolagets-fokus-framat)[Smolteks vd kommenterar första kvartalet 2026 och bolagets fokus framåt](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smolteks-vd-kommenterar-forsta-kvartalet-2026-och-bolagets-fokus-framat,c4346945) April 28, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-besoker-taiwan-for-moten-med-industriella-samarbetspartners-och-deltagande-i-yageo-group-ai-summit)[Smoltek besöker Taiwan för möten med industriella samarbetspartners och deltagande i Yageo Group AI Summit](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-besoker-taiwan-for-moten-med-industriella-samarbetspartners-och-deltagande-i-yageo-group-ai-,c4340806) March 27, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-cnf-mim-teknik-fortsatter-visa-stabil-prestanda-i-utokat-livslangdstest-utfort-av-global-kondensatortillverkare)[Smolteks CNF-MIM-teknik fortsätter visa stabil prestanda i utökat livslängdstest utfört av global kondensatortillverkare](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smolteks-cnf-mim-teknik-fortsatter-visa-stabil-prestanda-i-utokat-livslangdstest-utfort-av-global-ko,c4327692) March 16, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-presenterar-pa-redeye-artificial-intelligence-i-stockholm-onsdag-18-mars)[Smoltek presenterar på Redeye Artificial Intelligence i Stockholm, onsdag 18 mars](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-presenterar-pa-redeye-artificial-intelligence-i-stockholm--onsdag-18-mars,c4321710) Feb­ru­ary 23, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-cnf-mim-kondensatorers-tillforlitlighet-validerad-av-stor-kondensatortillverkare)[Smolteks CNF-MIM-kondensatorers tillförlitlighet validerad av stor kondensatortillverkare](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smolteks-cnf-mim-kondensatorers-tillforlitlighet-validerad-av-stor-kondensatortillverkare,c4310896) Feb­ru­ary 20, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-vd-magnus-andersson-kommenterar-bokslutskommuniken-for-2025)[Smolteks vd Magnus Andersson kommenterar bokslutskommunikén för 2025](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smolteks-vd-magnus-andersson-kommenterar-bokslutskommuniken-for-2025,c4310781) Feb­ru­ary 11, 2026 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-accelererar-kommersialiseringen-fordjupar-industridialoger-och-etablerar-initial-produktionskapacitet)[Smoltek accelererar kommersialiseringen – fördjupar industridialoger och etablerar initial produktionskapacitet](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-accelererar-kommersialiseringen---fordjupar-industridialoger-och-etablerar-initial-produktio,c4305998) [Alla pressmed­de­landen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#finansiella-rapporter)Finansiella rapporter - [2025-08-28 | Delårsrap­port Q2 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/snh-q2-2025se-secure-2-2-2-2-2/) - [2025-04-29 | Delårsrap­port Q1 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-q1-2025-2-2-2-2-2/) - [2025-02-20 | Bok­slut­skom­mu­niké Q4 2024](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-q4-2024-se-2-2-2/) - [2024-11-05 | Delårsrap­port Q3 2024](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/snh-q3-2024-2-2-2/) [Alla rap­porter](https://news.cision.com/se/?q=smoltek&m=Financial) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#finansiell-kalender)Finansiell kalender - 2025-08-28 | Delårsrap­port Q2 2025 - 2025-11-06 | Delårsrap­port Q3 2025 * * * ![Smoltek Semi – Unleashing Performance for Semiconductor](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-semi-strategic-update-2025-600x338.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ladda-ner-smoltek-semis-strategiska-uppdatering-pa-engelska)Ladda ner Smoltek Semis strategiska uppdatering – på engelska [Smoltek Semi – strate­gic update 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-semi-strategic-update-2025-final.pdf)[Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-semi-strategic-update-2025-final.pdf) ![Smoltek hydrogen strategic update 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-hydrogen-strategic-update-2025.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ladda-ner-smoltek-hydrogens-strategiska-uppdatering)Ladda ner Smoltek Hydrogens strategiska uppdatering [Smoltek Hydro­gen – strate­gic update 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-hydrogen-strategic-update-2025-final-sources.pdf)[Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-hydrogen-strategic-update-2025-final-sources.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#arsredovisning-2024)Årsredovisning 2024 Lad­da ner ett exem­plar av vår senaste årsredovisning.  [Lad­da ner](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/snh-ar-2024.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#presentation-for-investerare)Presentation för investerare Bolagsp­re­sen­ta­tion vid Aktieda­gar­na 2025 samt strate­gisk upp­da­ter­ing med Finwire. Smolteks kon­cern-vd Mag­nus Ander­s­son pre­sen­ter­ar bolaget på Aktiespararna Bolagsp­re­sen­ta­tion, 12 juni 2025 – med vd Mag­nus Ander­s­son, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg (Smoltek Hydro­gen) och Farzan Gha­vani­ni (Smoltek Semi). Pre­sen­ta­tio­nen är på engel­s­ka och star­tar 00:59. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-aktie)Smolteks aktie Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB är noter­at på [Spot­light Stock Mar­ket](http://Smoltek%20Nanotech%20Holding%20AB%20är%20noterat%20på%20Spotlight%20Stock%20Market%20sedan%20den%2026%20februari%202018.%20Aktien%20handlas%20via%20banker%20och%20aktiemäklare.) sedan den 26 feb­ru­ari 2018. Aktien hand­las, via banker och aktiemäk­lare, genom Nas­daq INET Nordic; tick­er SMOL. Aktiens kort­namn: SMOL Aktiens ISIN-kod: SE0010820381 Aktiens CFI-kod: ESVUFR Aktiens FISN-kod: SMOLTEKNAN/​SH ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. Smoltek är ett inno­v­a­tivt indus­triföre­tag med patentsky­d­dad och bevisat effek­tiv kol­nan­oteknik. Vi har två tydli­ga affär­som­rå­den, [halvledare](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/) och [vät­gas](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/), båda med stor poten­tiell upp­si­da tack vare vår ban­bry­tande nan­oteknik. Dessu­tom har vi möj­ligheter att utvidga teknikplat­tfor­men till fler mark­nad­er i framti­den till exem­pel inom den med­i­cin­tekniska industrin. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ovriga-finansiella-dokument)Övriga finansiella dokument - [Smoltek bolag­sor­d­ning](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/snh-bolagsordning-2025-03.pdf "Smoltek Bolagsordning 2025-03") - [Smoltek – Infor­ma­tion­s­mem­o­ran­dum 2024-05](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-informationsmemorandum-2024-05-30.pdf "Smoltek – Informationsmemorandum 2024-05-30") - [Smoltek – EU-prospekt 2022-10](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/smoltek-eu-prospekt-2022-10.pdf "Smoltek – EU-Prospekt 2022-10") - [Smoltek kon­vert­ibel­lån 2024–2027](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/konvertibellan-smoltek-nanotech-holding-2024-2027.pdf) - [Kon­vert­ibelvil­lkor Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing – Bila­ga A](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/konvertibelvillkor-smoltek-nanotech-holding-bilaga-a.pdf) --- title: "Management" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/about/management/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/f2krf_qfcqw-jpg.webp" --- # Management ![Farzan Ghavanini, CTO](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp) # Management ![Oskar säfström 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/oskar-safstrom-1000x1300-1.webp "Oskar Säfström 1000x1300") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#oskar-safstrom)Oskar Säfström Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer (CEO) & Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi/​Smoltek Hydrogen Oskar Säf­ström is an entre­pre­neur and investor with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in Cor­po­rate Finance and Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance and in devel­op­ing growth and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies. He is cur­rent­ly a board mem­ber in sev­er­al com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in IT, tele­com, secu­ri­ty and real estate, and since 2017 Chair­man of the Board of Infra­Com Group AB, list­ed on NGM Nordic SME. **Edu­ca­tion:** Bach­e­lor of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion from Dublin Busi­ness School ![SNH Gabriel portraits 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/snh-gabriel-portraits-1000x1300-1.webp "SNH Gabriel portraits 1000x1300") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gabriel-altby)Gabriel Altby Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer (CFO) Gabriel Alt­by has 25+ years of expe­ri­ence in senior finan­cial and oper­a­tional posi­tions in inter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies in the elec­tron­ics indus­try. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in finan­cial con­trol, group report­ing and busi­ness sup­port for large indus­tri­al cus­tomers with over­all respon­si­bil­i­ty for finance and account­ing functions. **Edu­ca­tion:** B.Sc. Busi­ness & Eco­nom­ics, Gothen­burg School of Economics ![Farzan Ghavanini](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fg-portrait-01-jpg.webp "FG_portrait_01") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#farzan-ghavanini-phd)Farzan Ghavanini, PhD Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer (CTO) & Head of R&D Smoltek Semi Farzan Gha­vani­ni has sol­id expe­ri­ence from lead­ing posi­tions in tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, most recent­ly as head of new tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment at Fin­ger­print Cards. Farzan also has exten­sive expe­ri­ence of indus­tri­al­iz­ing nanotechnology. **Edu­ca­tion:** Ph.D. Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience, Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Gothenburg ![Fabian Wenger](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fw-2023-management.webp "FW 2023-management") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fabian-wenger-phd)Fabian Wenger, PhD Head of R&D Smoltek Hydrogen Fabi­an Wenger has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in prod­uct devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion, e.g. for Eric­s­son, Emer­son and Qam­com where he also con­tributed with strate­gic IPR. Fabi­an leads and coor­di­nates an agile team cre­at­ing a cat­alyt­ic nano-coat­ing for scal­ing up water elec­trol­y­sis for green hydrogen. **Edu­ca­tion:** Ph.D. The­o­ret­i­cal Sol­id-State Physics, Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Gothenburg --- title: "Smoltek Semiconductors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Smoltek Semiconductors Smoltek takes the next step towards com­mer­cial­iza­tion – car­ries out rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 million # Smoltek is facing a crucial phase in the company’s development. After several years of technology development and strategic partnerships, the company is now conducting a rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million to accelerate commercialization in two markets with strong structural growth: semiconductors and green hydrogen. ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) Smoltek Semi devel­ops ultra-thin high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors for AI and advanced elec­tron­ics. The semi­con­duc­tor mar­ket for these types of capac­i­tors is rapid­ly increas­ing, dri­ven by the need for high­er capac­i­tance den­si­ty and supe­ri­or high-fre­quen­cy performance.  Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy com­bines high capac­i­tance den­si­ty and low par­a­sitic induc­tance with ultra-com­pact form fac­tor deliv­ered on var­i­ous sub­strates. By using a sin­gle dielec­tric stack for capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing Smoltek enables effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment for AI, High-Per­for­mance Com­put­ing, and pre­mi­um elec­tron­ics at low­er pro­duc­tion costs. [Con­tact us for more information](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/contact/) [Learn more](https://www.smoltek.com#start) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#key-technology-partners)Key technology partners Our offer ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf-mim-capacitors-enables-high-performance-electronics-across-industries)CNF-MIM capacitors enables high-performance electronics across industries The most demand­ing elec­tron­ic appli­ca­tions require next-gen­er­a­tion, ultra-thin capac­i­tors that deliv­er **high capac­i­tance den­si­ty**, excep­tion­al **high-fre­quen­cy per­for­mance**, robust **tem­per­a­ture sta­bil­i­ty**, and very **low loss­es**. Smoltek Semi pro­vides the foun­da­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy to meet these demands. We use car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) to cre­ate an immense 3D sur­face for met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tors. Unlike DTC, our process **works on more than just sil­i­con** and uses **only a sin­gle dielec­tric stack**, increas­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty while reduc­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing com­plex­i­ty and cost. These fea­tures make our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy an ide­al solu­tion for the world’s most demand­ing applications. ### AI & HPC AI work­loads and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) demand excep­tion­al pow­er deliv­ery with up to eight times more capac­i­tors than tra­di­tion­al servers. CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides supe­ri­or capac­i­tance den­si­ty where con­ven­tion­al MLCCs reach their phys­i­cal limits. ### Premium Smartphones Space inside pre­mi­um smart­phones is a crit­i­cal con­straint. CNF-MIM’s ultra-thin pro­file deliv­ers high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, enabling place­ment clos­er to the proces­sor. This prox­im­i­ty is key to improv­ing pow­er integri­ty and unlock­ing peak performance. ### Wearables Wear­ables are defined by their spa­tial con­straints. CNF-MIM’s ultra-thin pro­file is a key enabler, offer­ing advanced inte­gra­tion meth­ods like embed­ding capac­i­tors direct­ly in the sub­strate. This saves crit­i­cal space, allow­ing for thin­ner designs and larg­er batteries. ### Telecom High-fre­quen­cy 5G appli­ca­tions require excep­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty and low loss­es. CNF-MIM deliv­ers enhanced sta­bil­i­ty for high-fre­quen­cy com­mu­ni­ca­tion and RF cir­cuits with min­i­mal sig­nal degra­da­tion where tra­di­tion­al capac­i­tors intro­duce unwant­ed impedance. ### Automotive Advanced dri­ver assis­tance sys­tems and EV elec­tron­ics face vibra­tion, tem­per­a­ture vari­a­tions, and strict safe­ty require­ments. CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides robust per­for­mance for ADAS sen­sors and pow­er man­age­ment with auto­mo­tive-qual­i­fied reliability. ### Defense & Aerospace The defense and aero­space indus­try requires com­po­nents that deliv­er excep­tion­al reli­a­bil­i­ty in the most demand­ing con­di­tions. CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides robust, high-per­for­mance solu­tions for crit­i­cal appli­ca­tions such as radar, com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, and avionics. About us ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#built-on-20-years-of-carbon-nanotechnology-research)Built on 20+ years of carbon nanotechnology research Our approach com­bines 20+ years of car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy research from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, patent pro­tec­tion across major semi­con­duc­tor mar­kets, and a team where most R&D staff hold Ph.D.s in nan­otech­nol­o­gy and semi­con­duc­tor processes. ### From university research to industrial applications Smoltek was found­ed in December2005, as a spin-off from research at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy with a focus on pre­cise­ly con­trol­ling car­bon nanos­truc­ture growth. Since then, Smoltek has devel­oped this tech­nol­o­gy into prac­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es. Today, Smoltek Semi applies this proven tech­nol­o­gy plat­form to meet the elec­tron­ic indus­try’s need for ultra-thin, high-den­si­ty decou­pling capacitors. ### Patent portfolio covering core technology and processes Smoltek’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty port­fo­lio includes over 120 patents (grant­ed and pend­ing) cov­er­ing core car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy, com­po­nent struc­tures, and man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es. This pro­tec­tion spans major mar­kets includ­ing the US, Europe, Chi­na, Japan, and Korea, with a sub­stan­tial focus on the semi­con­duc­tor industry. ### Deep technical knowledge from research to manufacturing Most of our R&D team holds Ph.D.s in mate­ri­als sci­ence, nan­otech­nol­o­gy, or semi­con­duc­tor engi­neer­ing. Our tech­ni­cal depth spans from fun­da­men­tal car­bon nan­otube growth to inte­gra­tion in semi­con­duc­tor manufacturing. ![2018 10 10 smoltek mc2 04](https://smoltek.kntnt.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2018-10-10-smoltek-mc2-04-jpg.webp "2018-10-10_smoltek_MC2-04") Our process ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#from-initial-samples-to-commercial-production)From initial samples to commercial production We work with indus­tri­al part­ners through a struc­tured devel­op­ment process that aligns with how large enter­pris­es eval­u­ate and inte­grate new tech­nolo­gies. Each stage builds on the pre­vi­ous one, with clear tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial milestones. ### Technical evaluation and samples We pro­vide engi­neer­ing sam­ples of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors for your ini­tial test­ing. Your tech­ni­cal team gets direct access to our R&D engi­neers to dis­cuss per­for­mance data, man­u­fac­tur­ing para­me­ters, and poten­tial appli­ca­tions. This stage typ­i­cal­ly involves lab-scale test­ing to val­i­date basic func­tion­al­i­ty and compatibility. ### Formal collaboration and feasibility study Fol­low­ing pos­i­tive ini­tial results, we estab­lish a for­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment. This can take the form of a joint devel­op­ment project, fea­si­bil­i­ty study, or tech­ni­cal advi­so­ry agree­ment. We con­duct detailed analy­sis of tech­ni­cal require­ments, man­u­fac­tur­ing inte­gra­tion, and com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty spe­cif­ic to your applications. ### Licensing agreement and design integration With proven tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty, we forge a licens­ing part­ner­ship. You gain access to our IP port­fo­lio, man­u­fac­tur­ing know-how, and design doc­u­men­ta­tion. Your engi­neer­ing teams can then per­form detailed design work and inte­grate our tech­nol­o­gy into your pro­duc­tion processes. ### Production support and ongoing development Our rela­tion­ship con­tin­ues through com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion. Your team retains access to our R&D spe­cial­ists for tech­ni­cal sup­port, process opti­miza­tion, and co-devel­op­ment of next-gen­er­a­tion solu­tions. This ensures con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and helps address evolv­ing requirements. Fea­tures ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-cnf-mim-technology-addresses-industry-challenges)**How CNF-MIM technology addresses industry challenges** As elec­tron­ic com­po­nents shrink while per­for­mance demands increase, con­ven­tion­al capac­i­tors face fun­da­men­tal lim­its. Our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy over­comes these lim­its by build­ing capac­i­tors on a micro­scop­ic 3D scaf­fold­ing of car­bon nanofibers. This immense sur­face area, cre­at­ed with­in an ultra-thin pro­file, is what enables the unique com­bi­na­tion of per­for­mance and minia­tur­iza­tion detailed below: ### **High capacitance density** The first gen­er­a­tion of our capac­i­tors, the “CNF-MIM Gen-One,” has a tar­get capac­i­tance den­si­ty of 250 nF/​mm². In future gen­er­a­tions we aim to exceed 1,500 nF/​mm² in an ultra-thin profile. ### **High frequency** Engi­neered for high-speed sys­tems, our capac­i­tors ensure sta­ble pow­er deliv­ery to advanced proces­sors. With excep­tion­al­ly low induc­tance (ESL < 2 pH) and resis­tance (ESR < 50 mΩ), they are a key advan­tage for pow­er integrity. ### **Low losses** Our capac­i­tors ensure pow­er is used effec­tive­ly, with an ultra-low leak­age cur­rent of less than 100 pA at 2 V and min­i­mal resis­tive loss­es. This supe­ri­or effi­cien­cy is cru­cial for extend­ing bat­tery life in com­pact, pow­er-sen­si­tive devices. ### **Temperature stability** We deliv­er reli­able per­for­mance, guar­an­tee­ing sta­bil­i­ty for demand­ing appli­ca­tions. Our tech­nol­o­gy shows only a \~2.5% capac­i­tance change when test­ed up to 125°C, ensur­ing your sys­tem per­forms as designed across wide tem­per­a­ture ranges. Tes­ti­mo­ni­al ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#industry-expert-perspective-on-cnf-mim-technology)Industry expert perspective on CNF-MIM technology Lis­ten as Dr. Philip Less­ner pro­vide his expert analy­sis of CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy. Dr. Less­ner is a rec­og­nized expert in pas­sive elec­tron­ic com­po­nents with over 25 years of expe­ri­ence. Since 1996, Dr. Less­ner has spe­cial­ized in capac­i­tors and oth­er pas­sive com­po­nents, and he holds numer­ous patents and pub­li­ca­tions in this field. The inter­view was record­ed dur­ing his tenure as Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer at Yageo Group, one of the world’s largest com­po­nent manufacturers. Fre­quent­ly asked questions ### What performance can CNF-MIM achieve? We have demon­strat­ed 1 µF/​mm² (1,000 nF/​mm²) capac­i­tance den­si­ty with an active lay­er thick­ness of just 6 µm. This com­bi­na­tion of high capac­i­tance and ultra-thin pro­file makes the tech­nol­o­gy suit­able for under-chip inte­gra­tion where height con­straints are crit­i­cal. Pro­to­types using our ZrO₂–Al₂O₃ dielec­tric stack have passed tem­per­a­ture and volt­age stress test­ing. Our devel­op­ment roadmap tar­gets 3,000 nF/​mm² in future generations. ### How is CNF-MIM manufactured? We oper­ate a fab­less mod­el with estab­lished man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner­ships. ITRI han­dles front-end wafer pro­cess­ing while Tong Hsing pro­vides back-end assem­bly and test­ing. Our addi­tive process uses stan­dard semi­con­duc­tor equip­ment and can be inte­grat­ed into exist­ing pro­duc­tion lines. We pro­vide com­plete tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer pack­ages includ­ing process spec­i­fi­ca­tions and qual­i­ty con­trol procedures. ### What does a licensing involve? Our licens­ing mod­el includes three com­po­nents: upfront licens­ing fees for patent access, non-recur­ring engi­neer­ing fees for inte­gra­tion sup­port and qual­i­fi­ca­tion assis­tance, and pro­duc­tion roy­al­ties based on net sales of prod­ucts incor­po­rat­ing our tech­nol­o­gy. The spe­cif­ic terms are struc­tured based on your appli­ca­tion and vol­ume requirements. ### What applications is addressed? We start with dis­crete capac­i­tors for imme­di­ate mar­ket appli­ca­tions. The devel­op­ment roadmap includes embed­ded capac­i­tors with­in chip pack­ag­ing sub­strates, fol­lowed by on-chip inte­gra­tion for place­ment close to proces­sors. Each step requires spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal adap­ta­tions but builds on the same core CNF-MIM platform. ### What support do you provide? Our R&D team works direct­ly with your engi­neer­ing teams through­out the inte­gra­tion process. This includes design opti­miza­tion for your spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tions, process para­me­ter adjust­ment, qual­i­fi­ca­tion test­ing sup­port, and ongo­ing tech­ni­cal con­sul­ta­tion. We main­tain this rela­tion­ship through pro­duc­tion and future prod­uct development. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#your-questions-answered)Your questions answered Eval­u­at­ing new capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy requires under­stand­ing per­for­mance spec­i­fi­ca­tions, man­u­fac­tur­ing require­ments, and inte­gra­tion path­ways. Here are answers to com­mon ques­tions about CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy from our tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions with indus­try partners. We active­ly seek part­ner­ships with capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers and elec­tron­ics com­pa­nies to bring CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy to mar­ket. Our R&D team works direct­ly with prospec­tive part­ners to eval­u­ate com­mer­cial opportunities. [Con­tact us](https://smoltek.kntnt.it/smoltek-semi/contact/) Our Promise ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-we-will-work-with-you)How we will work with you We under­stand that adopt­ing dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy requires trans­paren­cy and pre­dictabil­i­ty. Our part­ner­ship approach focus­es on work­ing togeth­er through each tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial mile­stone in a dis­ci­plined and struc­tured way. ### Minimize upfront risk You don’t need to com­mit to a full-scale license right away. We rec­om­mend start­ing with spe­cif­ic projects, such as fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies or joint devel­op­ment work, to address par­tic­u­lar tech­ni­cal issues. This approach enables your engi­neer­ing teams to val­i­date our tech­nol­o­gy with­in your exist­ing sys­tems and appli­ca­tions before mak­ing larg­er commitments. ### Complete technical capability from research to manufacturing We cov­er all aspects of CNF-MIM devel­op­ment, pro­vid­ing sup­port through­out your eval­u­a­tion and imple­men­ta­tion process: - **Research basis:** Our tech­nol­o­gy orig­i­nates from research in car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy at the Depart­ment of Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience (MC2), Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, begin­ning in 2000. Since Smoltek was found­ed in 2005, we have main­tained a close col­lab­o­ra­tion with Chalmers researchers and con­tin­ue using their spe­cial­ized lab­o­ra­to­ry equip­ment for ongo­ing devel­op­ment as well as hav­ing our own R&D tools at the MC2 laboratory. - **Process devel­op­ment:** We have devel­oped both patent­ed meth­ods and deep know-how for trans­fer our car­bon nanofiber research into man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es. Our patents cov­er the growth and coat­ing tech­niques, while our know-how encom­pass­es the prac­ti­cal details need­ed for con­sis­tent man­u­fac­tur­ing. This com­bi­na­tion enables us to trans­fer lab­o­ra­to­ry results to indus­tri­al-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing using CMOS-stan­dard semi­con­duc­tor equipment. - **Man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner­ships:** We have estab­lished part­ner­ships that cre­ate a seam­less path from lab to fab for com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion. ITRI, Taiwan’s pre­mier research insti­tute, han­dles front-end wafer pro­cess­ing, while Tong Hsing man­ages back-end assem­bly and test­ing. These estab­lished rela­tion­ships demon­strate our technology’s readi­ness for scal­ing from lab­o­ra­to­ry sam­ples to pro­duc­tion volumes. This com­plete capa­bil­i­ty means we can sup­port your project from ini­tial sam­ples through com­mer­cial manufacturing. Whitepa­per ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#introducing-smoltek-carbon-nanofiber-technology)Introducing Smoltek carbon nanofiber technology A deep dive into the tech­nol­o­gy behind CNF-MIM – get your free copy from Smoltek. This is not a mar­ket­ing brochure, but a 10-page tech­ni­cal whitepa­per authored by our nan­otech­nol­o­gy researchers. Learn about the fun­da­men­tal prop­er­ties of car­bon nanofibers, the cat­alyt­ic growth process, and the appli­ca­tions enabled by the technology. [Down­load](https://smoltek.kntnt.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/smoltek-whitepaper-cnf-technology-2015-2023-1.pdf) ![Whitepaper cnf 2](https://smoltek.kntnt.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/whitepaper-cnf-2.webp "whitepaper-cnf-2") --- title: "Board of Directors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/about/board/" date: 2021-11-21 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/snh-board-2025-05-2000x1125-1.webp" --- # Board of Directors ![Snh board 2025 05 2000x1125](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/snh-board-2025-05-2000x1125-1.webp "SNH Board 2025-05 2000x1125") # Board of Directors ![Er portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/er-portrait-01-jpg.webp "ER_portrait_01") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#emma-ronnmark)Emma Rönnmark Chair­man of the board Emma Rön­n­mark holds a mas­ter’s degree in eco­nom­ics from the Gothen­burg School of Eco­nom­ics. She has broad expe­ri­ence from var­i­ous lead­er­ship roles that dri­ve change and trans­for­ma­tion in the indus­tri­al and ener­gy sec­tors. Cur­rent­ly, she is the CFO of Sveaskog, Swe­den’s largest for­est own­er. Emma is a cer­ti­fied board mem­ber with pre­vi­ous board assign­ments in small­er companies. **Share­hold­ing:** 5,000 **War­rants:** - ![Oskar säfström 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/oskar-safstrom-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#oskar-safstrom)Oskar Säfström Mem­ber of the board Oskar Säf­ström holds a Bach­e­lor of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion from Dublin Busi­ness School, and is an entre­pre­neur and investor with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in Cor­po­rate Finance and Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance and in devel­op­ing growth and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies. He is cur­rent­ly a board mem­ber in sev­er­al com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in IT, tele­com, secu­ri­ty and real estate, and since 2017 Chair­man of the Board of Infra­Com Group AB, list­ed on NGM Nordic SME. **Share­hold­ing:** 8,721,994 **War­rants:** - ![Gb portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/gb-portrait-01-jpg.webp "GB_portrait_01") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gustav-brismark)Gustav Brismark Mem­ber of the board Gus­tav Bris­mark holds a mas­ter’s degree in tech­ni­cal physics from Upp­sala Uni­ver­si­ty. He has over 30 years of expe­ri­ence in tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, patent and licens­ing issues and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new tech­nol­o­gy. Gus­tav most recent­ly comes from Eric­s­son, where he was head of the com­pa­ny’s glob­al patent licens­ing business. **Share­hold­ing:** 619,146 **War­rants:** 56,286 (TO 9) ![David gramnaes 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/david-gramnaes-1000x1300-1.webp "David Gramnaes 1000x1300") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#david-gramnaes)David Gramnaes Mem­ber of the board David Gram­naes has a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Soft­ware Engi­neer­ing from Blekinge Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, and is cur­rent­ly CEO of Gramtec Ven­ture, a sub­sidiary of Gramtec Busi­ness Part­ner. David has exten­sive expe­ri­ence of both board work and busi­ness devel­op­ment in tech­nol­o­gy-heavy start­up com­pa­nies and has a long rela­tion­ship with Smoltek. David is a cer­ti­fied board mem­ber with sev­er­al board assign­ments in small­er companies. **Share­hold­ing:** 380,001 **War­rants:** 36,583 (TO 9) ![Johan rask 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/johan-rask-1000x1300-1.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#johan-rask)Johan Rask **Mem­ber of the board** Johan holds a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Indus­tri­al Engi­neer­ing from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy and is cur­rent­ly CEO of Gomero Group. Johan has worked in Ven­ture Cap­i­tal, as M&A Man­ag­er at Mölnly­cke Health­care and Busi­ness Area Man­ag­er at Abi­go (now Essi­ty) and was pre­vi­ous­ly CEO of Insplo­ri­on. He holds sev­er­al board posi­tions and was pre­vi­ous­ly Chair­man of the Board of Gomero Group. **Share­hold­ing:** - **War­rants:** - --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smoltek-img-0000s-0001-wind-hydro-jpg.webp" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen Smoltek takes the next step towards com­mer­cial­iza­tion – car­ries out rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 million # Smoltek is facing a crucial phase in the company’s development. After several years of technology development and strategic partnerships, the company is now conducting a rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million to accelerate commercialization in two markets with strong structural growth: semiconductors and green hydrogen. ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) Smoltek Hydro­gen devel­ops elec­trodes for hydro­gen fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers for sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions to secure elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply. By reduc­ing expen­sive cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als and enhanc­ing cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion we increase cost-per­for­mance for the scale-up of fos­sil-free hydro­gen appli­ca­tions. Smoltek Hydrogen’s new porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) can reduce irid­i­um load­ings in PEM elec­trolyz­ers by up to \~95% com­pared to con­ven­tion­al tech­nolo­gies – enabling sus­tain­able solu­tions for future generations. [Con­tact us for more information](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/contact/) [Learn more](https://www.smoltek.com#start) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#key-technology-partners)Key technology partners ![Agc logo](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/agc-logo.webp "agc-logo") ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/spark-nano.webp "spark-nano") ![Impact coatings](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/impact-coatings.webp "impact-coatings") ![Heraeus](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/heraeus.webp "heraeus") Our offer ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-pte-technology-enables-iridium-efficient-electrolysis-across-the-supply-chain)Smoltek’s PTE technology enables iridium-efficient electrolysis across the supply chain Smoltek Hydro­gen’s cat­a­lyst coat­ed sub­strate tech­nol­o­gy uses patent­ed nanofiber depo­si­tion to cre­ate a porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) with a 30x larg­er active sur­face area, ensur­ing near­ly all of the cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al active­ly par­tic­i­pates in the reac­tion. We part­ner with tech­nol­o­gy man­u­fac­tur­ers through­out the PEM elec­trolyz­er val­ue chain to over­come the irid­i­um bot­tle­neck. Below are key col­lab­o­ra­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties for dif­fer­ent indus­try segments. ### Fuel cell Manufacturers Fuel cell sys­tems require expen­sive PGM cat­a­lysts and face con­tact resis­tance chal­lenges lim­it­ing per­for­mance. Smoltek CNF tech­nol­o­gy reduces PGM load­ing while low­er­ing con­tact resis­tance, improv­ing both eco­nom­ics and pow­er output. ### Electrolyzer Manufacturers Com­plete PEM elec­trolyz­er sys­tems face irid­i­um sup­ply con­straints lim­it­ing pro­duc­tion scale-up. Smoltek PTE enables 20x more units from the same irid­i­um sup­ply while main­tain­ing per­for­mance stan­dards for indus­tri­al hydro­gen production. ### MEA Manufacturers Mem­brane elec­trode assem­blies tra­di­tion­al­ly rely on cat­a­lyst coat­ed mem­brane (CCM) approach­es requir­ing 2 mg/​cm² irid­i­um. Our PTE tech­nol­o­gy inte­grates with exist­ing MEA pro­duc­tion to deliv­er equiv­a­lent per­for­mance at 0.1 mg/​cm² loading. ### PTL Manufacturers Porous trans­port lay­er pro­duc­ers can inte­grate our nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy to deliv­er enhanced PTL prod­ucts with 30x sur­face area, posi­tion­ing them­selves as sup­pli­ers of next-gen­er­a­tion elec­trode substrates. ### Bipolar Plate Manufacturers Bipo­lar plate pro­duc­ers can inte­grate Smoltek PTE with their plates to offer com­plete elec­trode-plate assem­blies. This posi­tions them as sys­tem sup­pli­ers rather than com­po­nent ven­dors, cap­tur­ing more val­ue in the elec­trolyz­er stack. ### PGM Suppliers Plat­inum group met­al sup­pli­ers face cus­tomers lim­it­ed by irid­i­um avail­abil­i­ty. Smoltek tech­nol­o­gy enables these cus­tomers to scale pro­duc­tion while requir­ing 95% less irid­i­um per unit, expand­ing total mar­ket opportunity. About us ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#built-on-20-years-of-carbon-nanotechnology-research)Built on 20+ years of carbon nanotechnology research Our approach com­bines 20+ years of car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy research from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, patent pro­tec­tion across major elec­tro­chem­i­cal mar­kets, and a team where most R&D staff hold Ph.D.s in mate­ri­als sci­ence, elec­tro­chem­istry, and nan­otech­nol­o­gy processes. ### From university research to industrial applications Smoltek was found­ed in Decem­ber 2005, as a spin-off from research at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy with a focus on pre­cise­ly con­trol­ling car­bon nanos­truc­ture growth. Since then, Smoltek has devel­oped this tech­nol­o­gy into prac­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es. Smoltek Hydro­gen applies this proven tech­nol­o­gy plat­form to address the irid­i­um scarci­ty chal­lenge in PEM electrolysis. ### Patent portfolio covering core technology and processes Smoltek’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty port­fo­lio includes over 120 patents (grant­ed and pend­ing) cov­er­ing core car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy, com­po­nent struc­tures, and man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es. This pro­tec­tion spans major mar­kets includ­ing the US, Europe, Chi­na, Japan, and Korea, with grow­ing focus on elec­tro­chem­i­cal applications. ### Deep technical knowledge from research to manufacturing Most of our R&D team holds Ph.D.s in mate­ri­als sci­ence, elec­tro­chem­istry, or nan­otech­nol­o­gy engi­neer­ing. Our tech­ni­cal depth spans from fun­da­men­tal car­bon nanofiber growth mech­a­nisms to inte­gra­tion in PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ing, ensur­ing both sci­en­tif­ic rig­or and indus­tri­al scalability. ![2018 10 10 smoltek mc2 04](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2018-10-10-smoltek-mc2-04-jpg.webp "2018-10-10_smoltek_MC2-04") Our process ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#from-initial-samples-to-commercial-production)From initial samples to commercial production We work with indus­tri­al part­ners through a struc­tured devel­op­ment process that aligns with how large enter­pris­es eval­u­ate and inte­grate new tech­nolo­gies. Each stage builds on the pre­vi­ous one, with clear tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial milestones. ### Technical evaluation and samples We pro­vide engi­neer­ing sam­ples of our PTE for your ini­tial test­ing. Your tech­ni­cal team gets direct access to our R&D engi­neers to dis­cuss per­for­mance data, man­u­fac­tur­ing para­me­ters, and poten­tial appli­ca­tions. This stage typ­i­cal­ly involves lab-scale test­ing to val­i­date basic func­tion­al­i­ty and compatibility. ### Formal collaboration and feasibility study Fol­low­ing pos­i­tive ini­tial results, we estab­lish a for­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment. This can take the form of a joint devel­op­ment project, fea­si­bil­i­ty study, or tech­ni­cal advi­so­ry agree­ment. We con­duct detailed analy­sis of tech­ni­cal require­ments, man­u­fac­tur­ing inte­gra­tion, and com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty spe­cif­ic to your applications. ### Licensing agreement and design integration With proven tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty, we forge a licens­ing part­ner­ship. You gain access to our IP port­fo­lio, man­u­fac­tur­ing know-how, and design doc­u­men­ta­tion. Your engi­neer­ing teams can then per­form detailed design work and inte­grate our tech­nol­o­gy into your pro­duc­tion processes. ### Production support and ongoing development Our rela­tion­ship con­tin­ues through com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion. Your team retains access to our R&D spe­cial­ists for tech­ni­cal sup­port, process opti­miza­tion, and co-devel­op­ment of next-gen­er­a­tion solu­tions. This ensures con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and helps address evolv­ing requirements. Fea­tures ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-smoltek-pte-technology-addresses-electrolyzer-manufacturing-challenges)**How Smoltek PTE technology addresses electrolyzer manufacturing challenges** PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ing faces crit­i­cal con­straints from irid­i­um scarci­ty and inef­fi­cient cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion in con­ven­tion­al CCM approach­es. Our PTE tech­nol­o­gy solves these fun­da­men­tal lim­i­ta­tions through advanced nanofiber archi­tec­ture and opti­mized cat­a­lyst deposition. ### **30X larger active area** We grow ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers on the PTL sub­strate, cre­at­ing mas­sive elec­tro­chem­i­cal­ly active sur­face area with­in the same foot­print. This 3D archi­tec­ture enables pre­cise con­trol of fiber prop­er­ties, mul­ti­ply­ing reac­tion sites while main­tain­ing opti­mal mass transport. ### **Ultra-low iridium utilization** Our PTE ensures every irid­i­um atom active­ly par­tic­i­pates in the oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion through direct elec­tri­cal con­tact via the con­duc­tive nanofiber scaf­fold. This enables 0.1 mg/​cm² load­ing ver­sus 2 mg/​cm² in CCM systems. ### I**ntegrated corrosion protection** Each car­bon nanofiber receives a thin plat­inum coat­ing that pre­vents oxi­da­tion in the aggres­sive anod­ic envi­ron­ment. This pro­tec­tive bar­ri­er main­tains struc­tur­al integri­ty dur­ing long-term oper­a­tion, ensur­ing reli­able elec­trode per­for­mance through­out the elec­trolyz­er’s oper­a­tional lifetime. ### **Substrate flexibility** Our cat­a­lyst-coat­ed sub­strate approach works on most con­duc­tive sub­strates, not just tita­ni­um mesh. Unlike CCM, which lim­its man­u­fac­tur­ing to mem­brane pro­duc­ers, our nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy allows more par­tic­i­pants in the sup­ply chain to offer enhanced elec­trodes for a vari­ety of applications. Tes­ti­mo­ni­al ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#industry-expert-perspective-on-smoltek-pte-technology)Industry expert perspective on Smoltek PTE technology Lis­ten as Dr. Felix Büchi pro­vide his expert analy­sis of Smoltek PTE tech­nol­o­gy. Dr. Büchi is a rec­og­nized expert in PEM elec­tro­chem­i­cal sys­tems with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence at Paul Scher­rer Insti­tute. As Group Head of the Elec­tro­chem­istry Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Dr. Büchi spe­cial­izes in PEM fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers, with par­tic­u­lar exper­tise in char­ac­ter­iz­ing porous mate­ri­als for these appli­ca­tions. This inter­view was record­ed fol­low­ing his inde­pen­dent tech­ni­cal assess­ment of Smoltek Hydrogen’s break­through elec­trode technology. Fre­quent­ly asked questions ### What performance can PTE achieve? We have demon­strat­ed 0.1 mg/​cm² irid­i­um load­ing achiev­ing 2.5 A/​cm² at 2V while main­tain­ing indus­try-stan­dard per­for­mance. This rep­re­sents a 95% reduc­tion from con­ven­tion­al 2 mg/​cm² CCM approach­es. Our car­bon nanofiber archi­tec­ture cre­ates 30x larg­er active sur­face area with­in the same foot­print. Inde­pen­dent val­i­da­tion by Dr. Felix Büchi con­firms equiv­a­lent per­for­mance with dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduced pre­cious met­al usage. ### **How is PTE manufactured?** We oper­ate a fab­less mod­el with estab­lished man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner­ships. Spark­Nano pro­vides Spa­tial ALD tech­nol­o­gy while AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions sup­plies PECVD sys­tems for nanofiber growth. Our addi­tive process uses stan­dard indus­tri­al equip­ment and can be inte­grat­ed into exist­ing PTL pro­duc­tion lines. We pro­vide com­plete tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer pack­ages includ­ing process spec­i­fi­ca­tions and qual­i­ty con­trol procedures. ### What does a licensing involve? Our licens­ing mod­el includes three com­po­nents: upfront licens­ing fees for patent access, non-recur­ring engi­neer­ing fees for inte­gra­tion sup­port and qual­i­fi­ca­tion assis­tance, and pro­duc­tion roy­al­ties based on net sales of prod­ucts incor­po­rat­ing our tech­nol­o­gy. The spe­cif­ic terms are struc­tured based on your appli­ca­tion and vol­ume requirements. ### What applications is addressed? We start with PTE com­po­nents for PEM elec­trolyz­ers as our imme­di­ate mar­ket focus. The devel­op­ment roadmap includes fuel cell appli­ca­tions where our nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy reduces con­tact resis­tance, fol­lowed by oth­er elec­tro­chem­i­cal sys­tems requir­ing enhanced sur­face area and low pre­cious met­al load­ing. Each appli­ca­tion builds on the same core car­bon nanofiber platform. ### What support do you provide? Our R&D team works direct­ly with your engi­neer­ing teams through­out the inte­gra­tion process. This includes design opti­miza­tion for your spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tions, process para­me­ter adjust­ment, qual­i­fi­ca­tion test­ing sup­port, and ongo­ing tech­ni­cal con­sul­ta­tion. We main­tain this rela­tion­ship through pro­duc­tion and future prod­uct development. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#your-questions-answered)Your questions answered Eval­u­at­ing new elec­trode tech­nol­o­gy requires under­stand­ing per­for­mance spec­i­fi­ca­tions, man­u­fac­tur­ing require­ments, and inte­gra­tion path­ways. Here are answers to com­mon ques­tions about our Smoltek PTE tech­nol­o­gy from our tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions with indus­try partners. We active­ly seek part­ner­ships with elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers and com­po­nent sup­pli­ers to bring PTE tech­nol­o­gy to mar­ket. Our R&D team works direct­ly with prospec­tive part­ners to eval­u­ate com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties and address spe­cif­ic inte­gra­tion challenges. [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydroegn/contact/) Our Promise ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-we-will-work-with-you)How we will work with you We under­stand that adopt­ing dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy requires trans­paren­cy and pre­dictabil­i­ty. Our part­ner­ship approach focus­es on work­ing togeth­er through each tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial mile­stone in a dis­ci­plined and struc­tured way. ### Minimize upfront risk You don’t need to com­mit to a full-scale license right away. We rec­om­mend start­ing with spe­cif­ic projects, such as fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies or joint devel­op­ment work, to address par­tic­u­lar tech­ni­cal chal­lenges. This approach enables your engi­neer­ing teams to val­i­date our tech­nol­o­gy with­in your exist­ing elec­trolyz­er sys­tems and appli­ca­tions before mak­ing larg­er commitments. ### Clear development timeline with measurable goals We fol­low a struc­tured devel­op­ment plan with spe­cif­ic per­for­mance tar­gets for each mile­stone. We have achieved our break­through tar­get of 0.1 mg/​cm² irid­i­um load­ing with indus­try-stan­dard per­for­mance. Exten­sive 1,000-hour dura­bil­i­ty test­ing val­i­dates the long-term sta­bil­i­ty of our elec­trode tech­nol­o­gy. This rep­re­sents the crit­i­cal thresh­old for com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty, enabling 95% reduc­tion in pre­cious met­al usage com­pared to con­ven­tion­al approach­es. Our strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion with Her­aeus focus­es on com­bin­ing our respec­tive exper­tise to enhance PTE func­tion­al­i­ty and effi­cien­cy, tar­get­ing high­er hydro­gen out­put per kilo­watt in next-gen­er­a­tion elec­trodes for PEM electrolyzers. ### Complete technical capability from research to manufacturing We cov­er all aspects of PTE devel­op­ment, pro­vid­ing sup­port through­out your eval­u­a­tion and imple­men­ta­tion process: - **Research basis:** Our tech­nol­o­gy orig­i­nates from research in car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy at the Depart­ment of Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience (MC2), Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, begin­ning in 2000. Since Smoltek was found­ed in 2005, we have main­tained a close col­lab­o­ra­tion with Chalmers researchers and con­tin­ue using their spe­cial­ized lab­o­ra­to­ry equip­ment for ongo­ing devel­op­ment as well as hav­ing our own R&D tools at the MC2 laboratory. - **Process devel­op­ment:** We have devel­oped both patent­ed meth­ods and deep know-how for trans­fer our car­bon nanofiber research into man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es. Our patents cov­er the growth and coat­ing tech­niques, while our know-how encom­pass­es the prac­ti­cal details need­ed for con­sis­tent man­u­fac­tur­ing. This com­bi­na­tion enables us to trans­fer lab­o­ra­to­ry results to indus­tri­al-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing using stan­dard equipment. - **Man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner­ships:** We have estab­lished part­ner­ships that cre­ate a seam­less path from lab to com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion. Spark­Nano pro­vides Spa­tial ALD tech­nol­o­gy for cat­a­lyst depo­si­tion, while AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions sup­plies PECVD sys­tems for nanofiber growth. Our strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion with Her­aeus demon­strates com­mer­cial readi­ness for scal­ing from lab­o­ra­to­ry sam­ples to pro­duc­tion volumes. This com­plete capa­bil­i­ty means we can sup­port your project from ini­tial sam­ples through com­mer­cial manufacturing. Whitepa­per ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology)Introducing Smoltek Electrolyzer Technology A deep dive into Smoltek’s elec­trolyz­er tech­nol­o­gy – get your free copy from Smoltek. This is not a mar­ket­ing brochure, but a 15-page tech­ni­cal whitepa­per authored by our nan­otech­nol­o­gy experts. Learn about how CVD-grown car­bon nanofibers can rev­o­lu­tion­ize hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, improve cat­a­lyst effi­cien­cy in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, and enable more effi­cient renew­able ener­gy storage. [Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/smoltek-whitepaper-introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology.pdf) ![Whitepaper hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/whitepaper-hydrogen.webp "whitepaper-hydrogen") --- title: "Electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/electrolyzers/" date: 2022-06-20 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl.png" --- # Electrolyzers ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Technology With our car­bon nan­ote­chol­o­gy plat­form as a base, we devel­op mate­r­i­al solu­tions for use in the hydro­gen indus­try. Like a coat­ed nanos­truc­ture that acts as a scaf­fold for irid­i­um catalysts.  Cur­rent­ly, we focus on improv­ing the elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell in PEM elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells. The cell enables the con­ver­sion of elec­tric­i­ty into hydro­gen and vice ver­sa. Thus, it’s a key com­po­nent in stor­ing and trans­mit­ting renew­able ener­gy and decar­boniz­ing indus­try, trans­porta­tion, and heating. Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE (porous trans­port elec­trode) tech­nol­o­gy reduces irid­i­um usage by 95%, to just 0.1 mg/​cm², while main­tain­ing equiv­a­lent cur­rent den­si­ty and dura­bil­i­ty. Our nanofiber depo­si­tion process cre­ates a sur­face area that is 30 times larg­er, ensur­ing that near­ly all of the cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al active­ly par­tic­i­pates in the reac­tion. This break­through elim­i­nates the irid­i­um scarci­ty that lim­its pro­duc­tion vol­umes and cost targets. > The **Smoltek PTE*** uses coat­ed (cor­ro­sion pro­tect­ed) car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) as cat­a­lyst sup­port applied direct­ly on the PTL sub­strate (a method called Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Sub­strate, or CCS), mak­ing all the extreme­ly expen­sive irid­i­um cat­a­lysts come in full con­tact with the MEA. The result is that the need for irid­i­um par­ti­cles can decrease sig­nif­i­cant­ly – we have already showed that our PTE can pro­duce the same amount of hydro­gen with only 0.1−0.2 mg iridium/​cm2 as a con­ven­tion­al cell that uses 2.0−2.5 mg iridium/​cm2. [![electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl-600x400.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl.png) Cell with Smoltek PTE (anode PTL + catalyst) [![standard-electrolyzer-cell](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/standard-electrolyzer-cell-600x400.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/standard-electrolyzer-cell.png) Con­ven­tion­al cell with full MEA Click on an image to see it in full size. ** The **Smoltek PTE** com­bines the anode PTL with cat­a­lyst, thus reduc­ing the MEA lay­er to just ½ MEA. As seen in the dif­fer­ent zoom-ins, the porous PTL is filled with car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) that pen­e­trate the ½ MEA, enabling all of the irid­i­um cat­a­lysts to make con­tact with the MEA.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#advantages-of-smolteks-highly-efficient-pte)Advantages of Smoltek’s highly efficient PTE Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy offers a solu­tion to this prob­lem. It enables the man­u­fac­ture of a new and more effi­cient PTE for PEM elec­trolyz­ers based on our patent pro­tect­ed car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy that cre­ates a three-dimen­sion­al sur­face struc­ture on the anode side’s PTL layer. The tech­nol­o­gy enables all irid­i­um cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles to come into con­tact with the mem­brane, thanks to the fact the par­ti­cles are deposit­ed on the nanos­truc­ture which is direct­ly in con­tact with the metal­lic PTL sur­face. There­by, the expen­sive cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles are ful­ly uti­lized; thus, the irid­i­um cat­a­lyst load in the cell can be reduced by up to 95 per­cent. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant as the sup­ply of irid­i­um and plat­inum are con­sid­ered crit­i­cal, i.e. the future demand for these mate­ri­als can­not be met with cer­tain­ty, and the reduced sup­ply risks lead to increased pro­duc­tion costs for green hydro­gen further. Smoltek’s nanos­truc­ture also increas­es the sur­face area of the elec­trode (the one in con­tact with the mem­brane). This means that more par­ti­cles can be placed on a giv­en sur­face, which in turn can reduce the elec­trolyz­er in size by two to three times while main­tain­ing capac­i­ty. A reduced-size means, among oth­er things, small­er invest­ments and low­er main­te­nance and mate­r­i­al costs. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more)Learn more Don’t hes­i­tate to [con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/contact/) with your questions. Whitepa­per ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology)Introducing Smoltek Electrolyzer Technology A deep dive into Smoltek’s elec­trolyz­er tech­nol­o­gy – get your free copy from Smoltek. This is not a mar­ket­ing brochure, but a 15-page tech­ni­cal whitepa­per authored by our nan­otech­nol­o­gy experts. Learn about how CVD-grown car­bon nanofibers can rev­o­lu­tion­ize hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, improve cat­a­lyst effi­cien­cy in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, and enable more effi­cient renew­able ener­gy storage. [Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/smoltek-whitepaper-introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology.pdf) ![Whitepaper hydrogen](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/whitepaper-hydrogen.webp "whitepaper-hydrogen") --- title: "Electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen/electrolyzers/" date: 2025-07-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl.png" --- # Electrolyzers ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Electrolyzers With our car­bon nan­ote­chol­o­gy plat­form as a base, we devel­op mate­r­i­al solu­tions for use in the hydro­gen indus­try. Like a coat­ed nanos­truc­ture that acts as a scaf­fold for irid­i­um catalysts.  Cur­rent­ly, we focus on improv­ing the elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell in PEM elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells. The cell enables the con­ver­sion of elec­tric­i­ty into hydro­gen and vice ver­sa. Thus, it’s a key com­po­nent in stor­ing and trans­mit­ting renew­able ener­gy and decar­boniz­ing indus­try, trans­porta­tion, and heating. Today’s PEM elec­trolyz­ers use cost­ly cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles which, in con­tact with the mem­brane, enable hydro­gen to be formed. These cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles are usu­al­ly irid­i­um or plat­inum. In tra­di­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy, these cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles are mixed in a slur­ry that is applied on the plas­tic mem­brane. How­ev­er, the method (called CCM) is inef­fi­cient as not all cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles come in con­tact with the membrane. Smoltek’s unique tech­nol­o­gy uses coat­ed (cor­ro­sion pro­tect­ed) car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) as cat­a­lyst sup­port applied direct­ly on the PTL sub­strate (a method called CCS), mak­ing all the extreme­ly expen­sive irid­i­um cat­a­lysts come in full con­tact with the MEA. We call this **Smoltek PTE*** (porous trans­port elec­trode). The result is that the need for irid­i­um par­ti­cles can decrease rad­i­cal­ly – we have already showed that our PTE can pro­duce the same amount of hydro­gen with only 0.1−0.2 mg iridium/​cm2 as a con­ven­tion­al cell that uses 2.0−2.5 mg iridium/​cm2. Our break­through innovation—Smoltek PTE—also increas­es the active sur­face area by 30 times and enhances the cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty in the elec­tro­chem­i­cal PEM cell.  So, do you want to reduce the amount of irid­i­um par­ti­cles (and still pro­duce the same amount of fos­sil-free hydro­gen), or do you want to reduce the size of the cell area in the elec­trolyz­er, thus get­ting a small­er and cheap­er electrolyzer? [![electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl-600x400.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl.png) [![standard-electrolyzer-cell](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/standard-electrolyzer-cell-600x400.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/standard-electrolyzer-cell.png) Click on an image to see it in full size. \* The **Smoltek PTE** com­bines the anode PTL with cat­a­lyst, thus reduc­ing the MEA lay­er to just ½ MEA. As seen in the dif­fer­ent zoom-ins, the porous PTL is filled with car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) that pen­e­trate the ½ MEA, enabling all of the irid­i­um cat­a­lysts to make con­tact with the MEA. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#advantages-of-smolteks-highly-efficient-pte)Advantages of Smoltek’s highly efficient PTE Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy offers a solu­tion to this prob­lem. It enables the man­u­fac­ture of a new and more effi­cient PTE for PEM elec­trolyz­ers based on our patent pro­tect­ed car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy that cre­ates a three-dimen­sion­al sur­face struc­ture on the anode side’s PTL layer. The tech­nol­o­gy enables all irid­i­um cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles to come into con­tact with the mem­brane, thanks to the fact the par­ti­cles are deposit­ed on the nanos­truc­ture which is direct­ly in con­tact with the metal­lic PTL sur­face. There­by, the expen­sive cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles are ful­ly uti­lized; thus, the irid­i­um cat­a­lyst load in the cell can be reduced by up to 95 per­cent. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant as the sup­ply of irid­i­um and plat­inum are con­sid­ered crit­i­cal, i.e. the future demand for these mate­ri­als can­not be met with cer­tain­ty, and the reduced sup­ply risks lead to increased pro­duc­tion costs for green hydro­gen further. Smoltek’s nanos­truc­ture also increas­es the sur­face area of the elec­trode (the one in con­tact with the mem­brane). This means that more par­ti­cles can be placed on a giv­en sur­face, which in turn can reduce the elec­trolyz­er in size by two to three times while main­tain­ing capac­i­ty. A reduced-size means, among oth­er things, small­er invest­ments and low­er main­te­nance and mate­r­i­al costs. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more)Learn more Read more about our elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy in the whitepa­per [*Intro­duc­ing Smoltek Elec­trolyz­er Tech­nol­o­gy*](https://www.smoltek.com/introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology/1976/). Don’t hes­i­tate to [con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/contact/) with your questions. --- title: "Media" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/contact/media/" date: 2021-11-22 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Media ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Become a Wel­come to con­tact us with your ques­tions. Use the form below to send a mes­sage to our HQ. They will make sure that the mes­sage reach­es the right per­son, who will then reply to you. ### Phone [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46317010305) ### Address [Otter­häl­le­gatan 1 411 18 Göte­borg Swe­den](https://maps.app.goo.gl/cbtjxAeDGP6fMEfr5) ### Email [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) --- title: "Milestones" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/about/history/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/smoltek-mc22-lab-03-jpg.webp" --- # Milestones ![CNFs on a glowing substrate web](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/cnfs-on-a-glowing-substrate-web.webp) For cur­rent updates of our oper­a­tions, please vis­it our [lat­est news.](https://www.smoltek.com/news/?filter=news#filter) Would you like to know more about how Smoltek came to be? The fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cle [*Smoltek-from car­bon nanofibers to mind-con­trolled robot­ic pros­the­ses*](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/from-carbon-nanofibers-to-mind-controlled-robotic-prostheses/1/) tells our sto­ry, from the per­spec­tive of those who were onboard from the beginning. --- title: "Technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/technology/" date: 2022-06-13 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-img-0000s-0006-cpu.webp" --- # Technology Smoltek joins MAXBATT for scal­ing bat­tery production # Smoltek joins MAXBATT – a national industry consortium led by Chalmers University of Technology, where leading players such as Scania, AB Volvo and Volvo Cars are collaborating to develop the battery production of the future. For Smoltek, the membership represents a strategically important validation of the company’s nanotechnology. ![CNFs on a glowing substrate web](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/cnfs-on-a-glowing-substrate-web.webp) Smoltek devel­ops appli­ca­tions based on nan­otech­nol­o­gy to solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing chal­lenges. Our patent-pro­tect­ed car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy rad­i­cal­ly increas­es the avail­able sur­face for chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal process­es, enabling more com­pact, ener­gy-effi­cient, pow­er­ful and cost-effi­cient prod­ucts. Grow­ing nanos­truc­tures direct­ly on a sur­face can increase the con­tact area tens of thou­sands of times.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-main-benefits-of-our-carbon-nanotechnology)The main benefits of our carbon nanotechnology Smoltek can grow extreme­ly thin car­bon nanofibers in var­i­ous three-dimen­sion­al struc­tures that mul­ti­ply the address­able sur­face that can be coat­ed with dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als. By doing so, we enable the man­u­fac­tur­ing of mate­ri­als and com­po­nents that make appli­ca­tions such as prod­ucts, com­po­nents and devices bet­ter – much thin­ner, more pow­er­ful, more ener­gy-effi­cient and/​or a lot cheap­er to produce.  - Reduce size - Save ener­gy - Increase pow­er - Min­i­mize costs ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#all-the-way-from-science-to-productization)All the way – from science to productization Smoltek has a patent-pro­tect­ed nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form that can solve advanced mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing prob­lems in many indus­try sec­tors, start­ing with [semi­con­duc­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/) and [hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/). We com­bine research and devel­op­ment with scale-up activ­i­ties to pro­duc­ti­za­tion, and as an exam­ple we are now devel­op­ing an ultra-thin capac­i­tor device for the mobile phone mar­ket togeth­er with the US-Tai­wanese semi­con­duc­tor giant Yageo. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#learn-more-by-scientist-for-scientists)Learn more – by scientist for scientists Read in-depth arti­cles on car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy, study our patents, down­load a white paper, read research papers and arti­cles – writ­ten by sci­en­tists for scientists.  ### **Carbon nanotechnology** About car­bon nanotechnology [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/technology/carbon-nanotechnology/) ### Whitepapers In-depth on applications [Down­load](https://www.smoltek.com/category/whitepapers/) ### Research Research papers and mag­a­zine articles [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/category/research/) ### Patents Patents on our fab­ri­ca­tion technology [Browse](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) --- title: "Career" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/about/career/" date: 2025-11-11 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smoltek-mc2-2022-06-01-bw-jpg.webp" --- # Career ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Become a superstar within a groundbreaking technology Smoltek is on a mis­sion to deliv­er dis­rup­tive solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­tries. Get ready to work across bor­ders and be sur­round­ed by ded­i­cat­ed and tal­ent­ed peo­ple. At Smoltek, you will get ener­gized to reach your true potential. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-smoltek)Why Smoltek? Just because there are no oth­ers like us. We are push­ing the lim­its of nan­otech­nol­o­gy. Call us car­bon nanofiber pio­neers. Or ground­break­ing devel­op­ers of dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy based on car­bon nanostructures. Regard­less of what, we are push­ing the lim­its for how nan­otech­nol­o­gy can con­tribute to the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty. We are always open to new ideas and smart ways of work­ing. Hav­ing a uni­fy­ing cul­ture improves our cus­tomer rela­tion­ships and tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment. It leads to greater life/​work bal­ance, a bet­ter work envi­ron­ment and long-term moti­va­tion. [We also work active­ly to ensure gen­der equal­i­ty and the require­ments that dis­tin­guish­es a good workplace.](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/gender-equality-plan/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-values-we-live-by)The values we live by We live our core val­ues every day by cel­e­brat­ing suc­cess and work­ing as a unit­ed team. These are our values: - Pride - Ener­gy - Trust - Team - Cus­tomer focus We will always trust you, believe in you and encour­age you to be brave and take your own initiative. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#job-openings)Job openings > [Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and Reli­a­bil­i­ty Engineer](https://www.smoltek.com/characterization-and-reliability-engineer/16566/ "Characterization and Reliability Engineer") > > Apply today! We are always look­ing for new tal­ent. If there are no vacan­cies, or if the cur­rent one does not suit you, do not hes­i­tate to send a spon­ta­neous appli­ca­tion to [recruitment@smoltek.com](mailto:recruitment@smoltek.com). --- title: "Career" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/about/career/" date: 2025-11-11 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smoltek-mc2-2022-06-01-bw-jpg.webp" --- # Career ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Become a superstar within a groundbreaking technology Smoltek is on a mis­sion to deliv­er dis­rup­tive solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­tries. Get ready to work across bor­ders and be sur­round­ed by ded­i­cat­ed and tal­ent­ed peo­ple. At Smoltek, you will get ener­gized to reach your true potential. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-smoltek)Why Smoltek? Just because there are no oth­ers like us. We are push­ing the lim­its of nan­otech­nol­o­gy. Call us car­bon nanofiber pio­neers. Or ground­break­ing devel­op­ers of dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy based on car­bon nanostructures. Regard­less of what, we are push­ing the lim­its for how nan­otech­nol­o­gy can con­tribute to the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty. We are always open to new ideas and smart ways of work­ing. Hav­ing a uni­fy­ing cul­ture improves our cus­tomer rela­tion­ships and tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment. It leads to greater life/​work bal­ance, a bet­ter work envi­ron­ment and long-term moti­va­tion. [We also work active­ly to ensure gen­der equal­i­ty and the require­ments that dis­tin­guish­es a good workplace.](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/gender-equality-plan/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-values-we-live-by)The values we live by We live our core val­ues every day by cel­e­brat­ing suc­cess and work­ing as a unit­ed team. These are our values: - Pride - Ener­gy - Trust - Team - Cus­tomer focus We will always trust you, believe in you and encour­age you to be brave and take your own initiative. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#job-openings)Job openings Sor­ry, we don’t have any vacan­cies at the moment. But you can still send us a spon­ta­neous application. Would you like to work with us? Please send your appli­ca­tion to [recruitment@smoltek.com](mailto:recruitment@smoltek.com). --- title: "Career" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/" date: 2023-05-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smoltek-mc2-2022-06-01-bw-jpg.webp" --- # Career ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Become a superstar within a groundbreaking technology Smoltek is on a mis­sion to deliv­er dis­rup­tive solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­tries. Get ready to work across bor­ders and be sur­round­ed by ded­i­cat­ed and tal­ent­ed peo­ple. At Smoltek, you will get ener­gized to reach your true potential. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-smoltek)Why Smoltek? Just because there are no oth­ers like us. We are push­ing the lim­its of nan­otech­nol­o­gy. Call us car­bon nanofiber pio­neers. Or ground­break­ing devel­op­ers of dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy based on car­bon nanostructures. Regard­less of what, we are push­ing the lim­its for how nan­otech­nol­o­gy can con­tribute to the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty. We are always open to new ideas and smart ways of work­ing. Hav­ing a uni­fy­ing cul­ture improves our cus­tomer rela­tion­ships and tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment. It leads to greater life/​work bal­ance, a bet­ter work envi­ron­ment and long-term moti­va­tion. [We also work active­ly to ensure gen­der equal­i­ty and the require­ments that dis­tin­guish­es a good workplace.](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/gender-equality-plan/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-values-we-live-by)The values we live by We live our core val­ues every day by cel­e­brat­ing suc­cess and work­ing as a unit­ed team. These are our values: - Pride - Ener­gy - Trust - Team - Cus­tomer focus We will always trust you, believe in you and encour­age you to be brave and take your own initiative. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#job-openings)Job openings We cur­rent­ly have no vacan­cies adver­tised. How­ev­er, you are always wel­come to sub­mit a spon­ta­neous job appli­ca­tion to [recruitment@smoltek.com](mailto:recruitment@smoltek.com). --- title: "Investor inquiries" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/contact/investor/" date: 2023-09-15 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Investor inquiries ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Investor inquiries Wel­come to con­tact us with your ques­tions. Use the form below to send a mes­sage to our HQ. They will make sure that the mes­sage reach­es the right per­son, who will then reply to you. ### Phone [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46317010305) ### Address [Otter­häl­le­gatan 1 411 18 Göte­borg Swe­den](https://maps.app.goo.gl/cbtjxAeDGP6fMEfr5) ### Email [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) --- title: "Miscellaneous inquiries" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/contact/miscellaneous/" date: 2021-11-27 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Miscellaneous inquiries ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Miscellaneous inquiries Wel­come to con­tact us with your ques­tions. Use the form below to send a mes­sage to our HQ. They will make sure that the mes­sage reach­es the right per­son, who will then reply to you. ### Phone [+46 317 01 03 05](tel:+46317010305) ### Address [Otter­häl­le­gatan 1 411 18 Göte­borg Swe­den](https://maps.app.goo.gl/cbtjxAeDGP6fMEfr5) ### Email [info@smoltek.com](mailto:info@smoltek.com) --- title: "News" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/news/" date: 2025-06-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smoltek-img-semiphone-jpg.webp" --- # News Strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares # Summarizing the financial news at the break point between June and July shows strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heavily oversubscribed and Smoltek shares are now available for trading on several international marketplaces in addition to the main listing on the Spotlight Stock Market in Sweden. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) Stay updat­ed on Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy and busi­ness devel­op­ment. Read our lat­est news, IR blog posts, watch videos and see what events we are attend­ing. You can also sub­scribe to our newsletter.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#latest-news)Latest news News ![Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) July 2, 2026 ### [Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/strong-interest-in-smoltek-and-trading-in-smoltek-shares/23859/) Sum­ma­riz­ing the finan­cial news at the break point between June and July shows strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed and Smoltek shares are now avail­able for trad­ing on sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­places in addi­tion to the main list­ing on the Spot­light Stock Mar­ket in Sweden.  News ![Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) June 12, 2026 ### [Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-takes-the-next-step-towards-commercialization-carries-out-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million/23790/) Smoltek is fac­ing a cru­cial phase in the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment. After sev­er­al years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and strate­gic part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is now con­duct­ing a rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 mil­lion to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion in two mar­kets with strong struc­tur­al growth: semi­con­duc­tors and green hydrogen. News ![Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) July 2, 2026 ### [Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/strong-interest-in-smoltek-and-trading-in-smoltek-shares/23859/) Sum­ma­riz­ing the finan­cial news at the break point between June and July shows strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed and Smoltek shares are now avail­able for trad­ing on sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­places in addi­tion to the main list­ing on the Spot­light Stock Mar­ket in Sweden.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#more-news-and-insights)More news and insights [All](https://www.smoltek.com?#filter) [News](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=news#filter) [Blog posts](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=ir-blog-posts#filter) [Men­tions](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=media-mentions#filter) [Videos](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=videos#filter) [Events](https://www.smoltek.com?filter=events#filter) News ![Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) July 2, 2026 ### [Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares](https://www.smoltek.com/strong-interest-in-smoltek-and-trading-in-smoltek-shares/23859/) Sum­ma­riz­ing the finan­cial news at the break point between June and July shows strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed and Smoltek shares are now avail­able for trad­ing on sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­places in addi­tion to the main list­ing on the Spot­light Stock Mar­ket in Sweden.  IR Blog Posts ![Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-top-image-2.webp) June 29, 2026 ### [Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC](https://www.smoltek.com/why-ultra-thin-capacitors-matter-for-ai-and-hpc/23803/) For many years, the per­for­mance sto­ry in AI and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) was dom­i­nat­ed by tran­sis­tors and mem­o­ry band­width. But as AI accel­er­a­tors move into the kilo­watt era, anoth­er lim­i­ta­tion is becom­ing just as impor­tant: pow­er delivery. IR Blog Posts ![Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/backpack-beard-bench-842912.webp) June 16, 2026 ### [Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-enables-the-next-generation-digital-and-fossil-free-society/23864/) The world needs more com­put­ing pow­er and more fos­sil-free ener­gy. Read about how Smoltek enables the next gen­er­a­tion dig­i­tal and fos­sil-free soci­ety – two glob­al mega­trends that will dom­i­nate indus­try investment.  News ![Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) June 12, 2026 ### [Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-takes-the-next-step-towards-commercialization-carries-out-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million/23790/) Smoltek is fac­ing a cru­cial phase in the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment. After sev­er­al years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and strate­gic part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is now con­duct­ing a rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 mil­lion to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion in two mar­kets with strong struc­tur­al growth: semi­con­duc­tors and green hydrogen. News ![Smoltek strengthens Interposer IP enabling AI chip capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/land-side-capacitors-1-jpg.webp) May 15, 2026 ### [Smoltek strengthens Interposer IP enabling AI chip capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-awarded-an-additional-patent-in-the-interposer-family/23641/) Smoltek has been grant­ed an addi­tion­al patent with­in its Inter­pos­er patent fam­i­ly, fur­ther pro­tect­ing the company’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy for advanced semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing. With this Euro­pean patent approval, the com­pa­ny has secured Inter­pos­er IP in all major glob­al markets. IR Blog Posts ![Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp) May 8, 2026 ### [Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure](https://www.smoltek.com/positioning-for-the-next-wave-of-ai-infrastructure/23610/) The 2026 YAGEO AI Sum­mit in Taipei was not sim­ply a prod­uct show­case. It was a strate­gic posi­tion­ing exer­cise by one of the world’s largest pas­sive com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers to estab­lish itself as a foun­da­tion­al enabler of the AI infra­struc­ture build­out now under­way globally. News ![Power supply in turbulent times – from vulnerability to resilience](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/elektronikmassan-2026-04.webp) April 20, 2026 ### [Power supply in turbulent times – from vulnerability to resilience](https://www.smoltek.com/power-supply-in-turbulent-times-from-vulnerability-to-resilience/23588/) Nanoscale inno­va­tion becomes a strate­gic answer to a sys­temic chal­lenge. Smoltek devel­ops appli­ca­tions to future-proof both com­put­ing pow­er and ener­gy sup­ply. This was the mes­sage at Elek­tron­ikmäss­san 2026 from CEO Mag­nus Andersson. Events ![Elektronikmässan, Göteborg 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/magnus-andersson-1200x675-1.webp) April 10, 2026 ### [Elektronikmässan, Göteborg 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/elektronikmassan-goteborg-2026/23548/) Smoltek is attend­ing Elek­tron­ikmäs­san in Göte­borg, April 16. On the pitch stage, CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son will talk about pow­er sup­ply in tur­bu­lent times—and how nanoscale inno­va­tion becomes a strate­gic answer to a sys­temic challenge. News ![Smoltek appoints Gabriel Altby as CFO](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/gabriel-2000x1125-1.webp) April 9, 2026 ### [Smoltek appoints Gabriel Altby as CFO](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-appoints-gabriel-altby-as-cfo/23545/) Smoltek has appoint­ed Gabriel Alt­by as Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer (CFO). He will assume the posi­tion on April 14, 2026, and will be part of the company’s man­age­ment team with respon­si­bil­i­ty for finan­cial gov­er­nance, report­ing and cap­i­tal mar­ket-relat­ed matters.  News ![Major Capacitor Manufacturer extends life test of CNF-MIM Capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cnf-mim-ai-chip.webp) March 27, 2026 ### [Major Capacitor Manufacturer extends life test of CNF-MIM Capacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/major-capacitor-manufacturer-extends-life-test-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/23511/) Our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy has demon­strat­ed sta­ble elec­tri­cal per­for­mance after 2,000 hours in an inde­pen­dent life test con­duct­ed by a glob­al capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er. This fur­ther strength­ens con­fi­dence in the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the tech­nol­o­gy and sup­ports Smoltek’s devel­op­ment of advanced capac­i­tors for AI, RF and opto­elec­tron­ics, among oth­er applications.  News ![CNF-MIM Capacitors Reliability Validated by Major Capacitor Manufacturer](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-10-jpg.webp) Feb­ru­ary 24, 2026 ### [CNF-MIM Capacitors Reliability Validated by Major Capacitor Manufacturer](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-reliability-validated-by-major-capacitor-manufacturer-duplicate/23490/) An inde­pen­dent, third-par­ty reli­a­bil­i­ty test of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy has con­firmed the reli­a­bil­i­ty results com­mu­ni­cat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2026. The inde­pen­dent val­i­da­tion, per­formed by a major capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er, also reduces tech­ni­cal risk in the com­mer­cial­iza­tion process and strength­ens Smoltek’s cred­i­bil­i­ty in ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions with indus­tri­al partners.  News ![CNF-MIM Capacitors Demonstrate 1,000x Lower Current Leakage in Life Test](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/smoltek-mc2-02-2000x1125-1.webp) Feb­ru­ary 5, 2026 ### [CNF-MIM Capacitors Demonstrate 1,000x Lower Current Leakage in Life Test](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-demonstrate-1000x-lower-current-leakage-in-life-test/21983/) Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors demon­strate excel­lent sta­bil­i­ty in a new 1,000-hour life test at 85°C under applied 2 volts. No degra­da­tions were observed, and the capac­i­tors exhib­it­ed more than 1,000 times low­er cur­rent leak­age com­pared to the pre­vi­ous life test. 1 [2](https://www.smoltek.com?query-11729af2-page=2) … [24](https://www.smoltek.com?query-11729af2-page=24) [Next »](https://www.smoltek.com/news.md?query-11729af2-page=2) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#newsletter-archive)Newsletter archive Want to take a look at pre­vi­ous newslet­ters? Here are the ten most recent ones. As you can see, we don’t exact­ly spam our sub­scribers’ inbox­es. Old­er issues can be found in our [newslet­ter archive](https://us13.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=f6accdebe71790a1661e12dd2&id=bf6517fa3e). - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sum­mer 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1bc58ab3475a/smoltek-newsletter-summer-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, April 2026](https://mailchi.mp/5f285aaa40c2/smoltek-newsletter-april-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Feb­ru­ary 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1b18cb71b078/smoltek-newsletter-february-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Decem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/17ee18afc3cb/smoltek-newsletter-december-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Novem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/2fb5f414cd18/smoltek-newsletter-november-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/7698bad4a012/smoltek-newsletter-october-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/388fff630937/smoltek-newsletter-september-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, August 2025](https://mailchi.mp/81f966bd206c/smoltek-newsletter-august-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, June 2025](https://mailchi.mp/0b35ff341742/smoltek-newsletter-june-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, May 2025](https://mailchi.mp/768d7fa5f15b/smoltek-newsletter-may-2025) --- title: "Investor relations" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/" date: 2023-03-20 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Investor relations Investor rela­tions # Smoltek is making space for the next technology leap Wel­come to invest in an inno­v­a­tive com­pa­ny list­ed on Spot­light Stock Market. Our pur­pose is to con­tribute to bet­ter per­form­ing appli­ca­tions and devices that makes com­mu­ni­ca­tion faster and life more sustainable. We enable the next tech­nol­o­gy leap in the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­try by devel­op­ing new mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing solu­tions for next-gen capac­i­tors and electrolyzers. ### **English** Infor­ma­tion in English [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/) ### Swedish Infor­ma­tion på svenska [Läs mer](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/) ### Perspectives Investor blog posts on tech and business [View posts](https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts/) --- title: "About" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/about/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-0000s-0009-grupp-1-jpg.webp" --- # About Smoltek takes the next step towards com­mer­cial­iza­tion – car­ries out rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 million # Smoltek is facing a crucial phase in the company’s development. After several years of technology development and strategic partnerships, the company is now conducting a rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million to accelerate commercialization in two markets with strong structural growth: semiconductors and green hydrogen. ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) Smoltek is a pub­lic deep tech start­up in Gothen­burg, Swe­den pio­neer­ing car­bon nanotechnology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#this-is-smoltek)This is Smoltek Smoltek is devel­op­ing process tech­nol­o­gy and con­cepts for appli­ca­tions based on con­duc­tive car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy and, togeth­er with our pro­duc­tion part­ners, we are push­ing the lim­its of what is pos­si­ble in the advanced semi­con­duc­tor, elec­tro­chem­i­cal and green hydro­gen industries.  Our pri­ma­ry focus is **grow­ing and con­fig­ur­ing car­bon nanofibers (CNF)**, which have extreme­ly excit­ing prop­er­ties, to solve mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing chal­lenges. We have devel­oped a patent-pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form that could rev­o­lu­tion­ize tech­ni­cal solu­tions where today’s mate­ri­als have reached their per­for­mance limits. For exam­ple, we are devel­op­ing **ultra-thin high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors (CNF-MIM)** for advanced semi­con­duc­tor chips that offer excel­lent pow­er man­age­ment and ener­gy effi­cien­cy for AI, HPC and edge-com­put­ing in an extreme­ly min­i­mized form fac­tor, at com­pet­i­tive cost. We are also devel­op­ing **a rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing new porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE)** that can reduce the use of extreme­ly expen­sive irid­i­um cat­a­lysts in PEM (Pro­ton-exchange mem­brane) water-elec­trolyz­ers by 80–95 per­cent! In addi­tion; the PTE also increas­es cat­a­lyst activ­i­ty, reduces con­tact resis­tance – and it can triple the area effi­cien­cy in the elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanotechnology)Carbon nanotechnology Smoltek’s patent-pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form enables **con­trolled growth of pre­cise­ly local­ized and defined con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures**, as indi­vid­ual fibers or clus­ters, in pre­de­fined pat­terns or films. This is done through cat­alyt­ic growth pro­cess­ing, with mate­ri­als and process con­di­tions com­pat­i­ble with indus­tri­al requirements. We devel­op tech­nolo­gies to **indus­tri­al­ly man­u­fac­ture car­bon nanos­truc­tures** with high pre­ci­sion and desired prop­er­ties on all imag­in­able mate­ri­als. This is our core tech­nol­o­gy, and it is called SmolGROW™.  Partners/​Customers can license the core tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate solu­tions tai­lored to their unique needs and require­ments. Or, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with indus­try part­ners, we devel­op unique appli­ca­tions and prod­ucts that offer a new solu­tions to mar­ket needs. Cur­rent­ly, we have a num­ber of strate­gic devel­op­ment part­ners in our tar­get indus­tries – semi­con­duc­tors and hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-passion-that-never-fades)A passion that never fades We are **sci­en­tists and engi­neers at heart, with a pas­sion for nan­otech­nol­o­gy**. We are in the nev­er-end­ing search of how to enhance and fab­ri­cate car­bon nanos­truc­tures with unique prop­er­ties in pre­de­fined pat­terns to enable bet­ter solu­tions with­in sev­er­al indus­tries. This does not mean that we lack a deep­er pur­pose for what we do. On the con­trary, we do what we do to enable dis­rup­tive solu­tions in sev­er­al areas that are impor­tant to human­i­ty – where con­ven­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy is reach­ing its limits. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#patents-and-know-how-are-our-livelihood)Patents and know-how are our livelihood Smoltek spun out of Dr. Shafiq Kabir’s research on man­u­fac­tur­ing meth­ods of, **con­trolled growth of con­duc­tive car­bon nanos­truc­tures** with desired prop­er­ties on dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als. Smoltek’s research and devel­op­ment team has since car­ried this research for­ward, made ground­break­ing inno­va­tions, and devel­oped sev­er­al solu­tions for var­i­ous appli­ca­tion areas. This ded­i­cat­ed work has so far result­ed in over 100 grant­ed and pend­ing patents worldwide. For Smoltek, the patents are cru­cial as we inno­vate to offer tech­nol­o­gy and know-how to com­pa­nies strug­gling with mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing lim­i­ta­tions. With our patents, we can recoup the sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments in research and devel­op­ment of new mate­r­i­al tech­nolo­gies, and in the future pay­ing div­i­dends to those who make these invest­ments possible. Our know-how and patents form the intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal upon which our busi­ness mod­el is built. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#vision)Vision We aim to be **a glob­al­ly lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment part­ner** and sup­pli­er of rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing solu­tions for advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing chal­lenges with­in indus­tries where the need for new dis­rup­tive tech­nolo­gies is sought for.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mission)Mission We devel­op nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies t**o solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems**. This enables man­u­fac­tur­ing small­er and bet­ter micro­elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and dis­rup­tive mate­ri­als solu­tions to meet today’s and tomorrow’s mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing challenges. ### Milestones Our major milestones [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/about/history/) ### Organization Our orga­ni­za­tion [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/about/organization/) ### Board of Directors Meet the board of directors [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/about/board/) ### Management Meet our senior executives [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/about/management/) ### Career Work for us [Read more](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/) ### Terminology Look up terms we use [Look up](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/) --- title: "Årsstämma 2023" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/arsstamma-2023/" date: 2023-04-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/adobestock-175466970-jpg.webp" --- # Årsstämma 2023 ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million Smoltek is fac­ing a cru­cial phase in the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment. After sev­er­al years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and strate­gic part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is now con­duct­ing a rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 mil­lion to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion in two mar­kets with strong struc­tur­al growth: semi­con­duc­tors and green hydrogen. Aktieä­gare, som önskar delta vid årsstäm­man, ska - dels vara införd i den av Euro­clear Swe­den AB för­da aktiebo­ken per 3 maj 2023, alter­na­tivt, om aktier­na är för­valt­ningsreg­istr­erade, begära att för­valtaren rösträttsreg­istr­erar aktier­na senast 5 maj 2022 - dels ha anmält sitt delt­a­gande per brev till Smoltek, Otter­häl­le­gatan 1, 411 18 Göte­borg, eller via e‑post till [agm@www.smoltek.com](mailto:agm@www.smoltek.com), senast 5 maj 2023 - Vid anmälan ska namn, per­son- eller organ­i­sa­tion­snum­mer, adress, tele­fon­num­mer, aktuellt aktiein­nehav i SNH samt antal eventuel­la biträ­den anges. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#forslag-till-dagordning-11-maj-2023)Förslag till dagordning, 11 maj 2023 1\. Stäm­man öppnas; 2\. Val av ord­förande vid stämman; 3\. Upprät­tande och god­kän­nande av röstlängd; 4\. Val av en eller två justeringspersoner; 5\. Prövn­ing om stäm­man bliv­it behöri­gen sammankallad; 6\. God­kän­nande av dagordning; 7\. Anförande av verk­stäl­lande direktören; 8\. Fram­läg­gande av årsre­dovis­ning och revi­sions­berät­telse samt kon­cernre­dovis­ning och koncernrevisionsberättelse; 9\. Beslut om: (a) fast­stäl­lande av resul­tat- och bal­an­sräkn­ing samt kon­cern­re­sul­ta­träkn­ing och koncernbalansräkning; (b) dis­po­si­tion­er beträf­fande bolagets vinst eller för­lust enligt den fast­ställ­da balans¬räkningen; © ans­vars­fri­het för styrelseledamöter och verk­stäl­lande direktör; 10\. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av antalet styrelseledamöter; 11\. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av arvo­den till styrelseledamöter och revisorer; 12\. Val av styrelse; 13\. Val av styrelsens ordförande; 14\. Val av revisor; 15\. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av principer för valberedningen; 16\. Beslut om bemyn­di­gande för styrelsen att fat­ta beslut om emis­sion av akti­er och/​eller teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er och/​eller konvertibler; 17\. Beslut om justeringsbemyndigande, 18\. Stäm­mans avslutande. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#valberedningens-forslag-till-ny-styrelseordforande-och-styrelseledamot)Valberedningens förslag till ny styrelseordförande och styrelseledamot Till årets stäm­ma kom­mer val­bered­nin­gen nomin­era en ny styrelse­ord­förande för att ersät­ta Peter Augusts­son och en ny styrelseledamot för att ersät­ta Finn Gram­naes, vil­ka båda har tack­at nej till omval. Infor­ma­tion om det­ta kom­mer offentlig­göras i sep­a­rat pressmeddelande. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#handlingar-formular-och-nodvandiga-lankar-till-arsstamman)Handlingar, formulär och nödvändiga länkar till årsstämman ### Pressmeddelanden [Kallelse](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/kallelse-till-arsstamma-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab--publ-,c3749008) Val­bered­nin­gens förslag till ny styrelse­ord­förande (TBD) ### Bilagor [Full­mak­ts­for­mulär](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/snh-fullmaktsformular-agm-2023-05-11.pdf) [Årsre­dovis­ning 2022](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/snh-ar-2022-final-secure.pdf) [Revi­sions­berät­telse](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/revisionsberattelse-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-2022-01-01-2022-12-31-kopia.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#styrelsen-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-publ)Styrelsen i Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB (publ) ![Portrait of Peter Augustsson](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/snh-board-2022-peter-500x500-1.jpg "SNH Board 2022 Peter 500x500") ### Peter Augustsson #### **Ordförande** Peter Augusts­son har en civilin­gen­jör­sex­a­m­en inom mask­in­teknik från Chalmers Tekniska Högsko­la. Han har över 40 års erfaren­het från fordons‑, teknik- och kom­po­nent­bo­lag, bland annat med ledande befat­tningar inom Vol­vo Per­son­va­gnar samt som vd för SKF och Saab Automobile. Aktiein­nehav: 94 321 via ägarbolag Option­er: 80 000 ![Portrait of Finn Gramnaes](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/snh-board-2022-finn-500x500-1.jpg "SNH Board 2022 Finn 500x500") ### Finn Gramnaes #### **Ledamot** Finn Gram­naes är utbil­dad inom mask­in­teknik och har stor erfaren-het av att byg­ga före­tag i Sverige och USA, inom flera teknikom­rå­den. Han är bl a vd för utveck­lings­bo­laget Gramtec Inno­va­tion och invest­ment­bo­laget Gramtec Busi­ness Partner. Aktiein­nehav: 20 785 och 1 871 184 via ägarbolag Option­er: 80 000 ![Portrait of Edvard Kvälesten](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/snh-board-2022-edvard-500x500-1.jpg "SNH Board 2022 Edvard 500x500") ### Edvard Kälvesten #### **Ledamot** Edvard Kälvesten har en PhD inom mikroelek­trokemiska sys­tem från Kung­li­ga Tekniska Högskolan i Stock­holm. Han besit­ter djup kun­skap inom Smolteks affär­som­råde som rik­tar sig till halvledar- indus­trin och har mångårig erfaren­het av bolags­byg­gande. Han är vd och grun­dare av Silex Microsys­tems som idag omsät­ter över en mil­jard kronor. Aktiein­nehav: 0 Option­er: 30 000 ![Portrait of Per Zellman](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/snh-board-2022-per-500x500-1.jpg "SNH Board 2022 Per 500x500") ### Per Zellman #### **Ledamot** Per är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör från KTH samt har en Exec­u­tive MBA-exa­m­en från Lunds uni­ver­sitet. Per Zell­man har mångårig erfaren­het inom bolags­byg­gande och kom­mer­sialis­er­ing från bland annat halvledarindus­trin. Tidi­gare styrelseer­faren­het från bland annat Nors­tel AB, Asca­tron AB samt Acosense AB. Aktiein­nehav: 6 000 Option­er: 10 000 ![Portrait of Gustav Brismark](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/snh-board-2022-gustav-500x500-1.jpg "SNH Board 2022 Gustav 500x500") ### Gustav Brismark #### **Ledamot** Gus­tav Bris­mark är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör inom teknisk fysik vid Upp­sala uni­ver­sitet. Han har över 30 års erfaren­het av teknikutveck­ling, patent- och licen­sier­ings­frå­gor samt kom­mer­sialis­er­ing av ny teknik. Gus­tav kom­mer senast från Eric­s­son, där han var chef för bolagets glob­ala patent- licensieringsaffär. Aktiein­nehav: 3 409 och 2 724 via ägarbolag Option­er: 40 300 --- title: "Årsstämma 2024" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/arsstamma-2024/" date: 2024-04-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/adobestock-175466970-jpg.webp" --- # Årsstämma 2024 ![Manhattan bridge in sunset](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) # Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares Sum­ma­riz­ing the finan­cial news at the break point between June and July shows strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed and Smoltek shares are now avail­able for trad­ing on sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­places in addi­tion to the main list­ing on the Spot­light Stock Mar­ket in Sweden.  Aktieä­gare, som önskar delta vid årsstäm­man, ska - dels vara införd i den av Euro­clear Swe­den AB för­da aktiebo­ken per 3 maj 2024, alter­na­tivt, om aktier­na är för­valt­ningsreg­istr­erade, begära att för­valtaren rösträttsreg­istr­erar aktier­na senast 5 maj 2024 - dels ha anmält sitt delt­a­gande per brev till Smoltek, Otter­häl­le­gatan 1, 411 18 Göte­borg, eller via e‑post till [agm@smoltek.com](mailto:agm@smoltek.com), senast 7 maj 2024 - Vid anmälan ska namn, per­son- eller organ­i­sa­tion­snum­mer, adress, tele­fon­num­mer, aktuellt aktiein­nehav i Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB samt antal eventuel­la biträ­den anges. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#forslag-till-dagordning-14-maj-2024)Förslag till dagordning, 14 maj 2024 1\. Stäm­man öppnas; 2\. Val av ord­förande vid stämman; 3\. Upprät­tande och god­kän­nande av röstlängd; 4\. Val av en eller två justeringspersoner; 5\. Prövn­ing om stäm­man bliv­it behöri­gen sammankallad; 6\. God­kän­nande av dagordning; 7\. Anförande av verk­stäl­lande direktören; 8\. Fram­läg­gande av årsre­dovis­ning och revi­sions­berät­telse samt kon­cernre­dovis­ning och koncernrevisionsberättelse; 9\. Beslut om: (a) fast­stäl­lande av resul­tat- och bal­an­sräkn­ing samt kon­cern­re­sul­ta­träkn­ing och koncernbalansräkning; (b) dis­po­si­tion­er beträf­fande bolagets vinst eller för­lust enligt den fast­ställ­da balansräkningen; (c ) ans­vars­fri­het för styrelseledamöter och verk­stäl­lande direktör; 10\. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av antalet styrelseledamöter; 11\. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av arvo­den till styrelseledamöter och revisorer; 12\. Val av styrelse; 13\. Val av styrelsens ordförande; 14\. Val av revisor; 15\. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av principer för valberedningen; 16\. Beslut om anta­gande av ny bolagsordning;  17\. Beslut om bemyn­di­gande för styrelsen att fat­ta beslut om emis­sion av akti­er och/​eller teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er och/​eller konvertibler; 18\. Beslut om justeringsbemyndigande, 19\. Stäm­mans avslutande. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#valberedningens-forslag-till-ny-styrelseordforande-och-styrelseledamot)Valberedningens förslag till ny styrelseordförande och styrelseledamot Till årets stäm­ma kom­mer val­bered­nin­gen nomin­era Per Zell­man för omval som styrelse­ord­förande och David Gram­naes som ny styrelseledamot för att ersät­ta Edvard Kalvesten och Marie Land­fors, vil­ka båda har tack­at nej till omval. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#handlingar-formular-och-nodvandiga-lankar-till-arsstamman)Handlingar, formulär och nödvändiga länkar till årsstämman ### Bilagor [Kallelse](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/kallelse-till-arsstamma-i-smoltek-2024-final-justerad-240510.pdf) [Full­mak­ts­for­mu­lar](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/snh-fullmaktsformular-egm-2024-05-14.pdf) [SNH årsre­dovis­ning 2023](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/snh-ar-2023.pdf) [Revi­sions­berät­telse](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/revisionsberattelse-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-2023-01-01-2023-12-31-1pades-1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#styrelsen-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-publ)Styrelsen i Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB (publ) ![Pz Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pz-portrait-01-jpg.webp "PZ_portrait_01") ### Per Zellman #### **Ordförande** Per är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör från KTH samt har en Exec­u­tive MBA-exa­m­en från Lunds uni­ver­sitet. Per Zell­man har mångårig erfaren­het inom bolags­byg­gande och kom­mer­sialis­er­ing från bland annat halvledarindus­trin. Tidi­gare styrelseer­faren­het från bland annat Nors­tel AB, Asca­tron AB samt Acosense AB. Aktiein­nehav: 9 000 Option­er: 11 000 ![Gb Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/gb-portrait-01-jpg.webp "GB_portrait_01") ### Gustav Brismark #### **Ledamot** Gus­tav Bris­mark är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör inom teknisk fysik vid Upp­sala uni­ver­sitet. Han har över 30 års erfaren­het av teknikutveck­ling, patent- och licen­sier­ings­frå­gor samt kom­mer­sialis­er­ing av ny teknik. Gus­tav kom­mer senast från Eric­s­son, där han var chef för bolagets glob­ala patentli­cen­sier­ingsaf­fär. Aktiein­nehav: 7 495 via ägar­bo­lag Option­er: 50 832 ![Ek Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ek-portrait-01-jpg.webp "EK_portrait_01") ### Edvard Kälvesten #### **Ledamot** Edvard Kälvesten har en PhD inom mikroelek­trokemiska sys­tem från Kung­li­ga Tekniska Högskolan i Stock­holm. Han besit­ter djup kun­skap inom Smolteks affär­som­råde som rik­tar sig till halvledar- indus­trin och har mångårig erfaren­het av bolags­byg­gande. Han är vd och grun­dare av Silex Microsys­tems som idag omsät­ter över en mil­jard kro­nor. Aktiein­nehav: - Option­er: 30 000 ![Ml Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ml-portrait-01-jpg.webp "ML_portrait_01") ### Marie Landfors #### **Ledamot** Marie Land­fors har en civilin­gen­jör­sex­a­m­en i kemiteknik från Kung­li­ga Tekniska Högskolan i Stock­holm. Hon har lång erfaren­het av affär­sutveck­ling och strate­giska förän­dringar i oli­ka indus­triföre­tag, främst inom pro­cessin­dus­trin. Marie arbe­tar som tillförord­nad vd och styrelse­proffs i teknikbaser­ade före­tag. Aktiein­nehav: – Option­er: - ![Er Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/er-portrait-01-jpg.webp "ER_portrait_01") ### Emma Rönnmark #### **Ledamot** Emma Rön­n­mark har en civilekonomex­a­m­en från Han­delshög-skolan i Göte­borg. Hon har bred erfaren­het från oli­ka chefs-befat­tningar där hon har dri­vit förän­dring och trans­for­ma­tion inom indus­tri- och ener­gisek­torn. För när­varande är hon CFO för Liq­uid Wind, ett utveck­lings­före­tag för elek­tro­bränslean­läg­gningar. Emma är cer­ti­fier­ad styrelseledamot med upp­drag i min­dre före­tag. Aktiein­nehav: 5 000 Option­er: 555 --- title: "Årsstämma 2025" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/arsstamma-2025/" date: 2025-04-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/adobestock-175466970-jpg.webp" --- # Årsstämma 2025 ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million Smoltek is fac­ing a cru­cial phase in the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment. After sev­er­al years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and strate­gic part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is now con­duct­ing a rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 mil­lion to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion in two mar­kets with strong struc­tur­al growth: semi­con­duc­tors and green hydrogen. Aktieä­gare, som önskar delta vid årsstäm­man, ska - dels vara införd i den av Euro­clear Swe­den AB för­da aktiebo­ken per 6 maj 2025, alter­na­tivt, om aktier­na är för­valt­ningsreg­istr­erade, begära att för­valtaren rösträttsreg­istr­erar aktier­na senast 8 maj 2025 - dels ha anmält sitt delt­a­gande per brev till Smoltek, Otter­häl­le­gatan 1, 411 18 Göte­borg (märk kuvertet “Årsstäm­ma 2025”), eller via e‑post till [agm@smoltek.com](mailto:agm@smoltek.com), senast 8 maj 2025 - Vid anmälan ska namn, per­son- eller organ­i­sa­tion­snum­mer, adress, tele­fon­num­mer, aktuellt aktiein­nehav i Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB samt antal eventuel­la biträ­den anges. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#forslag-till-dagordning-14-maj-2025-uppdaterad-2025-05-05)Förslag till dagordning, 14 maj 2025 ***(uppdaterad 2025-05-05)*** 01. Stäm­man öppnas; 02. Val av ord­förande vid stämman; 03. Upprät­tande och god­kän­nande av röstlängd; 04. Val av en eller två justeringspersoner; 05. Prövn­ing om stäm­man bliv­it behöri­gen sammankallad; 06. God­kän­nande av dagordning; 07. Anförande av verk­stäl­lande direktören; 08. Fram­läg­gande av årsre­dovis­ning och revi­sions­berät­telse samt kon­cernre­dovis­ning och koncernrevisionsberättelse; 09. Beslut om: - \[a] fast­stäl­lande av resul­tat- och bal­an­sräkn­ing samt kon­cern­re­sul­ta­träkn­ing och koncernbalansräkning; - \[b] dis­po­si­tion­er beträf­fande bolagets vinst eller för­lust enligt den fast­ställ­da balans¬räkningen; - \[c] ans­vars­fri­het för styrelseledamöter och verk­stäl­lande direktör; 10. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av antalet styrelseledamöter och, i förekom­mande fall, styrelsesuppleanter; 11. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av arvo­den till styrelseledamöter och revisorer; 12. Val av styrelse *(Nyval av Johan Rask som styrelseledamot, Omval av Gus­tav Bris­mark, David Gram­naes och Emma Rön­n­mark som styrelseledamöter)*; 13. Val av styrelsens ord­förande *(Nyval av Oskar Säf­ström som styrelse­ord­förande)*; 14. Val av revi­sor och eventuel­la styrelsesuppleanter; 15. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av principer för valberedningen; 16. Beslut om bemyn­di­gande för styrelsen att fat­ta beslut om emis­sion av akti­er och/​eller teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er och/​eller konvertibler; 17. Beslut om justeringsbemyndigande; 18. Stäm­mans avslutande. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bilagor)Bilagor [Kallelse till årsstäm­ma 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/smoltek-kallelse-till-arsstamma-2025.pdf) [Full­mak­ts­for­mulär årsstäm­ma 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/fullmaktsformular-arsstamma-2025-smoltek.pdf) [Smoltek årsre­dovis­ning 2024, inkl revi­sions­berät­telse (sid. 41–42)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/snh-ar-2024.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#styrelsen-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-publ)Styrelsen i Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB (publ) ![Pz Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pz-portrait-01-jpg.webp "PZ_portrait_01") ### Per Zellman #### **Ordförande** Per är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör från KTH samt har en Exec­u­tive MBA-exa­m­en från Lunds uni­ver­sitet. Per Zell­man har mångårig erfaren­het inom bolags­byg­gande och kom­mer­sialis­er­ing från bland annat halvledarindus­trin. Tidi­gare styrelseer­faren­het från bland annat Nors­tel AB, Asca­tron AB samt Acosense AB. Aktiein­nehav: 495 445 Option­er: 10 000 ![Gb Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/gb-portrait-01-jpg.webp "GB_portrait_01") ### Gustav Brismark #### **Ledamot** Gus­tav Bris­mark är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör inom teknisk fysik vid Upp­sala uni­ver­sitet. Han har över 30 års erfaren­het av teknikutveck­ling, patent- och licen­sier­ings­frå­gor samt kom­mer­sialis­er­ing av ny teknik. Gus­tav kom­mer senast från Eric­s­son, där han var chef för bolagets glob­ala patentli­cen­sier­ingsaf­fär. Aktiein­nehav: 173 230 via ägar­bo­lag Option­er: 30 000 ![David Gramnaes Snh Board 2024 05 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/david-gramnaes-snh-board-2024-05-01.webp "David Gramnaes_SNH Board 2024-05 01") ### David Gramnaes #### **Ledamot** David Gram­naes är civilin­gen­jör i mjuk­varuteknik från Blekinge tekniska högsko­la och är för när­varande vd för Gramtec Ven­ture AB, ett dot­ter­bo­lag till Gramtec Busi­ness Part­ner AB. David har lång erfaren­het av både styrelsear­bete och affär­sutveck­ling i teknik­tun­ga star­tup­bo­lag och har en lång rela­tion med Smoltek. David är cer­ti­fier­ad styrelseledamot med flera styrelse­up­p­drag i min­dre före­tag. Aktiein­nehav: 284 426 Option­er: - ![Er Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/er-portrait-01-jpg.webp "ER_portrait_01") ### Emma Rönnmark #### **Ledamot** Emma Rön­n­mark har en civilekonomex­a­m­en från Han­delshög-skolan i Göte­borg. Hon har bred erfaren­het från oli­ka chefs-befat­tningar där hon har dri­vit förän­dring och trans­for­ma­tion inom indus­tri- och ener­gisek­torn. För när­varande är hon CFO för Liq­uid Wind, ett utveck­lings­före­tag för elek­tro­bränslean­läg­gningar. Emma är cer­ti­fier­ad styrelseledamot med upp­drag i min­dre före­tag. Aktiein­nehav: 5 000 Option­er: – --- title: "Årsstämma 2026" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/arsstamma-2026/" date: 2026-04-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/adobestock-175466970-jpg.webp" --- # Årsstämma 2026 ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million Smoltek is fac­ing a cru­cial phase in the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment. After sev­er­al years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and strate­gic part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is now con­duct­ing a rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 mil­lion to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion in two mar­kets with strong struc­tur­al growth: semi­con­duc­tors and green hydrogen. Aktieä­gare, som önskar delta vid årsstäm­man, ska - dels vara införd i den av Euro­clear Swe­den AB för­da aktiebo­ken per 4 maj 2026, alter­na­tivt, om aktier­na är för­valt­ningsreg­istr­erade, begära att för­valtaren rösträttsreg­istr­erar aktier­na senast 6 maj 2026 - dels ha anmält sitt delt­a­gande per brev till Smoltek, Otter­häl­le­gatan 1, 411 18 Göte­borg (märk kuvertet “Årsstäm­ma 2026”), eller via e‑post till [agm@smoltek.com](mailto:agm@smoltek.com), senast 8 maj 2026 - Vid anmälan ska namn, per­son- eller organ­i­sa­tion­snum­mer, adress, tele­fon­num­mer, aktuellt aktiein­nehav i Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB samt antal eventuel­la biträ­den anges. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#forslag-till-dagordning-12-maj-2026)Förslag till dagordning, 12 maj 2026 01. Stäm­mans öppnande 02. Val av ord­förande vid stämman 03. Upprät­tande och god­kän­nande av röstlängd 04. Val av en eller två justeringspersoner 05. Prövn­ing av om stäm­man bliv­it behöri­gen sammankallad 06. God­kän­nande av dagordning 07. Anförande av verk­stäl­lande direktören 08. Fram­läg­gande av årsre­dovis­nin­gen och revi­sions­berät­telsen samt kon­cernre­dovis­nin­gen och koncernrevisionsberättelsen 09. Beslut om: a) fast­stäl­lelse av resul­ta­träknin­gen och bal­an­sräknin­gen samt av kon­cern­re­sul­ta­träknin­gen och kon­cern­bal­an­sräknin­gen b) dis­po­si­tion­er av Bolagets resul­tat enligt den fast­ställ­da bal­an­sräknin­gen c) ans­vars­fri­het för styrelseledamöter­na och verk­stäl­lande direktören 10. Beslut om antalet styrelseledamöter 11. Fast­stäl­lelse av styrelse- och revisorsarvoden 12. Val av styrelseledamöter och ordförande 13. Val av revisor 14. Beslut om fast­stäl­lande av principer för valberedningen 15. Beslut om ändring av bolagsordningen 16. Beslut om emissionsbemyndigande 17. Stäm­mans avslutande ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bilagor)Bilagor [Smoltek kallelse årsstäm­ma 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/smoltek-agm-kallelse-2026.pdf) [Fullmaktsformulär årsstämma 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/smoltek-fullmaktsformular-arsstamma-2026.pdf) [Styrelsens förslag till ny bolagsordning](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/smoltek-styrelsens-forslag-till-ny-bolagsordning-2026.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#styrelsen-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-publ)Styrelsen i Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB (publ) ![Oskar säfström 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/oskar-safstrom-1000x1300-1.webp "Oskar Säfström 1000x1300") ### Oskar Säfström #### **Ordförande** Oskar Säf­ström, BA (Hons) Busi­ness, Dublin Busi­ness School, är en entre­prenör och invester­are med gedi­gen erfaren­het av att utveck­la tillväxt- och teknikbo­lag. Han är idag styrelseledamot i flera före­tag verk­sam­ma inom IT, telekom, säk­er­het och fastigheter, samt sedan 2017 styrelse­ord­förande i Infra­Com Group AB, noter­at på NGM Nordic SME. Aktiein­nehav: 8 716 631 via ägar­bo­lag Kon­vert­ibler: Kon­vert­ibler 2025 /​ 2027 om nominellt 5 MSEK ![Gb Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/gb-portrait-01-jpg.webp "GB_portrait_01") ### Gustav Brismark #### **Ledamot** Gus­tav är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör inom teknisk fysik vid Upp­sala uni­ver­sitet. Han har över 30 års erfaren­het av teknikutveck­ling, patent- och licen­sier­ings­frå­gor samt kom­mer­sialis­er­ing av ny teknik. Gus­tav kom­mer senast från Eric­s­son, där han var chef för bolagets glob­ala patentli­cen­sier­ingsaf­fär. Aktiein­nehav: 506 574 via ägar­bo­lag Option­er: - ![David Gramnaes Snh Board 2024 05 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/david-gramnaes-snh-board-2024-05-01.webp "David Gramnaes_SNH Board 2024-05 01") ### David Gramnaes #### **Ledamot** David har en mag­is­terex­a­m­en inom pro­gram­varuteknik från Blekinge tekniska högsko­la och är idag vd för Gramtec Ven­ture, ett dot­ter­bo­lag till Gramtec Busi­ness Part­ner. Han är även delä­gare och styrelseledamot i Gramtec Invest samt styrelseledamot i Gramtec Busi­ness Part­ner. David är cer­ti­fier­ad styrelseledamot med flera styrelse­up­p­drag i teknik­tun­ga start­up-bolag. Aktiein­nehav: 329 258 Option­er: - ![Er Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/er-portrait-01-jpg.webp "ER_portrait_01") ### Emma Rönnmark #### **Ledamot** Emma har en civilekonomex­a­m­en från Han­delshögskolan i Göte­borg. Hon har bred erfaren­het från oli­ka chefs­be­fat­tningar där hon har dri­vit förän­dring och trans­for­ma­tion inom indus­tri- och ener­gisek­torn. För när­varande är hon CFO för Liq­uid Wind, ett utveck­lings­före­tag för elek­tro-bränslean­läg­gningar. Emma är cer­ti­fier­ad styrelseledamot med upp­drag i min­dre före­tag. Aktiein­nehav: 88 333 Option­er: - ![Johan rask 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/johan-rask-1000x1300-1.webp "Johan Rask 1000x1300") ### Johan Rask #### **Ledamot** Johan har en civilin­gen­jör­sex­a­m­en i indus­triell ekono­mi från Chalmers tekniska högsko­la och är idag vd för Gomero Group. Johan har arbe­tat inom Ven­ture Cap­i­tal, som M&A‑ansvarig på Mölnly­cke Health­care och affär­som­råde­sans­varig på Abi­go (numera Essi­ty) och var tidi­gare vd för Insplo­ri­on. Han har flera styrelse­up­p­drag och var tidi­gare styrelse­ord­förande i Gomero Group. Aktiein­nehav: - Option­er: - --- title: "Contact" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/contact/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/pixaby-pasi-mammela-1785139-jpg.webp" --- # Contact Smoltek takes the next step towards com­mer­cial­iza­tion – car­ries out rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 million # Smoltek is facing a crucial phase in the company’s development. After several years of technology development and strategic partnerships, the company is now conducting a rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million to accelerate commercialization in two markets with strong structural growth: semiconductors and green hydrogen. ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) To get the rel­e­vant con­tact infor­ma­tion, please click on the box that best match­es the sec­tor in which you work. ### Semiconductors For you work­ing in the semi­con­duc­tor industry  [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/contact/semiconductor/) ### Hydrogen For you work­ing in the green hydro­gen industry  [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/contact/hydrogen/) ### Investors For share­hold­ers and investors [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/contact/investor/) ### Career For you inter­est­ed in join­ing our team [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/) --- title: "Extra bolagsstämma 2025" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/extra-bolagsstamma-2025/" date: 2024-12-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/adobestock-175466970-jpg.webp" --- # Extra bolagsstämma 2025 ![Manhattan bridge in sunset](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) # Extra bolagsstämma 2025 Aktieä­gar­na i Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB (publ), org.nr 559020–2262 (”Bolaget”), kallas härmed till extra bolagsstäm­ma tis­da­gen den 15 juli 2025 kl. 10.00 i MAQS Advokat­byrås lokaler på Mas­thamns­gatan 13 i Göte­borg. Stäm­molokalen öpp­nas kl. 9.30 för inreg­istrering. Reg­istrering av delt­a­gande vid stäm­man avbryts när stäm­man öppnar. Aktieä­gare, som önskar delta vid årsstäm­man, ska - dels vara införd i den av Euro­clear Swe­den AB för­da aktiebo­ken per månda­gen den 7 juli 2025, och, om aktier­na är för­valt­ningsreg­istr­erade, begära att för­valtaren rösträttsreg­istr­erar aktier­na senast ons­da­gen den 9 juli 2025, samt - dels ha anmält sitt delt­a­gande per brev till adressen Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, c/​o MAQS Advokat­byrå AB, Box 11918, 404 39 Göte­borg (märk kuvertet ”EBS 2025”) eller via e‑post till adrian.kokk@maqs.com, senast ons­da­gen den 9 juli 2025. - Vid anmälan ska namn, per­son- eller organ­i­sa­tion­snum­mer, adress, tele­fon­num­mer, aktuellt aktiein­nehav i Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB samt antal eventuel­la biträ­den (högst två) anges. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#forslag-till-dagordning-15-juli-2025)Förslag till dagordning, 15 juli 2025 1. Stäm­man öppnas; 2. Val av ord­förande vid stämman; 3. Upprät­tande och god­kän­nande av röstlängd; 4. Val av en eller två justeringspersoner; 5. Prövn­ing om stäm­man bliv­it behöri­gen sammankallad; 6. God­kän­nande av dagordning; 7. Beslut om god­kän­nande av styrelsens beslut om rik­tad nye­mis­sion av akti­er mot betal­ning genom kvittning; 8. Beslut om justeringsbemyndigande; 9. Stäm­mans avslutande. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bilagor)Bilagor [Kallelse till extra bolagsstämma](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/kallelse-till-extra-bolagsstamma-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab,c4169418) [Smoltek – Full­mak­ts­for­mulär EGM 15 juli 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-fullmaktsformular-egm-15-juli-2025.pdf) [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB – styrelsens redogörelse för kvittning](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-styrelsens-redogorelse-for-kvittning.pdf) [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB – Revi­sorns yttrande över kvittning](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-revisorns-yttrande-over-kvittning.pdf) [Smoltek Nan­otech Holdin AB – styrelsens redogörelse för väsentli­ga händelser](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-nanotech-holdin-ab-styrelsens-redogorelse-for-vasentliga-handelser.pdf) [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB – Revi­sorns yttrande över väsentli­ga händelser](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-revisorns-yttrande-over-vasentliga-handelser.pdf) * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#styrelsen-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-publ)Styrelsen i Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB (publ) ![Oskar säfström 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/oskar-safstrom-1000x1300-1.webp "Oskar Säfström 1000x1300") ### Oskar Säfström #### **Ordförande** Oskar Säf­ström har en kan­di­da­tex­a­m­en i före­tagsekono­mi från Dublin Busi­ness School och är entre­prenör och invester­are med omfat­tande erfaren­het av före­tags­fi­nan­sier­ing och bolagsstyrn­ing samt av att utveck­la tillväxt- och teknikföre­tag. Han är för när­varande styrelseledamot i flera före­tag verk­sam­ma inom IT, telekom, säk­er­het och fastigheter, och sedan 2017 styrelse­ord­förande för Infra­Com Group AB, noter­at på NGM Nordic SME. Aktiein­nehav: 2 722 999 Option­er: - ![Gb Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/gb-portrait-01-jpg.webp "GB_portrait_01") ### Gustav Brismark #### **Ledamot** Gus­tav Bris­mark är utbil­dad civilin­gen­jör inom teknisk fysik vid Upp­sala uni­ver­sitet. Han har över 30 års erfaren­het av teknikutveck­ling, patent- och licen­sier­ings­frå­gor samt kom­mer­sialis­er­ing av ny teknik. Gus­tav kom­mer senast från Eric­s­son, där han var chef för bolagets glob­ala patentlicensieringsaffär.  Aktiein­nehav: 173 230 via ägar­bo­lag Option­er: - ![David Gramnaes Snh Board 2024 05 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/david-gramnaes-snh-board-2024-05-01.webp "David Gramnaes_SNH Board 2024-05 01") ### David Gramnaes #### **Ledamot** David Gram­naes är civilin­gen­jör i mjuk­varuteknik från Blekinge tekniska högsko­la och är för när­varande vd för Gramtec Ven­ture AB, ett dot­ter­bo­lag till Gramtec Busi­ness Part­ner AB. David har lång erfaren­het av både styrelsear­bete och affär­sutveck­ling i teknik­tun­ga star­tup­bo­lag och har en lång rela­tion med Smoltek. David är cer­ti­fier­ad styrelseledamot med flera styrelse­up­p­drag i min­dre företag.  Aktiein­nehav: 144 426 Option­er: - ![Johan rask 1000x1300](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/johan-rask-1000x1300-1.webp "Johan Rask 1000x1300") ### Johan Rask #### **Ledamot** Johan Rask har en mag­is­terex­a­m­en i indus­triell ekono­mi från Chalmers tekniska högsko­la. Han har arbe­tat inom flera oli­ka områ­den, bland annat inom riskkap­i­tal, som M&A‑chef på Mölnly­cke Health­care, som affär­som­råde­schef på Abi­go (numera Essi­ty) och som strate­gichef på Timik Group AB. Johan Rask är VD för Insplo­ri­on AB, styrelse­ord­förande i Gomero Group AB och styrelseledamot i Cur­rere AB, Lumi­na Adhe­sives AB och Timik Group AB.  Aktiein­nehav: - Option­er: - ![Er Portrait 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/er-portrait-01-jpg.webp "ER_portrait_01") ### Emma Rönnmark #### **Ledamot** Emma Rön­n­mark har en civilekonomex­a­m­en från Han­delshög-skolan i Göte­borg. Hon har bred erfaren­het från oli­ka chefs-befat­tningar där hon har dri­vit förän­dring och trans­for­ma­tion inom indus­tri- och ener­gisek­torn. För när­varande är hon CFO för Liq­uid Wind, ett utveck­lings­före­tag för elek­tro­bränslean­läg­gningar. Emma är cer­ti­fier­ad styrelseledamot med upp­drag i min­dre företag.  Aktiein­nehav: 5 000 Option­er: - --- title: "Företrädesemission 2024" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/foretradesemission-2024/" date: 2024-05-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Företrädesemission 2024 ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million Smoltek is fac­ing a cru­cial phase in the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment. After sev­er­al years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and strate­gic part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is now con­duct­ing a rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 mil­lion to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion in two mar­kets with strong struc­tur­al growth: semi­con­duc­tors and green hydrogen. Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen omfat­tas till cir­ka 20,4 pro­cent av teck­n­ings­förbindelser från bland annat vd, styrelse och större ägare som Gramtec Busi­ness Part­ner AB, Peter Enoks­son, Elaize Style AB och Tiver­man Adven­ture AB, vil­ka är bolagets fyra störs­ta aktieägare. Företräde­se­mis­sio­nens genom­förande är vil­lko­rat av att en teck­n­ing med och utan företräde uppgår till minst 49,4 pro­cent upp­nås. Utöver teck­n­ings­förbindelser har vil­lko­rade garan­tiå­ta­gan­den om 30,6 pro­cent ingåtts av såväl befintli­ga aktieä­gare som exter­na invester­are som har följt Bolaget sedan tidi­gare. Garan­tiå­ta­gan­det kom­mer dock endast tas i anspråk i det fall Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen teck­nas till minst 49,4 pro­cent med eller utan stöd av teck­n­ingsrät­ter, och säk­er­ställer då en total teck­n­ings­grad om minst 80,0 procent. Den­na särskil­da utformn­ing är fram­ta­gen för att ge så bra förut­sät­tningar som möjligt till befintli­ga ägare såväl som nya invester­are. Genom att reduc­era den garan­ter­ade delen och endast ersät­ta garan­tita­gare i akti­er kan emis­sion­skost­nader­na reduc­eras kraftigt. Vid full teck­n­ing i företräde­se­mis­sio­nen tillförs bolaget cir­ka 26,0 MSEK innan avdrag för emis­sion­skost­nad­er, om cir­ka 1,5 MSEK, och avs­es dispon­eras till föl­jande användningsområden: - Genom­förande av en struk­tur­erad process för försäljn­ing av hela eller delar av ett eller båda av dot­ter­bo­la­gen Smoltek Semi och Smoltek Hydro­gen, eller enbart de kon­cept och imma­teriel­la rät­tigheter som ägs av respek­tive dotterbolag. - Fort­satt värde­främ­jande teknikutveck­ling inom affär­som­rå­de­na halvledare och vät­gas inom dot­ter­bo­la­gen Smoltek Semi respek­tive Smoltek Hydrogen. - Rörelsekap­i­tal till Smolteks löpande kost­nad­er utöver teknikutveckling. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sammanfattade-villkor)Sammanfattade villkor - För var­je (1) aktie som ägs per avstämn­ings­da­gen den 29 maj 2024 erhåller innehavaren en (1) teck­n­ingsrätt. Två (2) teck­n­ingsrät­ter ger rätt att teck­na fem (5) akti­er. Teck­n­ingskursen per aktie uppgår till 0,45 SEK. - Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen innebär en emis­sion av högst 57 685 506 aktier. - Vid full teck­n­ing i Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen erhåller Bolaget en emis­sion­s­likvid om cir­ka 26,0 MSEK, före emis­sion­skost­nad­er. Emis­sion­skost­nader­na uppgår till totalt cir­ka 1,5 MSEK - Teck­n­ingspe­ri­o­den för Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen kom­mer att löpa från och med den 31 maj 2024 till och med den 17 juni 2024. **Aktiekap­i­tal, akti­er och utspäd­ning** Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen innebär att antalet akti­er i Bolaget kom­mer att öka med lägst 28 481 742, från 23 074 203 till 51 555 945, och högst med 57 685 506, från 23 074 203 till högst 80 759 709. Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen innebär vidare att Bolagets aktiekap­i­tal kom­mer att öka med lägst 3 392 980,151324 SEK, från 2 748 789,480174 till 6 141 769,631498, och högst med 6 871 973,521743 SEK, från 2 748 789,480174 till 9 620 763,001917. Det motsvarar en utspäd­ning om minst cir­ka 55 pro­cent och max­i­malt cir­ka 71 pro­cent av det tota­la antalet akti­er och röster i Bolaget. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dokument-och-lankar)Dokument och länkar [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB – Infor­ma­tion­s­mem­o­ran­dum 2024-05-30](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-informationsmemorandum-2024-05-30.pdf) [Smoltek – Anmäl­ningssedel – med teckningsrätter](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-anmalningssedel-med-teckningsratter.pdf) [Smoltek – Anmäl­ningssedel – teck­n­ing utan foretrade](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-anmalningssedel-teckning-utan-foretrade.pdf) Aktieä­gar­brev (pub­liceras 3 juni) **Länkar för teck­n­ing, med och utan företrädesrätt** [Avan­za](https://www.avanza.se/erbjudanden/svara.html/1717073140918) | [Nord­net](https://www.nordnet.se/loggain?redirect_to=%2Fforetagshandelser%2Fgrupp%2F146756) | [Man­gold, utan företrädesrätt](https://emission.mangold.se/emissioner/inbjudan-till-teckning-av-aktier-utan-foretradesratt-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/) | [Man­gold, med företrädesrätt](https://emission.mangold.se/emissioner/inbjudan-till-teckning-av-aktier-med-foretradesratt-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/) **Pressmed­de­landen** - [Beslut om genom­förande av Företrädesemission](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-beslutar-om-en-partiellt-sakerstalld-foretradesemission-av-aktier-om-lag,c3985717) - [Inbju­dan till web­bina­ri­um 4 juni med vd, Håkan Persson](https://www.smoltek.com/webinar-future-direction/7403/) - [Alla pressmed­de­landen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) **Årsre­dovis­ning** [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, årsre­dovis­ning 2023](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/snh-ar-2023.pdf) * * * * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#information-in-english)**Information in English** **Press releas­es** - [Deci­sion on rights issue, May 22 2024](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-have-decided-on-a-partially-secured-rights-issue-of-shares-of-a-minimum-,c3985922) - [Infor­ma­tion mem­o­ran­dum, May 30 2024](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-publishes-information-memorandum-in-connection-with-rights-issue-of-shares,c3992133) - [All press releases](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) **Links for sub­scrip­tion, with and with­out pref­er­en­tial rights (infor­ma­tion is in Swedish)**  [Avan­za](https://www.avanza.se/erbjudanden/svara.html/1717073140918) | [Nord­net](https://www.nordnet.se/loggain?redirect_to=%2Fforetagshandelser%2Fgrupp%2F146756) | [Mand­gold (with pref­er­en­tial rights)](https://emission.mangold.se/emissioner/inbjudan-till-teckning-av-aktier-med-foretradesratt-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/) | [Man­gold (with­out pref­er­en­tial rights)](https://emission.mangold.se/emissioner/inbjudan-till-teckning-av-aktier-utan-foretradesratt-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/) **Annu­al Report** [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing, Annu­al Report 2023 (EN)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/snh-ar-2023-en.pdf) --- title: "Företrädesemission 2025" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/foretradesemission-2025/" date: 2025-05-23 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Företrädesemission 2025 \[pop­up modal show-after-time=“0” overlay-color=“rgba(0 0 0 /​ 50%)” style-overlay=“backdrop-filter:blur(5px);” open-animation=“fade-in-top” close-animation=“fade-out-top” aria-label-popup=“Friskrivning”] ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#disclaimer-in-swedish-only)DISCLAIMER (IN SWEDISH ONLY) På grund av legala restrik­tion­er är den här delen av Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB:s (**”Smoltek”** eller **”Bolaget”** ) webb­plats inte till­gäng­lig för vis­sa per­son­er. Vi ber dig där­för att ta del av föl­jande infor­ma­tion och läm­na föl­jande bekräf­telse var­je gång du önskar få till­gång till den­na del av Bolagets webb­plats. Vän­li­gen notera att vil­lko­ren nedan kan kom­ma att ändras eller upp­dat­eras och att det där­för är vik­tigt att du läs­er dem var­je gång du besök­er den­na sida. EJ FÖR OFFENTLIGGÖRANDE, PUBLICERING ELLER DISTRIBUTION, DIREKT ELLER INDIREKT, I ELLER TILL USA, AUSTRALIEN, BELARUS, HONGKONG, JAPAN, KANADA, NYA ZEELAND, RYSSLAND, SCHWEIZ, SINGAPORE, SYDAFRIKA, SYDKOREA, ELLER I NÅGON ANNAN JURISDIKTION DÄR DISTRIBUTION AV DETTA PRESSMEDDELANDE SKULLE VARA OLAGLIG ELLER KRÄVA YTTERLIGARE ÅTGÄRDER ÄN SÅDANA ÅTGÄRDER SOM FÖLJER AV SVENSK RÄTT. Den­na del av webb­plat­sen och infor­ma­tio­nen som här görs till­gäng­lig är inte avsedd för, och får inte göras till­gäng­lig för, eller dis­tribueras eller spri­das till, per­son­er som är bosat­ta i eller fysiskt befinner sig i USA, Aus­tralien, Belarus, Hongkong, Japan, Kana­da, Nya Zee­land, Ryssland, Schweiz, Sin­ga­pore, Sydafri­ka, Syd­ko­rea eller någon annan juris­dik­tion där/​om sådan dis­tri­b­u­tion kräver ytterli­gare prospekt, reg­istrering eller andra åtgärder än de som föl­jer av sven­sk rätt eller annars strid­er mot regler­na i sådan juris­dik­tion eller inte kan ske utan tillämp­n­ing av undan­tag från sådan åtgärd. Den­na del av webb­plat­sen och infor­ma­tio­nen som här görs till­gäng­lig utgör inte heller ett erb­ju­dande om att säl­ja, eller infor­drande av ett erb­ju­dande att köpa, akti­er, teck­n­ingsrät­ter (TR), betal­da teck­nade akti­er (BTA) eller andra värde­pap­per i Smoltek (**”Värde­pap­per”** ) i någon av de ovan näm­n­da juris­dik­tion­er­na. Infor­ma­tio­nen på den­na del av webb­plat­sen får inte heller vidare­be­for­dras eller repro­duc­eras på sätt som står i strid med sådana restrik­tion­er eller skulle innebära sådana krav. Inga Värde­pap­per har reg­istr­erats eller kom­mer att reg­istr­eras enligt Unit­ed States Secu­ri­ties Act från 1933 enligt dess senaste lydelse (**”Secu­ri­ties Act”** ) och inte heller enligt någon motsvarande lag i någon del­stat eller annan juris­dik­tion i USA och får inte erb­ju­das, teck­nas, utnyt­t­jas, pantsät­tas, säl­jas, åter­försäl­jas, tillde­las, lev­er­eras eller på annat sätt över­föras, direkt eller indi­rekt, i eller till USA, föru­tom enligt ett tillämpligt undan­tag från, eller genom en transak­tion som inte omfat­tas av, reg­istreringskraven i Secu­ri­ties Act och i enlighet med värde­pap­per­slags­tift­nin­gen i rel­e­vant del­stat eller annan juris­dik­tion i USA. Inom det Europeiska ekonomiska samar­bet­som­rådet (**”EES”** ) läm­nas inget erb­ju­dande av Värde­pap­per till allmän­heten i något annat land än Sverige. I andra medlem­slän­der i den Europeiska unio­nen (**”EU”** ) kan ett sådant erb­ju­dande endast läm­nas i enlighet med undan­tag i Prospek­t­förord­nin­gen (EU) 2017​/​1129 (**”Prospek­t­förord­nin­gen”** ). I andra län­der inom EES som har imple­menter­at Prospek­t­förord­nin­gen i nationell lags­tift­ning kan ett sådant erb­ju­dande endast läm­nas i enlighet med undan­tag i Prospek­t­förord­nin­gen samt i enlighet med var­je rel­e­vant imple­menter­ingsåt­gärd. I övri­ga län­der i EES som inte har imple­menter­at Prospek­t­förord­nin­gen i nationell lags­tift­ning kan ett sådant erb­ju­dande endast läm­nas i enlighet med tillämpligt undan­tag i den nationel­la lagstiftningen. Per­son­er som är bosat­ta utan­för ovan näm­n­da juris­dik­tion­er och som önskar få till­gång till doku­menten på den­na webb­plats behöver först säk­er­stäl­la att de inte är föremål för lokala lagar eller bestäm­melser som för­b­jud­er eller begrän­sar deras rätt till åtkomst till den­na webb­plats, eller ställer krav på reg­istrering eller god­kän­nande för att de ska kun­na förvär­va akti­er. Bolaget tar inte något ans­var för någon per­sons brott mot tillämpli­ga lagar och bestämmelser. Om du är förhin­drad att ta del av mate­r­i­al på den­na webb­plats eller om du är tvek­sam avseende om du är behörig att ta del av det­ta mate­r­i­al, vän­li­gen läm­na den­na webbplats. Till­gång till dig­i­ta­la ver­sion­er av det­ta mate­r­i­al till­han­dahålls av Bolaget på den­na webb­plats i god tro och endast av informationsskäl. Genom att klic­ka “Bekräf­tas” bekräf­tar och inty­gar du att: 1. du har tag­it del av och accepter­ar de vil­lkor och restrik­tion­er som angiv­its ovan, 2. du inte är bosatt i eller fysiskt befinner dig i någon av de ovan näm­n­da juris­dik­tion­er­na eller någon annan förhin­drad juris­dik­tion och inte är en U.S. per­son (såsom det definieras i Reg­u­la­tion S i Secu­ri­ties Act), samt 3. du anti­n­gen: 1. är bosatt i eller fysiskt befinner dig i Sverige, 2. om du är bosatt eller fysiskt befinner dig i en annan medlems­stat än Sverige, inom den Europeiska Ekonomiska Samar­betet, är en kval­i­fi­cer­ad invester­are såsom det definieras i Europa­parla­mentets och rådets förord­ning (EU) 2017​/​1129, eller 3. i annat fall genom tillämpli­ga lagar och bestäm­melser är behörig att till­go­dogöra dig den här informationen. [Bekräftas/​Confirmed](https://www.smoltek.com) \[/​popup] ![CNF MIM for AI top image](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-top-image-2.webp) # Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC For many years, the per­for­mance sto­ry in AI and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) was dom­i­nat­ed by tran­sis­tors and mem­o­ry band­width. But as AI accel­er­a­tors move into the kilo­watt era, anoth­er lim­i­ta­tion is becom­ing just as impor­tant: pow­er delivery. Smoltek är ett sven­skt nan­ote­knologi­bo­lag med patentsky­d­dad teknolo­gi för tillverkn­ing av ver­tikala kol­nanofi­br­er (CNF) med tillämp­ningar inom halvledare och vät­gas. Inom vät­ga­som­rådet har dot­ter­bo­laget Smoltek Hydro­gen gjort bety­dande fram­steg med sin PTE-teknik som kraftigt min­skar behovet av irid­i­um i elek­trolysör­er och därmed bidrar till kost­nad­sef­fek­tiv grön vät­gaspro­duk­tion. Samar­beten med Impact Coat­ings och Her­aeus stärk­er vägen mot indus­triell pro­duk­tion. Sam­tidigt fort­sät­ter Smoltek Semi utveck­lin­gen av CNF-MIM-kon­den­sator­er och för­bered­er en pilotproduktionslinje. För att stär­ka Bolagets finan­siel­la ställ­ning samt möjlig­göra fort­satt utveck­ling och kom­mer­sialis­er­ing genom­för Smoltek en nye­mis­sion av akti­er om cir­ka 32,0 MSEK med företrädesrätt för befintli­ga aktieägare.  Bolaget har på för­hand erhål­lit teck­n­ings­förbindelser om totalt cir­ka 4,0 MSEK från led­ningsper­son­er, styrelseledamöter och befintli­ga aktieä­gare, däri­b­land vd Håkan Pers­son, till­trä­dande vd Mag­nus Ander­s­son, CFO Pia Tegborg, CTO Farzan Gha­vani­ni, styrelse­ord­förande Oskar Säf­ström, Enoavi­at­e­ch AB och Gramtec Invest AB. Genom­föran­det av företräde­se­mis­sio­nen är vil­lko­rat av att teck­nin­gen, med eller utan företrädesrätt, uppgår till minst cir­ka 40,0 pro­cent av det tota­la emis­sions­be­lop­pet. Förut­satt att den­na nivå upp­nås har Bolaget ingått avtal med exter­na invester­are och befintli­ga aktieä­gare om emis­sion­s­garantier om totalt 13,2 MSEK. De befintli­ga aktieä­gare som läm­nat garan­tiå­ta­gan­den har även åtag­it sig att teck­na hela sin pro rata-andel i emis­sio­nen med företrädesrätt, vilket under­stryk­er deras långsik­ti­ga engage­mang i Smoltek. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sammanfattade-villkor)Sammanfattade villkor - För var­je (1) aktie som innehas på avstämn­ings­da­gen den 4 juni 2025 erhålls en (1) teckningsrätt. - Tju­gofem (25) teck­n­ingsrät­ter ger rätt att teck­na tret­tiotvå (32) nya aktier. - Teck­n­ingskursen uppgår till 0,30 SEK per aktie. - Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen innebär en emis­sion av högst 106 583 136 aktier. - Vid full teck­n­ing i Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen erhåller Bolaget en emis­sion­s­likvid om cir­ka 32,0 MSEK, före emissionskostnader. **Vik­ti­ga datum** Teck­n­ingspe­ri­o­den löper från och med den 9 juni 2025 till och med den 24 juni 2025. Notera att teck­n­ingsti­den kan vari­era mel­lan oli­ka banker och för­valtare. Aktieä­gare som önskar teck­na i emis­sio­nen upp­manas där­för att kon­tak­ta sin bank eller för­valtare i god tid under teckningsperioden. - 9–24 juni 2025: Teck­n­ingspe­ri­od i Företrädesemissionen - 9–18 juni 2025: Han­del med teck­n­ingsrät­ter (TR) på Spot­light Stock Market - 24 juni 2025 – Pre­lim­inärt utfall från Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen offentliggörs - 26 juni 2025 – Slut­ligt utfall i Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen offentliggörs - Vec­ka 27-vec­ka 28, 2025: Han­del med betal­da teck­nade akti­er (BTA) på Spot­light Stock Mar­ket (förut­satt att företräde­se­mis­sio­nen genomförs) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dokument-och-lankar)Dokument och länkar [• Infor­ma­tions­doku­ment (bila­ga IX) om Företrädesemissionen](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-bilaga-ix-2025-06-04.pdf) **Länkar för teck­n­ing, med och utan företrädesrätt** Teck­n­ing sker van­ligtvis genom din bank eller för­valtare, till exem­pel Nord­net, Avan­za, Swed­bank, SEB eller Han­dels­banken. Kon­tak­ta din bank om du inte redan har fått instruk­tion­er direkt från dem. - [Avan­za, teck­n­ing utan företrädesrätt](https://www.avanza.se/erbjudanden/svara.html/1749111572887) - [Nord­net, teck­n­ing med och utan företrädesrätt](https://www.nordnet.se/foretagshandelser/grupp/149056) [• Anmäl­ningssedel för teck­n­ing utan företrädesrätt – IFYLLBAR](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/anmalningssedel-for-teckning-utan-foretrade-ifyllbar.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pressmeddelanden)Pressmeddelanden - [Beslut om genom­förande av Företräde­se­mis­sion](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/fortydligande--smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-beslutar-om-en-partiellt-sakerstalld-foretradesemission-a,c4156104) - [Teck­n­ingspe­ri­o­den startar](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/teckningsperioden-i-smolteks-foretradesemission-av-aktier-inleds-idag,c4159328) - [Alla pressmed­de­landen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-i-media)Smoltek i media - Elek­tron­ik­tid­nin­gen: [Smoltek bry­ter teknisk bar­riär och sök­er pengar](https://etn.se/index.php/nyheter/72223-smoltek-bryter-teknisk-barriar-och-efterlyser-pengar.html) - Hydro­gen Fuel News: [Smoltek’s Fuel Cell Break­through Slash­es Irid­i­um Use, Advanc­ing Hydro­gen Fuel Cell Tech](https://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/smolteks-fuel-cell-breakthrough-slashes-iridium-use-advancing-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tech/8571247/) - IT håll­barhet: [Smoltek utveck­lar grön vät­gas-process ”En framtid vi vill leva i”](https://it-hallbarhet.se/ssmoltek-utvecklar-gron-vatgas-process/) - Semi­con­duc­tor Pack­ag­ing News: [Smoltek Sur­pass­es 1 Micro­farad per Square Mil­lime­ter Capac­i­tance Milestone](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-surpasses-1-microfarad-per-square-millimeter-capacitance-milestone---proving-commercial-read,c4163125) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bolagspresentation)Bolagspresentation *VD Mag­nus Ander­s­son pre­sen­ter­ar Smoltek på Aktiespararna.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#finansiella-rapporter)Finansiella rapporter [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, årsre­dovis­ning 2024](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/snh-ar-2024.pdf) [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB Q1 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/snh-q1-2025.pdf) * * * * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#information-in-english)**Information in English** **Press releas­es** - [Deci­sion on rights issue, May 27 2025](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-decides-on-a-partially-guaranteed-rights-issue-of-shares-of-approximatel,c4156019) - [Sub­scrip­tion peri­od starts](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/the-subscription-period-in-smoltek-s-rights-issue-of-shares-begins-today,c4159334) - [All press releases](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) **Infor­ma­tion and links for sub­scrip­tion, with and with­out pref­er­en­tial rights (infor­ma­tion is in Swedish)**  [• Infor­ma­tion doc­u­ment (appen­dix IX) about the Rights Issue](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-bilaga-ix-2025-06-04.pdf) Sub­scrip­tion is usu­al­ly done through your bank or trustee, such as Nord­net, Avan­za, Swed­bank, SEB or Han­dels­banken. Con­tact your bank if you have not already received instruc­tions direct­ly from them. - [Avan­za, sub­scrip­tion with­out pref­er­en­tial rights](https://www.avanza.se/erbjudanden/svara.html/1749111572887) - [Nord­net, sub­scrip­tion with and with­out pref­er­en­tial rights](https://www.nordnet.se/foretagshandelser/grupp/149056) [• Appli­ca­tion form for sub­scrip­tion with­out pref­er­en­tial rights (fil­l­able)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/anmalningssedel-for-teckning-utan-foretrade-ifyllbar.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#financial-reports)Financial Reports [Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, årsre­dovis­ning 2024 (Annu­al report, in Swedish)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/snh-ar-2024.pdf) [Smoltek Inter­im Report Q1 2025 (Eng­lish)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/snh-q1-2025-en.pdf) * * * [Till­ba­ka till Investor Rela­tions](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/ "Investerarrelationer") (sven­s­ka) [Back to Investor Rela­tions](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/ "Investor relations") (Eng­lish) --- title: "Företrädesemission 2026" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/foretradesemission-2026/" date: 2026-06-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Företrädesemission 2026 ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million Smoltek is fac­ing a cru­cial phase in the com­pa­ny’s devel­op­ment. After sev­er­al years of tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and strate­gic part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is now con­duct­ing a rights issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60 mil­lion to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion in two mar­kets with strong struc­tur­al growth: semi­con­duc­tors and green hydrogen. Smoltek är ett sven­skt nan­ote­knologi­bo­lag med patentsky­d­dad teknolo­gi för tillverkn­ing av ver­tikala kol­nanofi­br­er (CNF) med tillämp­ningar inom halvledare och vät­gas. Inom vät­ga­som­rådet har dot­ter­bo­laget Smoltek Hydro­gen gjort bety­dande fram­steg med sin PTE-teknik som kraftigt min­skar behovet av irid­i­um i elek­trolysör­er och därmed bidrar till kost­nad­sef­fek­tiv grön vät­gaspro­duk­tion. Samar­beten med Her­aeus stärk­er vägen mot indus­triell pro­duk­tion. Sam­tidigt fort­sät­ter Smoltek Semi utveck­lin­gen av CNF-MIM-kon­den­sator­er och för­bered­er en pilot­pro­duk­tion­slin­je i samar­bete med tai­wane­siska ITRI.. För att stär­ka Bolagets finan­siel­la ställ­ning samt möjlig­göra fort­satt utveck­ling och kom­mer­sialis­er­ing genom­för Smoltek en nye­mis­sion av akti­er om cir­ka 60,0 MSEK med företrädesrätt för befintli­ga aktieägare. Bolaget har på för­hand erhål­lit teck­n­ings­förbindelser om totalt cir­ka 15,4 MSEK från led­ningsper­son­er, styrelseledamöter samt större befintli­ga aktieä­gare. Därutöver har Bolaget ingått avtal som garan­tiå­ta­gan­den om totalt cir­ka 36,2 MSEK.  Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen utgör det sista steget i den finan­sier­ings­plan som styrelsen pre­sen­ter­ade i decem­ber 2024. Net­to­likv­i­den avs­es främst använ­das för kund­driv­en utveck­ling, pro­duk­tan­pass­ningar, forskn­ing och utveck­ling, investeringar kop­plade till indus­tri­alis­er­ing och pro­to­typfram­tagn­ing samt försäljn­ings- och kom­mer­sialis­er­ingsak­tiviteter. Syftet är att accel­erera kom­mer­sialis­erin­gen av Smolteks teknolo­gi och ska­pa förut­sät­tningar för pos­i­tivt kas­saflöde från och med 2027.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sammanfattade-villkor)Sammanfattade villkor - Aktieä­gare som är reg­istr­erade i Smoltek på avstämn­ings­da­gen den 10 juni 2026 erhåller en (1) uni­trätt för var­je innehavd aktie. Nio (9) uni­trät­ter berät­ti­gar till teck­n­ing av en (1) Unit. Var­je Unit består av två (2) nyemit­ter­ade akti­er och en (1) ved­er­lags­fri teck­n­ing­sop­tion av serie TO 9. - Teck­n­ingskursen uppgår till 3,00 SEK per Unit, motsvarande 1,50 SEK per ny aktie. Även invester­are som inte är befintli­ga aktieä­gare kan ansö­ka om teck­n­ing av Units utan stöd av uniträtter. - Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen omfat­tar högst 20 122 461 Units, motsvarande högst 40 244 922 nya akti­er och 20 122 461 teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er av serie TO 9. Vid full teck­n­ing tillförs Smoltek cir­ka 60,4 MSEK före emissionskostnader. * * * **Förk­lar­ing av vil­lkor och detaljer** - **Teck­n­ingsre­la­tion:** 2:9. Det innebär att en (1) befintlig aktie ger en (1) uni­trätt. Nio (9) uni­trät­ter ger rätt att teck­na en (1) unit. - **Unitens innehåll:** Var­je unit består av två (2) nya akti­er och en (1) teck­n­ing­sop­tion av serie TO 9. - **Utspäd­ning:** Max­i­malt cir­ka 18,2 procent. - **Säk­er­stäl­lande:** Emis­sio­nen är säkrad till cir­ka 85,6 pro­cent genom teck­n­ings­förbindelser (ca 15,4 MSEK) och garan­tiå­ta­gan­den (ca 36,2 MSEK). - **Syfte:** Kap­i­talet ska främst använ­das för kom­mer­sialis­er­ing av bolagets nan­oteknik samt för att stär­ka rörelsekapitalet. **Vik­ti­ga datum** Teck­n­ingspe­ri­o­den löper från 12 juni 2026 till och med 26 juni 2026. Notera att teck­n­ingsti­den kan vari­era mel­lan oli­ka banker och för­valtare. Aktieä­gare som önskar teck­na i emis­sio­nen upp­manas där­för att kon­tak­ta sin bank eller för­valtare i god tid under teckningsperioden. - 9 juni: Infor­ma­tions­doku­ment offentliggörs - 12–26 juni 2026: Teck­n­ingspe­ri­od i Företrädesemissionen - 12–23 juni 2026: Han­del med uni­trät­ter på Spot­light Stock Market - 29 juni 2026: Beräk­nad dag för offentlig­görande av utfall i Företrädesemissionen - 1 juli–vecka 28, 2026: Han­del med BTU på Spot­light Stock Mar­ket (förut­satt att företräde­se­mis­sio­nen genomförs) * * * **Doku­ment om företrädesemissionen** - [Infor­ma­tions­doku­ment](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/smoltek-informationsdokument-foretradesemission-2026-06.pdf "Smoltek Informationsdokument Företrädesemission 2026-06") - [Vil­lkor för teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er av serie TO 9](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/teckningsoptioner-serie-to-9-villkor.pdf "Teckningsoptioner serie TO 9 – villkor") - [Teck­n­ingssedel – med företräde](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/anmalningssedel-for-teckning-med-unitratter-smoltek.pdf "Anmälningssedel för teckning med uniträtter – Smoltek") - [Teck­n­ingssedel – utan företräde](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/anmalningssedel-for-teckning-utan-unitratter-smoltek.pdf "Anmälningssedel för teckning utan uniträtter – Smoltek") ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pressmeddelanden)Pressmeddelanden - [Reg­u­la­toriska pressmed­de­landen i sam­band med företräde­se­mis­sio­nen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/?r=regulatory) - [Alla pressmed­de­landen](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) *Smolteks bolagsp­re­sen­ta­tion från Akties­parar­na 10 juni 2026.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#finansiella-rapporter)Finansiella rapporter [Smoltek Nan­otech årsre­dovis­ning 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/snh-ar-2025.pdf) [SNH Q1 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/snh-q1-2026.pdf) * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-rights-issue-2026)The Rights issu**e** 2026 **Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB has decid­ed to car­ry out a new share issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60.0 mil­lion with pref­er­en­tial rights for exist­ing share­hold­ers. The sub­scrip­tion peri­od runs from June 12, 2026 to June 26, 2026.** Smoltek is a Swedish nan­otech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny with patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy for the pro­duc­tion of ver­ti­cal car­bon nanofibers (CNF) with appli­ca­tions in semi­con­duc­tors and hydro­gen. In the hydro­gen area, the sub­sidiary Smoltek Hydro­gen has made sig­nif­i­cant progress with its PTE tech­nol­o­gy, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the need for irid­i­um in elec­trolyz­ers and there­by con­tributes to cost-effec­tive green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. Col­lab­o­ra­tions with Her­aeus strength­en the path towards indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion. At the same time, Smoltek Semi con­tin­ues the devel­op­ment of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors and is prepar­ing a pilot pro­duc­tion line in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Tai­wanese ITRI.. To strength­en the Com­pa­ny’s finan­cial posi­tion and enable con­tin­ued devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion, Smoltek is car­ry­ing out a new share issue of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60.0 mil­lion with pref­er­en­tial rights for exist­ing shareholders. The Com­pa­ny has pre­vi­ous­ly received sub­scrip­tion com­mit­ments total­ing approx­i­mate­ly SEK 15.4 mil­lion from man­age­ment, board mem­bers and major exist­ing share­hold­ers. In addi­tion, the Com­pa­ny has entered into agree­ments as guar­an­tee com­mit­ments total­ing approx­i­mate­ly SEK 36.2 million. The rights issue con­sti­tutes the final step in the financ­ing plan that the Board of Direc­tors pre­sent­ed in Decem­ber 2024. The net pro­ceeds are intend­ed to be used pri­mar­i­ly for cus­tomer-dri­ven devel­op­ment, prod­uct adap­ta­tions, research and devel­op­ment, invest­ments relat­ed to indus­tri­al­iza­tion and pro­to­typ­ing, and sales and com­mer­cial­iza­tion activ­i­ties. The pur­pose is to accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy and cre­ate the con­di­tions for pos­i­tive cash flow from 2027.  ### Summary of Terms - Share­hold­ers reg­is­tered in Smoltek on the record date of June 10, 2026 will receive one (1) unit right for each share held. Nine (9) unit rights enti­tle them to sub­scribe for one (1) Unit. Each Unit con­sists of two (2) new­ly issued shares and one (1) free sub­scrip­tion war­rant of series TO 9. - The sub­scrip­tion price is SEK 3.00 per Unit, cor­re­spond­ing to SEK 1.50 per new share. Investors who are not exist­ing share­hold­ers may also apply to sub­scribe for Units with­out the sup­port of unit rights. - The rights issue com­pris­es a max­i­mum of 20,122,461 Units, cor­re­spond­ing to a max­i­mum of 40,244,922 new shares and 20,122,461 sub­scrip­tion war­rants of series TO 9. Upon full sub­scrip­tion, Smoltek will receive approx­i­mate­ly SEK 60.4 mil­lion before issue costs. * * * **Expla­na­tion of terms and details** - **Sub­scrip­tion ratio:** 2:9. This means that one (1) exist­ing share gives one (1) unit right. Nine (9) unit rights give the right to sub­scribe for one (1) unit. - **Unit con­tent:** Each unit con­sists of two (2) new shares and one (1) sub­scrip­tion war­rant of series TO 9. - **Dilu­tion:** Max­i­mum approx­i­mate­ly 18.2 percent. - **Col­lat­er­al:** The issue is col­lat­er­al­ized to approx­i­mate­ly 85.6 per­cent through sub­scrip­tion com­mit­ments (approx­i­mate­ly SEK 15.4 mil­lion) and guar­an­tee com­mit­ments (approx­i­mate­ly SEK 36.2 million). - **Pur­pose:** The cap­i­tal will pri­mar­i­ly be used for the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the com­pa­ny’s nan­otech­nol­o­gy and to strength­en work­ing capital. **Impor­tant dates** The sub­scrip­tion peri­od runs from June 12, 2026 to June 26, 2026. Please note that the sub­scrip­tion peri­od may vary between dif­fer­ent banks and man­agers. Share­hold­ers who wish to sub­scribe to the issue are there­fore advised to con­tact their bank or man­ag­er well in advance dur­ing the sub­scrip­tion period. - June 9: Infor­ma­tion doc­u­ment is published - June 12–26, 2026: Sub­scrip­tion peri­od in the Rights Issue - June 12–23, 2026: Trad­ing of unit rights on Spot­light Stock Market - June 29, 2026: Esti­mat­ed date for pub­li­ca­tion of out­come of the Rights Issue - July 1 until week 28, 2026: Trad­ing of BTUs on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket (assum­ing the Rights Issue is completed) *CEO, Mag­nus Ander­s­son explains the rights issue* * * * **Rights Issue Doc­u­ments (in Swedish)** - [Infor­ma­tion Document](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/smoltek-informationsdokument-foretradesemission-2026-06.pdf "Smoltek Informationsdokument Företrädesemission 2026-06") - [Terms and Con­di­tions for War­rants of Series TO 9](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/teckningsoptioner-serie-to-9-villkor.pdf "Teckningsoptioner serie TO 9 – villkor") - [Sub­scrip­tion Form – with pref­er­ence](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/anmalningssedel-for-teckning-med-unitratter-smoltek.pdf "Anmälningssedel för teckning med uniträtter – Smoltek") - [Sub­scrip­tion Form – with­out preference](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/anmalningssedel-for-teckning-utan-unitratter-smoltek.pdf "Anmälningssedel för teckning utan uniträtter – Smoltek") **Press releas­es** - [Reg­u­la­to­ry press releas­es in con­nec­tion with the rights issue](https://news.cision.com/?q=smoltek&r=regulatory) - [All press releases](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#financial-reports)Financial Reports [Smoltek Nan­otech annu­al report 2025 (Swedish)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/snh-ar-2025.pdf) [Smoltek Nan­otech Q1 2026 (Eng­lish)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/snh-q1-2026-en.pdf) * * * [Till­ba­ka till Investor Rela­tions](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/ "Investerarrelationer") (sven­s­ka) [Back to Investor Rela­tions](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/ "Investor relations") (Eng­lish) * * * --- title: "Newsletters" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/newsletters/" date: 2023-05-30 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/newsletter-jpg.webp" --- # Newsletters ![Manhattan bridge in sunset](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) # Newsletters Want to take a look at pre­vi­ous newslet­ters? Here are the ten most recent ones. As you can see, we don’t exact­ly spam our sub­scribers’ inbox­es. Old­er issues can be found in our [newslet­ter archive](https://us13.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=f6accdebe71790a1661e12dd2&id=bf6517fa3e). - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sum­mer 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1bc58ab3475a/smoltek-newsletter-summer-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, April 2026](https://mailchi.mp/5f285aaa40c2/smoltek-newsletter-april-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Feb­ru­ary 2026](https://mailchi.mp/1b18cb71b078/smoltek-newsletter-february-2026) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Decem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/17ee18afc3cb/smoltek-newsletter-december-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Novem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/2fb5f414cd18/smoltek-newsletter-november-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/7698bad4a012/smoltek-newsletter-october-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, Sep­tem­ber 2025](https://mailchi.mp/388fff630937/smoltek-newsletter-september-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, August 2025](https://mailchi.mp/81f966bd206c/smoltek-newsletter-august-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, June 2025](https://mailchi.mp/0b35ff341742/smoltek-newsletter-june-2025) - [Smoltek newslet­ter, May 2025](https://mailchi.mp/768d7fa5f15b/smoltek-newsletter-may-2025) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sign-up-for-our-newsletter)Sign up for our newsletter! Your data will be han­dled in com­pli­ance with our pri­va­cy policy. --- title: "Teckningsoptioner – serie TO 7" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/teckningsoptioner-serie-to-7/" date: 2023-05-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Teckningsoptioner – serie TO 7 ![CNF MIM for AI top image](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-top-image-2.webp) # Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC For many years, the per­for­mance sto­ry in AI and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) was dom­i­nat­ed by tran­sis­tors and mem­o­ry band­width. But as AI accel­er­a­tors move into the kilo­watt era, anoth­er lim­i­ta­tion is becom­ing just as impor­tant: pow­er delivery. Emis­sion­s­likv­i­den från teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er­na av serie TO 7 kom­mer använ­das till följande: - Fort­satt utveck­ling av teknik för ultra­tun­na kon­den­sator­er samt tillverkn­ing av indus­triellt tillverkade kon­den­sator­er (engi­neer­ing sam­ples) under 2023, cir­ka 50 procent - Fort­satt utveck­ling av teknik och pro­duk­tion­skon­cept av cell­ma­te­r­i­al till elek­trolysör­er, cir­ka 35 procent - Rekry­ter­ing av kom­pe­tens, cir­ka 15 procent ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sammanfattade-villkor)Sammanfattade villkor **Nyt­t­jan­de­pe­ri­od:** 5 juni 2023 – 19 juni 2023. **Teck­n­ingskurs:** 3,56 SEK per aktie. (Teck­n­ingskursen bestämdes till sjut­tio (70) pro­cent av VWAP i Bolagets aktie under peri­o­den från och med den 17 maj 2023 till och med den 31 maj 2023, dock lägst kvotvärdet och högst 13,50 SEK per aktie.) **Teck­n­ing:** En (1) Teck­n­ing­sop­tion ger en rätt att teck­na en (1) ny aktie i Bolaget under nyt­t­jan­de­pe­ri­o­den. **Sista dag för han­del i TO 7:** 15 juni 2023. **Emis­sionsvolym:** 2 452 996 Teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er berät­ti­gar till teck­n­ing av 2 452 996 nya akti­er. Vid fullt nyt­t­jande tillförs Bolaget cir­ka 8,7 MSEK, före emissionskostnader.  **Aktiekap­i­tal, akti­er och utspäd­ning** Vid nyt­t­jande av samtli­ga Teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er ökar aktiekap­i­talet med 292 221,126758 SEK, från 1 690 297,312587 SEK till 1 982 518,439345 SEK, samt antalet akti­er ökar med 2 452 996 akti­er, från 14 188 887 akti­er till 16 641 883 akti­er. Utspäd­nin­gen vid nyt­t­jande av samtli­ga Teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er uppgår till cir­ka 14,74 pro­cent av antalet akti­er och röster i Bolaget. Vän­li­gen notera att Teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er som inte nyt­t­jas senast den 19 juni 2023, alter­na­tivt avyt­tras senast den 15 juni 2023, för­fall­er värdelösa. För att Teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er inte ska för­fal­la värdelösa krävs att de aktivt nyt­t­jas för teck­n­ing av nya akti­er i Bolaget eller avyt­tras. Observera att vis­sa för­valtare kan kom­ma att stän­ga anmäl­ningsmöj­ligheten tidi­gare än den 19 juni 2023. Innehavare av Teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er via för­valtare rek­om­menderas där­för kon­tak­ta sin för­valtare tidigt under nyt­t­jan­de­pe­ri­o­den för att erhål­la infor­ma­tion om teck­n­ing och betalning. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#viktiga-dokument)Viktiga dokument [SNH – Teck­n­ing­sop­tionsvil­lkor TO 7](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/snh-optionsvillkor-to-7-2023-05.pdf) [SNH – vd-brev TO 7](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/snh-vd-brev-teckningsoptionsinnehavare-to-7.pdf) ### Kommunikation [Pressmed­de­la­nen](https://news.cision.com/se/?q=smoltek) [Newslet­ter, maj 2023](https://mailchi.mp/c6a09ec9f42f/smoltek-newsletter-may) ### Extra bilagor [Årsre­dovis­ning 2022](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/snh-ar-2022-final-secure.pdf) --- title: "Teckningsoptioner – serie TO 8" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/teckningsoptioner-serie-to-8/" date: 2024-01-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smoltek-img-iwatch-jpg.webp" --- # Teckningsoptioner – serie TO 8 ![Manhattan bridge in sunset](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) # Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares Sum­ma­riz­ing the finan­cial news at the break point between June and July shows strong inter­est in Smoltek and trad­ing in Smoltek shares. Our rights issue was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed and Smoltek shares are now avail­able for trad­ing on sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­places in addi­tion to the main list­ing on the Spot­light Stock Mar­ket in Sweden.  Teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er­na av serie TO 8 hand­las med ISIN-kod: SE0021183142 och med kort­namn: SMOL TO 8.  Net­to­likv­i­den från teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er­na av serie TO 8 avs­es använ­das till följande: - Finan­sier­ing av Smoltek Semi AB:s del i kom­mer­sialis­erin­gen av CNF-MIM-baser­ade kon­den­sator­pro­duk­ter för avancer­ade chip inom affär­som­råde halvledare, - Finan­sier­ing av Smoltek Hydro­gen AB:s del för utveck­lings- och kom­mer­sialis­er­ingsak­tiviteter av ett kol­nanofiber­baser­at elek­trod­ma­te­r­i­al för PEM-elek­trolys inom affär­som­rådet vät­gas, samt - Rörelsekap­i­tal för finan­sier­ing av Bolagets allmän­na kost­nad­er före­nade med verk­samhetens bedrivande. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sammanfattade-villkor)Sammanfattade villkor **Nyt­t­jan­de­pe­ri­od:** 4 sep­tem­ber 2024 – 18 sep­tem­ber 2024. **Teck­n­ingskurs:** 2,36 SEK per aktie. **Vil­lkor:** Etthun­dra (100) teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er av serie TO 8 ger rätt att teck­na etthun­drafem­tiotre (153) akti­er. **Emis­sionsvolym:** 3 469 132 teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er av serie TO 8. Vid fullt nyt­t­jande emit­teras 5 296 083 akti­er och Bolaget kan tillföras upp till cir­ka 8,18 MSEK, före emis­sion­skost­nad­er. **Sista dag för han­del med teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er av serie TO 8:** 13 sep­tem­ber 2024. **Aktiekap­i­tal, akti­er och utspäd­ning** Vid utnyt­t­jande av samtli­ga teck­n­ing­sop­tion­er av serie TO 8 som kom­mer antalet utestående akti­er öka med 3 469 132 akti­er, från 22 888 866 akti­er till 26 357 998 akti­er och aktiekap­i­talet kom­mer att öka med ytterli­gare cir­ka 413 271 SEK, från 2 726 710 SEK till 3 139 982 SEK, innebärande en tillkom­mande utspäd­ningsef­fekt om cir­ka 13,2 pro­cent av antalet akti­er och röster i Bolaget. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#viktiga-dokument)Viktiga dokument [Optionsvil­lkor TO 8 – Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/optionsvillkor-to-8-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab.pdf) [Smoltek TO 8 anmäl­ningssedel – ifyllningsbar](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/smoltek-to-8-anmalningssedel-ifyllningsbar.pdf) ### Kommunikation om teckningsoptionerna [Pressmed­de­lande, 7 decem­ber 2023](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/styrelsen-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab--publ--har-beslutat-att-genomfora-riktade-emissioner-av-akti,c3889596) [Pressmed­de­lande, 15 decem­ber 2023: Förs­ta han­dels­dag för TO 8](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/forsta-dag-for-handel-med-smolteks-teckningsoptioner-av-serie-to-8-ar-22-december-2023,c3894411) [Pressmed­de­lande, 10 juli 2024: Omräkn­ing av TO 8](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/omrakning-av-teckningsoptioner-av-serie-to-8-i-smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab,c4013310) ### Extra bilagor [Årsre­dovis­ning 2022](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/snh-ar-2022-final-secure.pdf) --- title: "Privacy policy" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/privacy-policy/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2015-12-10-smoltek-08-jpg.webp" --- # Privacy policy ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) # Privacy policy **Effec­tive date:** 2025-07-01 At **Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB** (“Smoltek”, “we”, “our”, “us”), we are com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing your pri­va­cy. This Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy explains how we col­lect, use, dis­close, and safe­guard your per­son­al infor­ma­tion when you vis­it [**www.smoltek.com**](https://www.smoltek.com/) (the “Web­site”), in com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble data pro­tec­tion laws, includ­ing the **EU Gen­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion (GDPR)**. By using the Web­site, you agree to the terms of this Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy. If you do not agree, please do not access or use the Website. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#1-who-we-are)**1. Who We Are** Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB is a pub­lic lim­it­ed com­pa­ny reg­is­tered in Swe­den. **Con­tact details for pri­va­cy mat­ters:** Email: info@smoltek.com Postal: Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, Otter­häl­le­gatan 1, 411 31 Göte­borg, Sweden Data pro­tec­tion lead: **Mag­nus Ander­s­son, CEO** ![Section 2 information we collect](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/section-2-information-we-collect-1200x693.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#3-use-of-cookies-and-tracking-technologies)**3. Use of Cookies and Tracking Technologies** We use cook­ies and sim­i­lar tech­nolo­gies (e.g., track­ing pix­els) for: - Essen­tial web­site functionality - Web­site ana­lyt­ics (e.g., via Google Analytics) - Mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing (e.g., audi­ence segmentation) We use the **Real Cook­ie Ban­ner** tool to man­age cook­ie con­sent. You can **con­trol your cook­ie pref­er­ences** at any time via the cook­ie ban­ner or brows­er settings. ⚠️ Non-essen­tial cook­ies are only placed **after your con­sent** (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). **Learn more and man­age your pref­er­ences**: \[[cook­ie pol­i­cy](https://www.smoltek.com/cookie-policy/)] ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#4-how-we-share-your-data)**4. How We Share Your Data** We only share per­son­al infor­ma­tion with trust­ed third par­ties for the pur­pos­es out­lined in this pol­i­cy, including: - **Ana­lyt­ics providers** (e.g., Google Analytics) - **Email ser­vice providers** (e.g., Mailchimp) - **Cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) systems** - **Web­site host­ing and main­te­nance providers** These providers are con­trac­tu­al­ly bound to process data **only on our instruc­tions** and with appro­pri­ate safeguards. Some third par­ties may be based **out­side the EU/​EEA**. When this hap­pens, we ensure trans­fers are pro­tect­ed by: - **Ade­qua­cy deci­sions**, or - **Stan­dard Con­trac­tu­al Claus­es (SCCs)** approved by the Euro­pean Commission. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#5-retention-of-your-data)**5. Retention of Your Data** We only retain your per­son­al data **as long as nec­es­sary** for the pur­pos­es described. Gen­er­al reten­tion periods: - **Con­tact details (email, name):** up to 2 years from last interaction - **Ana­lyt­ics data (IP address, brows­er activ­i­ty):** 12 months - **Cook­ie data:** based on con­sent lifes­pan (up to 12 months) After these peri­ods, your data is secure­ly delet­ed or anonymized. ![Section 6 your rights](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/section-6-your-rights-1200x767.webp) To exer­cise your rights, please con­tact us at **info@smoltek.com**. We may request ver­i­fi­ca­tion of your iden­ti­ty before responding. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#7-profiling-and-automated-decision-making)**7. Profiling and Automated Decision-Making** We use cer­tain tools to **seg­ment users** for mar­ket­ing pur­pos­es (pro­fil­ing), such as: - Group­ing vis­i­tors by behav­ior (e.g., time on site, clicks) - Pre­dict­ing user inter­ests to cus­tomize newslet­ters or ads ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#8-childrens-privacy)**8. Children’s Privacy** This Web­site is **not direct­ed at chil­dren under the age of 16**. We do not know­ing­ly col­lect per­son­al data from chil­dren. If we learn that a child under this age has sub­mit­ted per­son­al infor­ma­tion, we will delete it promptly. These do **not pro­duce legal effects** or sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect you. You have the right to **object to pro­fil­ing** and with­draw con­sent at any time. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#9-international-transfers)**9. International Transfers** Some data may be processed in **coun­tries out­side the EU/​EEA**, such as the Unit­ed States. In such cas­es, we rely on: - **Ade­qua­cy deci­sions**, or - **Stan­dard Con­trac­tu­al Claus­es (SCCs)** approved by the Euro­pean Commission. You can request a copy of rel­e­vant safe­guards by con­tact­ing us. #### How we use this information - Ana­lyt­ics - Mar­ket­ing and advertising - Pro­tect­ing against mali­cious, decep­tive, fraud­u­lent or ille­gal activ­i­ty, and pros­e­cut­ing those respon­si­ble for such activities. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#10-complaints-and-supervisory-authorities)**10. Complaints and Supervisory Authorities** You have the right to lodge a com­plaint with your local **data pro­tec­tion author­i­ty**. In Swe­den, this is: **Swedish Author­i­ty for Pri­va­cy Pro­tec­tion (IMY)** Web­site: [https://www.imy.se/](https://www.imy.se/) Phone: +46 8 657 61 00 If you’re in anoth­er coun­try, you may con­tact your **local super­vi­so­ry author­i­ty**. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#11-data-security)**11. Data Security** We imple­ment appro­pri­ate tech­ni­cal and orga­ni­za­tion­al mea­sures to pro­tect your per­son­al data, including: - SSL encryp­tion - Access con­trols and employ­ee confidentiality - Secure back­ups - Mon­i­tor­ing of sys­tems for vulnerabilities - Data min­i­miza­tion and secure deletion ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#12-do-not-track-dnt)**12. Do Not Track (DNT)** Your brows­er may offer a “Do Not Track” set­ting. At this time, our Web­site does **not respond** to DNT signals. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#13-changes-to-this-policy)**13. Changes to This Policy** We may update this Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy from time to time. When we do, we will: - Update the “Effec­tive Date” above - Noti­fy you through the Web­site or by email, if applicable ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#14-contact-us)**14. Contact Us** If you have any ques­tions about this Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy or how we process your per­son­al data, please contact: **Email:** info@smoltek.com **Post:** Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, Otter­häl­le­gatan 1, 411 16 Göte­borg, Sweden --- title: "Business Sweden, Japan 2026" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/business-sweden-japan-2026/23949/" date: 2026-08-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Events" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/events.md" tags: - name: "AI infrastructure" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ai-infrastructure.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "edge-devices" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/edge-devices.md" - name: "hpc" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hpc.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" --- # Business Sweden, Japan 2026 Smoltek is join­ing Busi­ness Swe­den’s semi­con­duc­tor del­e­ga­tion to Japan. This will make us gain access to their semi­con­duc­tor ecosys­tem and pos­si­blil­i­ty to meet Japan­ese com­pa­nies and stake­hold­ers that would ben­e­fit from out CNF-MIM capac­i­tor technology. **Con­nect with:** Farzan.Ghavanini@smoltek.com on site. \- See you in Japan, Sep­tem­ber 7–9, 2026. --- title: "SEMICON TAIWAN 2026 (past event)" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/semicon-taiwan-2026/23946/" date: 2026-08-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/chin-jung-kuo-1200x675-1.webp" categories: - name: "Events" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/events.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" --- # SEMICON TAIWAN 2026 (past event) Smoltek is solv­ing advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems that enable future tech­nol­o­gy leaps. For the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try Smoltek Semi is devel­op­ing a dis­rup­tive solu­tion for the next gen­er­a­tion capac­i­tors in advanced chips. Smoltek Semi­’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors enables very high elec­tri­cal per­for­mance in an extreme­ly small form factor. Smoltek Semi is attend­ing SEMICON Tai­wan, Sep­tem­ber 2–4. The con­fer­ence is one of the world’s largest semi­con­duc­tor events, bring­ing togeth­er indus­try lead­ers, tech pio­neers, and poten­tial partners. **Meet with our team on site!**  - Chin­Jung Kuo, chinjung.kuo@smoltek.com, phone: 886 911 172 006 > > - See you, Sep­tem­ber 2–4, in Taipei > > > > Chin­Jung Kuo, Process Engi­neer at Smoltek Semi --- title: "Collab for Next-Generation Ultra-Low Iridium Electrolysis Technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/green-light-for-next-generation-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis-technology/23924/" date: 2026-08-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "pte" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pte.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Collab for Next-Generation Ultra-Low Iridium Electrolysis Technology In a joint press relase the com­pa­nies states that the test­ing cam­paign will specif­i­cal­ly eval­u­ate the long-term oper­a­tional sta­bil­i­ty of Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary nanos­truc­tured irid­i­um cat­a­lyst lay­er, mark­ing a crit­i­cal step toward the com­mer­cial­iza­tion and large-scale indus­tri­al­iza­tion of cost-effec­tive green hydro­gen production. This joint effort direct­ly address­es one of the pri­ma­ry bot­tle­necks in scal­ing PEM elec­trol­y­sis: the high cost of irid­i­um. By dras­ti­cal­ly reduc­ing the required load­ing with­out sac­ri­fic­ing dura­bil­i­ty. Smoltek Hydro­gen and Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als are paving the way for the expan­sion of the glob­al green hydro­gen infrastructure. > “Our nanos­truc­tured lay­er offers a unique capa­bil­i­ty to max­i­mize charge and mass trans­port prop­er­ties with­in a thick­ness of just a few microns. By opti­miz­ing this spe­cif­ic cat­a­lyst archi­tec­ture, we can simul­ta­ne­ous­ly main­tain high elec­trolyz­er effi­cien­cy while suc­cess­ful­ly reduc­ing the amount of irid­i­um need­ed to below 0.1 mg/​cm² load­ing.” > *Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D at Smoltek Hydrogen* The col­lab­o­ra­tion lever­ages Smoltek’s inno­v­a­tive nan­otech­nol­o­gy along­side Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als’ world-class exper­tise in pre­cious met­al elec­tro­cat­a­lysts and mate­r­i­al analy­sis. Test­ing and val­i­da­tion are cen­tral to tran­si­tion­ing this break­through from the lab­o­ra­to­ry to indus­tri­al appli­ca­tion. Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als will lead the upcom­ing test­ing phase, bring­ing exten­sive resources to eval­u­ate the cat­a­lyst’s per­for­mance under real­is­tic oper­a­tional conditions. > “We are look­ing for­ward to com­mencecom­menc­ing this exten­sive test­ing cam­paign and to pro­vide the crit­i­cal mate­r­i­al analy­sis required to val­i­date this tech­nol­o­gy. With our capa­bil­i­ties we will con­tin­ue to sup­port all steps towards an indus­tri­al­iza­tion of these high­ly promis­ing ultra-low irid­i­um PTEs with our com­pre­hen­sive ana­lyt­i­cal and test­ing capa­bil­i­ties.” > *Chris­t­ian Gebauer, Head of Inno­va­tion at the Hydro­gen Sys­tems Divi­sion of Her­aeus Pre­cious Metals* * * * - Read the offi­cial press release: [*Smoltek Hydro­gen and Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als Advance Next-Gen­er­a­tion Ultra-Low Irid­i­um Elec­trol­y­sis Technology*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-advance-next-generation-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis-,c4381147) --- title: "Smoltek joins MAXBATT for scaling battery production" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-joins-maxbatt-for-scaling-battery-production/23912/" date: 2026-07-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/cnfs-on-a-glowing-substrate-web.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "battery technology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/battery-technology.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "cnf" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek joins MAXBATT for scaling battery production MAXBATT unites lead­ing Swedish and inter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers across the bat­tery val­ue chain to accel­er­ate com­pet­i­tive, sus­tain­able, and cir­cu­lar bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing. Smoltek’s par­tic­i­pa­tion brings a unique mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing capa­bil­i­ty to the con­sor­tium: its pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber growth tech­nol­o­gy for next gen­er­a­tion bat­tery additives. Through this part­ner­ship, Smoltek will engage in joint research projects, val­i­da­tion activ­i­ties, and indus­tri­al­iza­tion path­ways that sup­port MAXBATT’s mis­sion to build a cli­mate neu­tral, com­pet­i­tive Euro­pean bat­tery indus­try. The col­lab­o­ra­tion posi­tions Smoltek to accel­er­ate the tran­si­tion from lab­o­ra­to­ry scale CNF break­throughs to indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant mate­ri­als solutions. > *“Becom­ing part of MAXBATT is a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion for Smoltek. It strength­ens our path­way toward broad­er indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions and sup­ports our strat­e­gy to scale CNF based solu­tions into mar­kets where per­for­mance, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty are deci­sive.*“ > *CEO Mag­nus Andersson* ### A New Chapter for the Battery Landscape MAXBATT focus­es on pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies, indus­tri­al­iza­tion, dig­i­tal­iza­tion, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty for lithi­um ion and emerg­ing bat­tery chemistries. Smoltek’s ver­ti­cal­ly grown car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) offer a new class of engi­neered con­duc­tive addi­tives designed to improve elec­trode per­for­mance, reduce car­bon load­ing, and sup­port high are­al load­ing cath­odes and fast charg­ing appli­ca­tions. Smoltek’s growth process enables pre­cise con­trol of CNF mor­phol­o­gy, uni­for­mi­ty, and inte­gra­tion into slur­ry-based elec­trode man­u­fac­tur­ing as addi­tive – a crit­i­cal require­ment for gigafac­to­ry scale deployment. * * * Read more in the offi­cial press release: [*Smoltek joins MAXBATT togeth­er with indus­tri­al OEMs for scal­ing bat­tery production*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-joins-maxbatt-together-with-industrial-oems-for-scaling-battery-production,c4375118) --- title: "Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/strong-interest-in-smoltek-and-trading-in-smoltek-shares/23859/" date: 2026-07-02 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "financial news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/financial-news.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "pte" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pte.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Strong interest in Smoltek and trading in Smoltek shares Smoltek’s recent­ly com­plet­ed rights issue was heav­i­ly over­sub­scribed at 184%, reflect­ing strong investor inter­est in the company’s tech­nol­o­gy and growth poten­tial. Fol­low­ing this, the Board resolved an over-allot­ment issue, bring­ing total gross pro­ceeds to approx­i­mate­ly SEK 82.1 mil­lion before issue costs and loan offsets. The net pro­ceeds will be used to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion and indus­tri­al scale-up of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors for AI chips and PTEs (porous trans­port elec­trodes) for PEM water elec­trol­y­sis based on Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber technology. The com­pa­ny’s strat­e­gy to enter into ser­vice and license agree­ments (SLA) and joint devel­op­ment agree­ments (JDA) with indus­tri­al partners/​customers for the two main tracks with­in the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen industries. ### Smoltek’s share now available for trading also in Germany and the US Smoltek’s share can cur­rent­ly be trad­ed in EUR on sev­er­al Ger­man trad­ing venues, includ­ing Frank­furt and Stuttgart, as well as via Lang & Schwarz and LS Exchange. In the US, the share is trad­ed on OTC Mar­kets.   The inter­na­tion­al trad­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties have been estab­lished by the respec­tive mar­ket­place and mar­ket par­tic­i­pants, dri­ven by demand, based on Smoltek’s exist­ing share. This means that the com­pa­ny has not car­ried out any new issue or sec­ondary list­ing, with­out the share becom­ing avail­able for trad­ing in anoth­er cur­ren­cy out­side Sweden. > *“The fact that our share can now also be trad­ed by investors in Ger­many and the US, in major cur­ren­cies, is a nat­ur­al step in Smoltek’s devel­op­ment. It increas­es our inter­na­tion­al vis­i­bil­i­ty and makes it eas­i­er for for­eign part­ners and investors to fol­low and invest in the com­pa­ny”, says CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son*. ### Marketplaces for Smoltek’s shares | | | | |---------------------------|--------------|-------------| | **Mar­ket­place** | **Coun­try** | **Tick­er** | | Spot­light Stock Market* | Swe­den | SMOL | | Frank­furt Stock Exchange | Ger­many | GY9 | | Börse Stuttgart | Ger­many | GY9 | | Lang & Schwarz | Ger­many | A2JFPH | | LS Exchange | Ger­many | A2JFPH | | OTC Mar­kets | USA | SMLTF | ** Spot­light Stock Mar­ket is the com­pa­ny’s offi­cial trad­ing venue* * * * You find more finan­cial news on our [investor pages](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/) (Eng­lish and Swedish) --- title: "Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/why-ultra-thin-capacitors-matter-for-ai-and-hpc/23803/" date: 2026-06-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-top-image-2.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "Å" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/a.md" - name: "advanced chips" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-chips.md" - name: "ai" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ai.md" - name: "AI accelerators" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ai-accelerators.md" - name: "AI infrastructure" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ai-infrastructure.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "data center" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/data-center.md" - name: "edge-computing" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/edge-computing.md" - name: "High-Performance computing" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/high-performance-computing.md" - name: "hpc" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hpc.md" - name: "Power delivery" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/power-delivery.md" --- # Why ultra-thin capacitors matter for AI and HPC ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-case-for-cnf-mim-in-next-generation-ai-power-delivery)The case for CNF-MIM in next-generation AI power delivery Mod­ern AI proces­sors do not only need more pow­er. They need pow­er deliv­ered at very high cur­rent and with extreme­ly fast tran­sient response. That com­bi­na­tion cre­ates a bru­tal engi­neer­ing prob­lem. At a core rail below 1 V, a 700 W accel­er­a­tor cor­re­sponds to hun­dreds of amps of cur­rent. If we assume a 0.8 V rail, the cur­rent is approx­i­mate­ly 875 A. At that lev­el, tiny par­a­sitics are no longer tiny. A resis­tance of only 0.1 mΩ cre­ates an 87.5 mV volt­age drop. A loop induc­tance of only 10 pH exposed to a 10 A/​ns cur­rent tran­sient cre­ates a 100 mV volt­age dis­tur­bance. These num­bers are large com­pared with the avail­able volt­age mar­gin on a sub‑1 V rail.  This is why pow­er deliv­ery has become one of the defin­ing chal­lenges in AI and HPC hard­ware, with capac­i­tors play­ing a cen­tral role in deter­min­ing sys­tem per­for­mance, effi­cien­cy, and reliability. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#lateral-power-delivery-the-current-solution-based-on-mlccs)Lateral power delivery—the current solution based on MLCCs The first gen­er­a­tion of high-pow­er accel­er­a­tor boards large­ly fol­lowed the same log­ic used in servers and graph­ics cards for many years. Volt­age reg­u­la­tors, induc­tors and capac­i­tors were placed around the proces­sor or accel­er­a­tor pack­age. Pow­er was con­vert­ed on the board and then rout­ed lat­er­al­ly across the PCB and pack­age to reach the silicon.  This approach is prac­ti­cal and famil­iar. It uses mature mul­ti­phase volt­age-reg­u­la­tor mod­ules, proven PCB man­u­fac­tur­ing and a large ecosys­tem of dis­crete mul­ti­lay­er ceram­ic capac­i­tors (MLCCs) and induc­tors. Look­ing at AI accel­er­a­tor boards such as the NVIDIA H100 gen­er­a­tion, the basic archi­tec­ture is still rec­og­niz­able: high-pow­er inputs, board-lev­el con­ver­sion and dense clus­ters of pow­er com­po­nents around the main package.  For the H100 SXM form fac­tor, NVIDIA spec­i­fies a ther­mal design pow­er of up to 700 W. The PCIe ver­sion is low­er pow­er, but still rep­re­sents a very high-cur­rent pow­er-deliv­ery chal­lenge. The impor­tant point is not only the absolute pow­er. It is the fact that this pow­er must ulti­mate­ly be deliv­ered to low-volt­age rails close to the die.  ![CNF MIM for AI fig](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-fig-1.webp) *Fig­ure 1. The NVIDIA H100 board illus­trates the con­ven­tion­al lat­er­al pow­er-deliv­ery approach: the GPU pack­age sits at the cen­ter, while volt­age reg­u­la­tors, induc­tors and large banks of capac­i­tors are placed around it on the board. Pow­er and decou­pling cur­rent must there­fore trav­el lat­er­al­ly through the PCB and pack­age before reach­ing the die.* Lat­er­al pow­er deliv­ery works, but it scales poor­ly as cur­rent ris­es. A capac­i­tor can only sup­port fast tran­sients effec­tive­ly if the path between the capac­i­tor and the load has very low resis­tance and imped­ance. When the capac­i­tor is placed too far away, as is the case in lat­er­al pow­er deliv­ery, the added resis­tance and induc­tance slow down its response and reduce its abil­i­ty to deliv­er charge exact­ly when the proces­sor needs it. The result is high­er volt­age droop, more sup­ply noise, reduced pow­er effi­cien­cy and a grow­ing need for capac­i­tors that can be placed much clos­er to the die. This is the first major open­ing for ultra-thin capac­i­tors. Thanks to their very low-pro­file form fac­tor, they enable decou­pling to move much clos­er to the point of load — some­thing that is not real­is­ti­cal­ly pos­si­ble with con­ven­tion­al MLCC banks.  ![CNF MIM for AI fig](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-fig-2-1200x402.webp) *Fig­ure 2. Volt­age Reg­u­la­tors (VR) and dif­fer­ent inte­gra­tion scenarios.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#vertical-power-delivery-the-need-for-ultra-thin-capacitors)Vertical power delivery—the need for ultra-thin capacitors Instead of rout­ing high cur­rent side­ways across the board, com­pact pow­er mod­ules can be placed under­neath the proces­sor and push pow­er ver­ti­cal­ly upward through the board and pack­age. This short­ens the high-cur­rent path, reduces con­duc­tion loss and improves pow­er integri­ty. This is a major improve­ment for AI and HPC proces­sors because it attacks the two key prob­lems at once: resis­tance and induc­tance. To pre­serve the ben­e­fit of this archi­tec­ture, decou­pling capac­i­tors must also move clos­er to the point of load, often into spaces where con­ven­tion­al capac­i­tor banks can­not fit. This requires capac­i­tors that are not only extreme­ly thin, but also capa­ble of deliv­er­ing low ESR, low ESL and high capac­i­tance den­si­ty in a very small vol­ume. That com­bi­na­tion makes ultra-thin capac­i­tors a key enabling tech­nol­o­gy for ver­ti­cal pow­er delivery. How­ev­er, tra­di­tion­al capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies have dif­fi­cul­ties deliv­er­ing high enough per­for­mance in a small enough form factor. ### Ultra-thin capacitor technologies At its most fun­da­men­tal lev­el, a capac­i­tor is a sim­ple device: two con­duc­tive elec­trodes sep­a­rat­ed by an insu­lat­ing dielec­tric. The more elec­trode sur­face area that can be packed into a giv­en vol­ume, the more capac­i­tance can be achieved in that same footprint. This is why the geom­e­try of the elec­trode struc­ture mat­ters so much. For con­ven­tion­al pla­nar capac­i­tors, the avail­able sur­face area is lim­it­ed by the foot­print of the device. To increase capac­i­tance den­si­ty, the indus­try has there­fore moved toward three-dimen­sion­al struc­tures that increase the effec­tive elec­trode area with­out increas­ing the foot­print of the component. **There are two main ways to do this**: 1. The first approach is sub­trac­tive: start with a sil­i­con sub­strate and etch deep, nar­row holes or trench­es into it. A dielec­tric and elec­trode stack is then deposit­ed into the trench­es, form­ing what is known as a deep trench capac­i­tor (DTC). This is a pow­er­ful con­cept and has enabled thin sil­i­con capacitors. 2. The sec­ond approach is addi­tive: instead of dig­ging sur­face area into the sub­strate, build high-sur­face-area struc­tures on top of it. This is the prin­ci­ple behind Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber-based met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (CNF-MIM) tech­nol­o­gy. Smoltek grows ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers from the sur­face, cre­at­ing a dense for­est of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures with extreme­ly high aspect ratio. These car­bon nanofibers dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase the avail­able elec­trode sur­face area with­in a very small vol­ume. A con­for­mal dielec­tric lay­er is then deposit­ed around the nanofibers, fol­lowed by the top elec­trode, form­ing a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capac­i­tor in a three-dimen­sion­al nanos­truc­tured geometry.  ![CNF MIM for AI fig](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-fig-3-1200x740.webp) *Fig­ure 3. CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy exploits an addi­tive approach to cre­ate high-sur­face-area struc­tures in which a dense for­est of ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers is grown on the sub­strate. This is in con­trast with the sub­trac­tive approach of deep trench capac­i­tors where addi­tion­al sur­face area is carved into the substrate.* One key dif­fer­ence between CNF-MIM and deep trench capac­i­tors is the aspect ratio of the under­ly­ing 3D struc­ture that cre­ates the capac­i­tor sur­face area. In DTC tech­nol­o­gy, the sur­face gain comes from trench­es etched into sil­i­con result­ing in aspect ratios typ­i­cal­ly below 25. In Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, the 3D struc­ture is instead formed by ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers with an aver­age diam­e­ter of less than 100 nm result­ing aspect ratios of exceed­ing 100 (see Fig­ure 4). This much high­er aspect ratio means that CNF-MIM can gen­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant­ly more elec­trode sur­face area in the same volume.  ![CNF MIM for AI fig](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-fig-4-1200x524.webp) *Fig­ure 4. Com­par­i­son of car­bon nanofiber MIM and deep trench capac­i­tor geome­tries. Car­bon nanofibers are nanos­truc­tures with inher­ent­ly high length-to-diam­e­ter ratios, enabling much larg­er aspect ratios than con­ven­tion­al deep trench structures.* The high­er aspect ratio of CNF-MIM also trans­lates direct­ly into a cost advan­tage. Because deep trench capac­i­tors have a low­er aspect ratio, they often need to com­pen­sate by deposit­ing mul­ti­ple met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al stacks inside the trench­es to reach high capac­i­tance den­si­ty. Each addi­tion­al elec­trode and dielec­tric lay­er adds process com­plex­i­ty and increas­es the fab­ri­ca­tion cost, espe­cial­ly because these films are typ­i­cal­ly deposit­ed using low-through­put ALD process­es. CNF-MIM, by con­trast, can achieve high capac­i­tance den­si­ty with a sin­gle dielec­tric stack coat­ed con­for­mal­ly over the car­bon nanofibers.  In addi­tion, DTC requires high-res­o­lu­tion lith­o­g­ra­phy to define dense and nar­row trench struc­tures, while CNF-MIM nanofibers can be grown from cat­a­lyst nanopar­ti­cles formed by dewet­ting of a con­tin­u­ous cat­a­lyst film. This elim­i­nates the need for cost­ly high-res­o­lu­tion lith­o­g­ra­phy and gives CNF-MIM a sim­pler and cheap­er route to high capac­i­tance density. ![CNF MIM for AI fig](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-fig-5.webp) Fig­ure 5. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors can achieve high capac­i­tance den­si­ty with a sin­gle dielec­tric stack coat­ed con­for­mal­ly over the car­bon nanofibers trans­lat­ing to a cost advan­tage over DTC tech­nol­o­gy which requires more com­plex processing. Anoth­er impor­tant advan­tage of CNF-MIM is that it is sub­strate agnos­tic. In deep trench capac­i­tors, the sil­i­con sub­strate is an inte­gral part of the device because the capac­i­tor sur­face area is cre­at­ed by etch­ing trench­es into the sil­i­con. This makes the tech­nol­o­gy inher­ent­ly tied to sil­i­con and lim­its its trans­fer­abil­i­ty to oth­er sub­strate plat­forms. In con­trast car­bon nanofibers are grown on top of the substrate.  In fact, Smoltek has already demon­strat­ed CNF growth on a vari­ety of mate­ri­als, includ­ing sil­i­con, glass, alu­mi­na, stain­less steel foil, cop­per foil and alu­minum foil. This flex­i­bil­i­ty is strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant because future pow­er-deliv­ery archi­tec­tures will not be lim­it­ed to sil­i­con alone.  For exam­ple, glass sub­strates are gain­ing inter­est for advanced inter­posers because of their dimen­sion­al sta­bil­i­ty, fine-line rout­ing poten­tial and suit­abil­i­ty for large-area pan­el-lev­el integration.  A capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that can be imple­ment­ed on glass offers a broad­er inte­gra­tion path for advanced pack­ag­ing, embed­ded capac­i­tance and ver­ti­cal pow­er-deliv­ery solutions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#integrated-power-delivery-the-future-direction-with-cnf-mim)Integrated power delivery—the future direction with CNF-MIM The next step is to move the volt­age reg­u­la­tion even clos­er to the point of load.  Inte­grat­ed volt­age reg­u­la­tors and com­pact pow­er-con­vert­er chiplets are part of this trend. Instead of plac­ing the reg­u­la­tor only on the board, future archi­tec­tures may place pow­er con­ver­sion on the land side of the pack­age, inside the pack­age sub­strate, or close to the die itself. The objec­tive is clear: reduce the dis­tance between the reg­u­la­tor, the decou­pling capac­i­tor and the load.  This is a log­i­cal con­tin­u­a­tion of the same trend. Lat­er­al pow­er deliv­ery placed pow­er around the proces­sor. Ver­ti­cal pow­er deliv­ery moved pow­er under­neath the proces­sor. Pack­age-lev­el and inte­grat­ed pow­er deliv­ery bring con­ver­sion and decou­pling even clos­er to the point of load. At that point, thick­ness becomes the crit­i­cal dif­fer­en­tia­tor. This is where CNF-MIM has a deci­sive advan­tage over DTC: it can be made thinner.  In deep trench capac­i­tors, the sil­i­con sub­strate is not just a car­ri­er; it is part of the capac­i­tor itself because the trench­es are etched into it. This lim­its how aggres­sive­ly the wafer can be thinned with­out com­pro­mis­ing the device. CNF-MIM is fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent. The ultra-thin active capac­i­tor struc­ture is built addi­tive­ly on top of the sub­strate, while the sub­strate main­ly serves as a car­ri­er. This allows much more aggres­sive thin­ning and enables final devices as thin as 40 µm, com­pared with rough­ly 100 µm for typ­i­cal DTC solutions.  More­over, the ultra-thin active capac­i­tor lay­er can be formed direct­ly on sub­strates that are already very thin, such as met­al foils or oth­er flex­i­ble car­ri­er mate­ri­als. Instead of rely­ing on a thick sil­i­con wafer that must lat­er be etched and thinned, CNF-MIM can in prin­ci­ple be built where the final form fac­tor is defined pri­mar­i­ly by the start­ing sub­strate and the few-microm­e­ter-thick active layer. ![CNF MIM for AI fig](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-fig-6-1200x436.webp) *Fig­ure 6. The active area in a CNF-MIM is an ultra-thin lay­er on top of the sub­strate. This means and aggres­sive sub­strate thin­ning can be done on the sil­i­con sub­strate with­out jeop­ar­diz­ing the per­for­mance of the capacitor.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#summary)Summary First, CNF-MIM offers a more attrac­tive path to cost-effi­cient high capac­i­tance den­si­ty. Deep trench capac­i­tors cre­ate sur­face area by etch­ing nar­row struc­tures into sil­i­con, which requires demand­ing lith­o­g­ra­phy and deep sil­i­con pro­cess­ing. Because the trench aspect ratio is lim­it­ed, DTC tech­nol­o­gy often needs mul­ti­ple met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al stacks to com­pen­sate and reach high capac­i­tance den­si­ty. That adds process com­plex­i­ty, ALD time and cost. CNF-MIM takes a dif­fer­ent route. It cre­ates high sur­face area addi­tive­ly, by grow­ing car­bon nanofibers from the sur­face, and can achieve high capac­i­tance den­si­ty with a sin­gle con­for­mal dielec­tric stack. This makes CNF-MIM not only tech­ni­cal­ly dif­fer­ent, but poten­tial­ly sim­pler and cheap­er to manufacture.  Sec­ond, CNF-MIM is not locked to sil­i­con. This is strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant. Since the active nanofiber struc­ture is grown on top of the sub­strate, the same basic con­cept can be trans­ferred to dif­fer­ent car­ri­er mate­ri­als, includ­ing glass, alu­mi­na, stain­less steel, cop­per and alu­minum. Glass is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for the future of advanced pack­ag­ing and scal­able inte­gra­tion, where large-area pro­cess­ing, dimen­sion­al sta­bil­i­ty and fine-line rout­ing are becom­ing increas­ing­ly attrac­tive. A capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that can move beyond sil­i­con and fol­low the indus­try toward new pack­age and inter­pos­er plat­forms has a much stronger long-term inte­gra­tion path.  But the most impor­tant advan­tage is thick­ness. Future pow­er deliv­ery is mov­ing from the board to under­neath the proces­sor, to the pack­age, and even­tu­al­ly as close as pos­si­ble to the sil­i­con itself. In that world, every microm­e­ter mat­ters. A capac­i­tor is no longer use­ful only because it has high capac­i­tance den­si­ty; it must also fit into extreme­ly lim­it­ed ver­ti­cal space. This is where CNF-MIM wins most clear­ly. In DTC, the sil­i­con sub­strate is part of the capac­i­tor struc­ture itself, because the trench­es are etched into it. That lim­its how far the device can be thinned. In CNF-MIM, the active capac­i­tor is built addi­tive­ly on top of the sub­strate, while the sub­strate main­ly acts as a car­ri­er. This makes much more aggres­sive thin­ning pos­si­ble and enables devices down to around 40 µm.  This com­bi­na­tion is what makes CNF-MIM such a strong can­di­date for the next gen­er­a­tion of ultra-thin decou­pling capac­i­tors. It offers a poten­tial­ly low­er-cost route to high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, it can be inte­grat­ed into future-rel­e­vant sub­strates such as glass, and above all, it can be made extreme­ly thin. As pow­er deliv­ery moves clos­er to the proces­sor, that thick­ness advan­tage becomes decisive. ![CNF MIM for AI table](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cnf-mim-for-ai-table-1-1200x702.webp) *DTC vs. CNF-MIM: com­par­i­son overview.* * * * Learn more about the extreme­ly small and ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tor: [Go here!](http://www.smolteksemi.com) --- title: "Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-enables-the-next-generation-digital-and-fossil-free-society/23864/" date: 2026-06-16 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/backpack-beard-bench-842912.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ai" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ai.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "edge-devices" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/edge-devices.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "hpc" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hpc.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Smoltek enables the next generation digital and fossil-free society Over the next 5–10 years, two glob­al mega­trends will dom­i­nate indus­try investment: 1. Explo­sive growth in AI, data cen­ters and advanced electronics. 2. The tran­si­tion from fos­sil fuels to fos­sil-free ener­gy and hydrogen. Both devel­op­ments run into the same prob­lem: today’s tech­nol­o­gy is begin­ning to reach its phys­i­cal and eco­nom­ic limits.  Data cen­ters and AI sys­tems increas­ing­ly demand per­for­mance with­out sky­rock­et­ing ener­gy con­sump­tion. At the same time, gov­ern­ments and indus­tri­al com­pa­nies want to build a fos­sil-free ener­gy sup­ply, but the cost of green hydro­gen is still too high.  *This is where Smoltek comes into play.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-does-smoltek-offer)What does Smoltek offer? Smoltek devel­ops and com­mer­cial­izes mate­r­i­al and com­po­nent solu­tions that make the elec­tron­ics of the future more pow­er­ful and ener­gy effi­cient and the hydro­gen pro­duc­tion of the future cheap­er and more scalable.  ***The com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly focus­es on two markets:***  - **Smoltek Semi** – solu­tions that help future AI proces­sors and advanced semi­con­duc­tors get a sta­ble and effi­cient pow­er sup­ply in ever small­er spaces. - **Smoltek Hydro­gen** – solu­tions that great­ly reduce the need for rare and expen­sive mate­ri­als in the pro­duc­tion of green hydrogen. Basi­cal­ly, ***Smoltek is about cre­at­ing more per­for­mance on a small­er sur­face and with less resource consumption.***  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#imagine-the-year-2035)Imagine the year 2035 AI is in almost every­thing: fac­to­ries, health­care, vehi­cles, robot­ics and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems. Data cen­ters have become as crit­i­cal to soci­ety as elec­tric­i­ty grids and roads.  At the same time, green hydro­gen is used to man­u­fac­ture steel, dri­ve heavy trans­port and store ener­gy from solar and wind power.  But devel­op­ment is slowed by two bottlenecks:  - Elec­tron­ics are becom­ing increas­ing­ly com­pact and ener­gy dense. - Hydro­gen pro­duc­tion is lim­it­ed by costs and avail­abil­i­ty of crit­i­cal raw materials. ***Smoltek address­es both of these issues.***  If the com­pa­ny suc­ceeds, their solu­tions will not be vis­i­ble to the con­sumer – but they will be inside the prod­ucts and sys­tems that shape the future: - AI servers that deliv­er more com­put­ing pow­er per watt. - Data cen­ters with low­er ener­gy consumption. - Cheap­er pro­duc­tion of fos­sil-free hydrogen. - Ener­gy sys­tems that become less depen­dent on rare raw materials. The com­pa­ny there­fore does not sell a final prod­uct to con­sumers: ***Smoltek enables oth­ers to build bet­ter products.***  > Smoltek’s vision is to be an enabler for the next gen­er­a­tion’s dig­i­tal and sus­tain­able society. By solv­ing crit­i­cal mate­r­i­al and per­for­mance prob­lems, the com­pa­ny wants to con­tribute to both the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion and the ener­gy transition.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-does-the-business-idea-contribute-to-the-vision)How does the business idea contribute to the vision? Smoltek’s busi­ness con­cept is to devel­op, pro­tect and com­mer­cial­ize tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms that solve the indus­try’s most crit­i­cal bottlenecks.  The com­pa­ny iden­ti­fies areas where demand is grow­ing rapid­ly but where today’s solu­tions are no longer suf­fi­cient. Smoltek then devel­ops com­po­nents and pro­duc­tion process­es that make the next tech­nol­o­gy shift possible.  In this way, the busi­ness idea becomes a direct tool for real­iz­ing the vision of more pow­er­ful elec­tron­ics and more sus­tain­able ener­gy production.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-will-smoltek-make-money)How will Smoltek make money? Smoltek builds val­ue by devel­op­ing patent­ed solu­tions that can be inte­grat­ed into the prod­ucts and pro­duc­tion sys­tems of large indus­tri­al com­pa­nies. The com­pa­ny has an exten­sive patent port­fo­lio that cre­ates bar­ri­ers to entry and enables com­mer­cial collaborations. - The rev­enue can come from sev­er­al sources: - Licens­ing of tech­nol­o­gy and patents. - Coop­er­a­tion agree­ments with glob­al indus­try partners. - Roy­al­ty income when the tech­nol­o­gy is used in large-scale production. - Sales of own com­po­nents and materials. The busi­ness mod­el is char­ac­ter­ized by the fact that a rel­a­tive­ly small tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny can cre­ate great val­ue by becom­ing an impor­tant part of very large markets.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-driving-forces-help-smoltek)What driving forces help Smoltek? **Polit­i­cal dri­vers:** Gov­ern­ments in Europe, the US and Asia are invest­ing hun­dreds of bil­lions in both semi­con­duc­tors and green ener­gy. Secu­ri­ty of sup­ply, tech­no­log­i­cal inde­pen­dence and cli­mate goals dri­ve the demand for new solu­tions. Smoltek oper­ates in the mid­dle of these pri­or­i­ty areas.  **Eco­nom­ic dri­vers:** AI invest­ments are grow­ing strong­ly at the same time as the indus­try is look­ing for cheap­er routes to fos­sil-free ener­gy. Tech­nol­o­gy that can low­er costs or increase per­for­mance there­fore has a clear com­mer­cial value.  **Social dri­vers:** Soci­ety expects both more dig­i­tal ser­vices and faster cli­mate change. This increas­es the need for more effi­cient elec­tron­ics and sus­tain­able ener­gy production.  **Tech­ni­cal dri­vers:** In both the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and the hydro­gen indus­try, estab­lished solu­tions are begin­ning to reach their lim­i­ta­tions. When exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy is no longer suf­fi­cient, oppor­tu­ni­ties are opened up for new play­ers with new approach­es. Smoltek devel­ops solu­tions pre­cise­ly where these bot­tle­necks occur.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#to-summarize)To summarize Smoltek devel­ops key tech­nolo­gies for two of the world’s strongest growth areas – AI infra­struc­ture and green hydro­gen – with the goal of solv­ing crit­i­cal bot­tle­necks that today’s tech­nol­o­gy has dif­fi­cul­ty handling. * * * *Read more about our dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy for AI ([Smoltek Semi](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/)) and green hyr­do­gen ([Smoltek Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/)).* --- title: "Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-takes-the-next-step-towards-commercialization-carries-out-rights-issue-of-approximately-sek-60-million/23790/" date: 2026-06-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "pte" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pte.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek takes the next step towards commercialization – carries out rights issue of approximately SEK 60 million The com­pa­ny’s patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form is based on con­trolled growth of car­bon nanofibers (CNF), which enables advanced com­po­nent solu­tions with high per­for­mance and low mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion. The tech­nol­o­gy is being devel­oped through the sub­sidiaries Smoltek Semi, which focus­es on ultra-thin capac­i­tors for the chip of the future, and Smoltek Hydro­gen, which devel­ops com­po­nents for cost-effec­tive pro­duc­tion of green hydrogen. Through col­lab­o­ra­tions with Tai­wanese ITRI and Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als, Smoltek has tak­en impor­tant steps towards indus­tri­al val­i­da­tion and future com­mer­cial agreements. > *- We have built a strong tech­no­log­i­cal foun­da­tion and estab­lished part­ner­ships with lead­ing play­ers in our focus areas. Now it is about trans­lat­ing the tech­nol­o­gy into busi­ness. The rights issue gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inten­si­fy work on cus­tomer projects, indus­tri­al­iza­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion, says CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son*. The net pro­ceeds from the rights issue will be used, among oth­er things, for cus­tomer-dri­ven devel­op­ment, prod­uct adap­ta­tions, indus­tri­al­iza­tion, sales efforts and con­tin­ued research and development. The rights issue con­sti­tutes the final step in the financ­ing plan that the board of direc­tors pre­sent­ed in Decem­ber 2024. The goal is to cre­ate the con­di­tions for pos­i­tive cash flow from 2027 and at the same time strength­en the com­pa­ny’s posi­tion in two mar­kets where the need for new mate­r­i­al and com­po­nent solu­tions is expect­ed to increase for many years to come. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#two-solutions-for-a-better-tomorrow)Two solutions for a better tomorrow Smoltek address­es two glob­al macro trends – **the ever-increas­ing com­put­ing pow­er of next gen­er­a­tion proces­sors, and the enor­mous demand for more ener­gy that fol­lows in its wake**. We enable the next gen­er­a­tion of power.: 1. **Smoltek Semi** offers ener­gy- and cost-effi­cient capac­i­tors with high elec­tri­cal per­for­mance for pow­er sup­ply for AI and HPC proces­sors and for Radio Fre­quen­cy and Optoelectronics. 2. **Smoltek Hydro­gen** offers PGM mate­r­i­al sav­ings and cost-effec­tive elec­trodes with high cat­alyt­ic per­for­mance for PEM elec­trolyz­er and fuel cells. ### Smoltek Semi: CNF-MIM Capacitors – Stable Power Supply for Advanced Chips Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is specif­i­cal­ly devel­oped for sta­ble pow­er man­age­ment in AI chips and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC), data cen­ters, as well as RF appli­ca­tions and optoelectronics.  The CNF-MIM capac­i­tor com­bines high capac­i­tance den­si­ty with low elec­tri­cal loss­es (ESL and ESR), pack­aged in an extreme­ly thin form fac­tor that enables advanced chip inte­gra­tion. Through cost-effec­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing, Smoltek Semi builds more ener­gy-effi­cient capac­i­tors, inde­pen­dent of sub­strate, for the next gen­er­a­tion of advanced chips. ### Smoltek Hydrogen – Electrochemically stable and material-saving electrodes for hydrogen applications Smoltek’s porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) con­tains only 0.1 mg irid­i­um per cm², but can pro­duce as much hydro­gen as a con­ven­tion­al poly­mer elec­trode, which requires many times more irid­i­um per cm².  Our PTE tech­nol­o­gy has demon­strat­ed con­firmed elec­trode sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing irid­i­um reduc­tion. The tech­nol­o­gy has also been shown to pro­vide reduced con­tact resis­tance in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells, which is an impor­tant fea­ture that pro­vides high­er effi­cien­cy and increased per­for­mance in both fuel cells and electrolyzers.  Reduced con­tact resis­tance in a fuel cell (espe­cial­ly PEMFC – pro­ton exchange mem­brane fuel cell) is crit­i­cal for improv­ing per­for­mance and life. Con­tact resis­tance occurs pri­mar­i­ly at the inter­faces between cell lay­ers, for exam­ple between the gas dif­fu­sion lay­er (GDL) and the bipo­lar plate. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#20-years-of-research-and-know-how-in-nanotechnology)20 years of research and know-how in nanotechnology Our inno­va­tions are based on over 20 years of research and know-how in nan­otech­nol­o­gy. We have a broad patent port­fo­lio for exten­sive intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty pro­tec­tion that cur­rent­ly con­sists of 97 grant­ed patents with­in 21 families.  In total we can count a total of more than 120 indi­vid­ual patent assets (patents applied for and grant­ed) cov­er­ing CNF syn­the­sis (con­trolled growth of car­bon nanofibers) as well as process­es and pro­duc­tion meth­ods at the appli­ca­tion level. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#additive-manufacturing-method)Additive manufacturing method Smoltek’s prod­ucts (capac­i­tors and elec­trodes) are man­u­fac­tured using addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy. It is an indus­tri­al tech­nol­o­gy in which three-dimen­sion­al objects are cre­at­ed by adding mate­r­i­al lay­er by lay­er. Unlike tra­di­tion­al machin­ing, which cuts away mate­r­i­al, this method reduces waste and enables extreme­ly com­plex geome­tries, more mate­r­i­al vari­a­tions and faster pro­to­type manufacturing.  In our case, this means that we grow car­bon nanofibers on a sur­face that is com­pat­i­ble with indus­tri­al elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal process­es, and which are then coat­ed with dif­fer­ent met­als, atom­ic lay­er by atom­ic layer.  The result is that we sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the avail­able sur­face area for chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal process­es, which enables the man­u­fac­ture of more com­pact and pow­er­ful appli­ca­tions in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent indus­tri­al sec­tors – appli­ca­tions that are more ener­gy and cost-efficient. ### The benefits of additive manufacturing - Com­plex design: Enables shapes that are impos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture traditionally - Mate­r­i­al effi­cien­cy: Less waste and scrap as only nec­es­sary mate­ri­als are used - Cus­tomiza­tion: Per­fect for cus­tom components * * * Read more about the rights issue (Swedish and Eng­lish): [Företräde­se­mis­sion 2026](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/foretradesemission-2026/ "Företrädesemission 2026") --- title: "Smoltek strengthens Interposer IP enabling AI chip capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-awarded-an-additional-patent-in-the-interposer-family/23641/" date: 2026-05-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/land-side-capacitors-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek strengthens Interposer IP enabling AI chip capacitors The patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy enables ultra-thin, high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors to be inte­grat­ed clos­er to proces­sors and pow­er rails in AI, HPC and next-gen­er­a­tion semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions. This improves pow­er deliv­ery, ener­gy effi­cien­cy and chip per­for­mance in increas­ing­ly demand­ing com­put­ing environments. As AI, HPC and chiplet-based sys­tems increas­ing­ly require com­pact, low-induc­tance decou­pling solu­tions placed clos­er to the point of load, the abil­i­ty to inte­grate ultra-thin, high-capac­i­tance-den­si­ty CNF-MIM capac­i­tors direct­ly into or onto inter­posers becomes high­ly rel­e­vant. The patent gives Smoltek addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion around this inte­gra­tion con­cept and sup­ports our long-term busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty by rein­forc­ing our tech­nol­o­gy dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, increas­ing the val­ue of our IP port­fo­lio, and improv­ing our posi­tion in dis­cus­sions with poten­tial indus­tri­al part­ners, cus­tomers and licensees. > “The new grant also con­firms that Smoltek’s CNF-MIM plat­form is not lim­it­ed to stand­alone capac­i­tor com­po­nents but can become an enabling tech­nol­o­gy for next-gen­er­a­tion het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion and advanced pack­ag­ing architectures.” > > *Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek* Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tions. The present patent pro­tect­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter inter­posers that inte­grates one or sev­er­al com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices.  The Inter­pos­er patent foot­print now cov­ers all impor­tant mar­kets, includ­ing USA, Japan, Korea and Tai­wan. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 98 grant­ed patents. [*Read more about our IP and patents*](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). * * * **Q:** What is an inter­pos­er? **A:** An inter­pos­er is an inter­me­di­ate sub­strate used to con­nect mul­ti­ple semi­con­duc­tor dies (chiplets, mem­o­ry stacks, log­ic chips, etc.) inside a pack­age. They are com­mon in advanced pack­ag­ing such as 2.5D and 3D integration. **Key fea­tures and ben­e­fits of interposers** - Advanced pack­ag­ing (2.5D/3D): Inter­posers are essen­tial for con­nect­ing mul­ti­ple chiplets in a sin­gle pack­age, elim­i­nat­ing the need for wire bonds. - Bridge: They act as a bridge con­nect­ing the chip and the cir­cuit board, often by redis­trib­ut­ing fine con­nec­tions from the chip to a coars­er pitch on the cir­cuit board. - Through Sil­i­con Vias (TSV): Many inter­posers (espe­cial­ly sil­i­con-based ones) use TSV to cre­ate cop­per vias ver­ti­cal­ly through the sil­i­con wafer, pro­vid­ing extreme­ly short and effi­cient connections. - Improved per­for­mance: By reduc­ing the dis­tance between chips (e.g. between a GPU and HBM mem­o­ry), band­width is improved and pow­er con­sump­tion is reduced. - Areas of appli­ca­tion: AI accel­er­a­tors, High-per­for­mance GPUs, HBM mem­o­ry sys­tems, Data-cen­ter proces­sors, Net­work­ing ASICs, Advanced het­ero­ge­neous SoCs. --- title: "Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/positioning-for-the-next-wave-of-ai-infrastructure/23610/" date: 2026-05-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "advanced chips" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-chips.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "sustainability" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainability.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Positioning for the Next Wave of AI Infrastructure > *I’m tru­ly grate­ful, as Smoltek CEO to be invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in these dis­cus­sions that reflect the grow­ing rel­e­vance of ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies in the future AI infra­struc­ture stack. I had the great hon­or of meet­ing the Yageo man­age­ment team dis­cussing the future of ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and not least meet­ing Mr. Pierre Chen, the tru­ly inspir­ing founder and chair­man, The vision and road map for accel­er­at­ing AI as a lead­ing play­er is already being exe­cut­ed with speed by Yageo.* > Mag­nus Ander­s­son, CEO at Smotek ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-ai-revolution-is-entering-a-new-phase)The AI revolution is entering a new phase What began as a race to build larg­er AI mod­els is rapid­ly becom­ing a race to build the infra­struc­ture capa­ble of pow­er­ing them. At the 2026 AI Sum­mit host­ed by [YAGEO Group](https://www.yageo.com/) in Taipei, indus­try lead­ers gath­ered around a com­mon real­iza­tion: scal­ing AI is no longer only a soft­ware chal­lenge — it is fun­da­men­tal­ly an infra­struc­ture challenge.  This shift is cre­at­ing major oppor­tu­ni­ties across the hard­ware ecosys­tem, espe­cial­ly for com­pa­nies devel­op­ing next-gen­er­a­tion solu­tions in pow­er deliv­ery, advanced mate­ri­als, and com­po­nent miniaturization.  For Smoltek, par­tic­i­pa­tion in these dis­cus­sions reflects the grow­ing rel­e­vance of ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies in the future AI infra­struc­ture stack. > “*Yageo has shown an amaz­ing per­for­mance and jour­ney towards high-tech AI solu­tions dis­played at the Yageo AI Sum­mit in Taipei. The tran­si­tion to the next gen­er­a­tion AI infra­struc­ture requires new lev­els of per­for­mance and pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion built with advanced new mate­ri­als.*“ > Mag­nus Andersson ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hypergrowth-in-ai-drives-infrastructure-spending)Hypergrowth in AI drives infrastructure spending The scale of invest­ment now being direct­ed toward AI infra­struc­ture is unprece­dent­ed and accord­ing to Dell’Oro Group, glob­al data cen­ter cap­i­tal expen­di­tures are pro­ject­ed to reach approx­i­mate­ly **$1.7 tril­lion annu­al­ly by 2030**, dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by AI work­loads and hyper­scale infra­struc­ture expan­sion. McK­in­sey esti­mates the broad­er AI-dri­ven data cen­ter build­out could require as much as **$6.7–7 tril­lion in cumu­la­tive glob­al invest­ment by 2030**. ([McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-7-trillion-dollar-data-center-build-out-how-industrials-can-capture-their-share)). Invest­ments are dri­ven by capac­i­ty demand in AI-relat­ed data cen­ters that are pro­ject­ed to increase 3**.5x by 2030** ([McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/week-in-charts/data-center-demands)) and the four largest hyper­scalers alone are expect­ed to spend near­ly **$600 bil­lion in 2026** on AI infra­struc­ture. ([PR Newswire](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ai-boom-drives-data-center-capex-to-1-7-trillion-by-2030--according-to-delloro-group-302681759.html)). The num­bers illus­trate a struc­tur­al shift where AI is becom­ing one of the largest infra­struc­ture invest­ment cycles in mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy history. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-bottleneck-is-moving-towards-power-delivery)The bottleneck is moving towards power delivery As AI proces­sors become more pow­er­ful, ener­gy con­sump­tion and pow­er integri­ty are emerg­ing as key con­straints. Mod­ern AI accel­er­a­tors already con­sume hun­dreds of watts per chip, and future gen­er­a­tions are expect­ed to push sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er. Research on AI super­com­put­ers shows that pow­er require­ments for lead­ing sys­tems have his­tor­i­cal­ly dou­bled approx­i­mate­ly every year. A small proces­sor (xPU) requires 1 kW in pow­er, more than mod­ern vac­u­um clean­er (that requires about 0.6–0.8 kW).  This cre­ates increas­ing pres­sure on: - Pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion efficiency - Volt­age stability - Com­po­nent density - Ther­mal performance - Advanced pack­ag­ing integration In prac­ti­cal terms, the indus­try is approach­ing phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions in how effi­cient­ly pow­er can be deliv­ered to next-gen­er­a­tion proces­sors. This is where advanced capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies become strate­gi­cal­ly important.  Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is being devel­oped specif­i­cal­ly to address these emerg­ing require­ments through: Ultra-thin form fac­tors, high capac­i­tance den­si­ty poten­tial, improved inte­gra­tion close to proces­sors and sup­port for advanced semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures. As AI sys­tems con­tin­ue to scale, enabling tech­nolo­gies at the com­po­nent lev­el may become increas­ing­ly crit­i­cal to over­all sys­tem performance. ![2026 Yageo AI summit 1024x576](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-yageo-ai-summit-1024x576-1.webp) AI will be every­where and in almost everything. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ai-is-expanding-beyond-the-data-center)AI is expanding beyond the data center Anoth­er impor­tant theme at the sum­mit was the rapid growth of Edge AI that dri­ves demand for data pro­cess­ing capac­i­ty and advanced com­po­nents and pow­er sup­ply in appli­ca­tions such as AI PCs, Smart­phones, Auto­mo­tive, Robot­ics, Indus­tri­al automa­tion and IoT systems.  This expan­sion dra­mat­i­cal­ly increas­es the num­ber of devices requir­ing advanced pow­er archi­tec­tures and minia­tur­ized elec­tron­ic components.  Indus­try fore­casts esti­mate bil­lions of AI-enabled edge devices will enter the mar­ket over the com­ing years, cre­at­ing sub­stan­tial demand for more com­pact, ener­gy-effi­cient elec­tron­ic solu­tions. The oppor­tu­ni­ty for Smoltek CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy there­fore extends beyond hyper­scale infra­struc­ture and into a much broad­er glob­al elec­tron­ics market. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#power-consumption-is-becoming-a-strategic-industry-issue)Power consumption Is becoming a strategic industry issue The growth of AI infra­struc­ture is also cre­at­ing entire­ly new ener­gy challenges.  The indus­try real­i­ty is that future AI com­pet­i­tive­ness will not only depend on com­pute per­for­mance, but also on how effi­cient­ly pow­er can be dis­trib­uted, man­aged, and uti­lized through­out the infra­struc­ture stack. This trend strength­ens the long-term mar­ket rel­e­vance of tech­nolo­gies capa­ble of improv­ing pow­er effi­cien­cy and com­po­nent integration. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strategic-ecosystem-participation-matters)Strategic ecosystem participation matters The AI infra­struc­ture mar­ket is evolv­ing through increas­ing­ly inter­con­nect­ed ecosys­tems involving: - Semi­con­duc­tor manufacturers - Pas­sive com­po­nent suppliers - Advanced pack­ag­ing companies - Hyper­scalers - Sys­tem integrators Par­tic­i­pa­tion in strate­gic indus­try forums there­fore mat­ters. Smoltek’s CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son attend­ed the sum­mit and met with senior YAGEO lead­er­ship to dis­cuss future AI infra­struc­ture require­ments and next-gen­er­a­tion capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies. For Smoltek, these dis­cus­sions rep­re­sent an oppor­tu­ni­ty to posi­tion its tech­nol­o­gy with­in one of the fastest grow­ing and most strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant indus­tri­al tran­si­tions globally. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-structural-opportunity-not-a-short-term-trend)A structural opportunity, not a short-term trend The AI tran­si­tion is still in its ear­ly stages.  What is increas­ing­ly clear is that long-term val­ue cre­ation will extend far beyond soft­ware and mod­els. The phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture lay­er — includ­ing pow­er deliv­ery, advanced mate­ri­als, and minia­tur­ized com­po­nents — is becom­ing equal­ly impor­tant. As glob­al AI infra­struc­ture invest­ments accel­er­ate toward mul­ti-tril­lion-dol­lar lev­els, demand for enabling tech­nolo­gies that improve effi­cien­cy, den­si­ty, and sys­tem per­for­mance is expect­ed to grow along­side it. For Smoltek, this rep­re­sents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in a long-dura­tion struc­tur­al growth mar­ket dri­ven by the glob­al expan­sion of AI infrastructure. * * * Want to learn more about the extreme­ly small and ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tor? [Go here!](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/) --- title: "Power supply in turbulent times – from vulnerability to resilience" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/power-supply-in-turbulent-times-from-vulnerability-to-resilience/23588/" date: 2026-04-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/elektronikmassan-2026-04.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "pte" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pte.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Power supply in turbulent times – from vulnerability to resilience In mid-April Smoltek attend­ed the Swedish Semi­con event ‘Elek­tron­ikmäss­san 2026’, in our home­town of Göte­borg. At the pitch stage, CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son held a talk with a dual message: > *“Nev­er before has our soci­ety depend­ed so deeply on reli­able, unin­ter­rupt­ed pow­er, and nev­er before has that pow­er sup­ply been under such pres­sure. AI is scal­ing fast than Moore’s Law ever did.* > *Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion is accel­er­at­ing across trans­port, indus­try, and defense. Ener­gy sys­tems are becom­ing green­er – yet also more frag­ile.* > *At the same time, effi­cien­cy mar­gins are shrink­ing:* > *– Pow­er den­si­ties are explod­ing* > *– Mate­ri­als are becom­ing scarce* > *– Infra­struc­ture vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties are increas­ing* > *Real­i­ty has hit us. We live in tur­bu­lent times. Not just polit­i­cal­ly or economically—but elec­tri­cal­ly.* > *And at Smoltek, we sit right at the inter­sec­tion of these forces.”* The talk: ***“Pow­er Sup­ply in Tur­bu­lent Times – from vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to resilience, how Smoltek enables the next gen­er­a­tion of pow­er”*** cir­cled around the fact that today’s geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, togeth­er with the green ambi­tions to elec­tri­fy every­thing in a rapid pace puts a stress on cur­rent mate­ri­als and tech­nolo­gies. And this is where our dis­rup­tive nan­otech­nol­o­gy enters the scene: **Smoltek future-proof both com­put­ing pow­er and ener­gy** **sup­ply**. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#two-solutions-for-a-better-tomorrow)Two solutions for a better tomorrow Smoltek address­es two glob­al macro trends – **the ever-increas­ing com­put­ing pow­er of next gen­er­a­tion proces­sors, and the enor­mous demand for more ener­gy that fol­lows in its wake**. We enable the next gen­er­a­tion of power.: 1. **Smoltek Semi** offers ener­gy- and cost-effi­cient capac­i­tors with high elec­tri­cal per­for­mance for pow­er sup­ply for AI and HPC proces­sors and for Radio Fre­quen­cy and Optoelectronics. 2. **Smoltek Hydro­gen** offers PGM mate­r­i­al sav­ings and cost-effec­tive elec­trodes with high cat­alyt­ic per­for­mance for PEM elec­trolyz­er and fuel cells. ### Smoltek Semi: CNF-MIM Capacitors – Stable Power Supply for Advanced Chips Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is specif­i­cal­ly devel­oped for sta­ble pow­er man­age­ment in AI chips and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC), data cen­ters, as well as RF appli­ca­tions and optoelectronics.  The CNF-MIM capac­i­tor com­bines high capac­i­tance den­si­ty with low elec­tri­cal loss­es (ESL and ESR), pack­aged in an extreme­ly thin form fac­tor that enables advanced chip inte­gra­tion. Through cost-effec­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing, Smoltek Semi builds more ener­gy-effi­cient capac­i­tors, inde­pen­dent of sub­strate, for the next gen­er­a­tion of advanced chips. ### Smoltek Hydrogen – Electrochemically stable and material-saving electrodes for hydrogen applications Smoltek’s porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) con­tains only 0.1 mg irid­i­um per cm², but can pro­duce as much hydro­gen as a con­ven­tion­al poly­mer elec­trode, which requires many times more irid­i­um per cm².  Our PTE tech­nol­o­gy has demon­strat­ed con­firmed elec­trode sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing irid­i­um reduc­tion. The tech­nol­o­gy has also been shown to pro­vide reduced con­tact resis­tance in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells, which is an impor­tant fea­ture that pro­vides high­er effi­cien­cy and increased per­for­mance in both fuel cells and electrolyzers.  Reduced con­tact resis­tance in a fuel cell (espe­cial­ly PEMFC – pro­ton exchange mem­brane fuel cell) is crit­i­cal for improv­ing per­for­mance and life. Con­tact resis­tance occurs pri­mar­i­ly at the inter­faces between cell lay­ers, for exam­ple between the gas dif­fu­sion lay­er (GDL) and the bipo­lar plate. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#20-years-of-research-and-know-how-in-nanotechnology)20 years of research and know-how in nanotechnology Our inno­va­tions are based on over 20 years of research and know-how in nan­otech­nol­o­gy. We have a broad patent port­fo­lio for exten­sive intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty pro­tec­tion that cur­rent­ly con­sists of 97 grant­ed patents with­in 21 families.  In total we can count a total of more than 120 indi­vid­ual patent assets (patents applied for and grant­ed) cov­er­ing CNF syn­the­sis (con­trolled growth of car­bon nanofibers) as well as process­es and pro­duc­tion meth­ods at the appli­ca­tion level. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#additive-manufacturing-method)Additive manufacturing method Smoltek’s prod­ucts (capac­i­tors and elec­trodes) are man­u­fac­tured using addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy. It is an indus­tri­al tech­nol­o­gy in which three-dimen­sion­al objects are cre­at­ed by adding mate­r­i­al lay­er by lay­er. Unlike tra­di­tion­al machin­ing, which cuts away mate­r­i­al, this method reduces waste and enables extreme­ly com­plex geome­tries, more mate­r­i­al vari­a­tions and faster pro­to­type manufacturing.  In our case, this means that we grow car­bon nanofibers on a sur­face that is com­pat­i­ble with indus­tri­al elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal process­es, and which are then coat­ed with dif­fer­ent met­als, atom­ic lay­er by atom­ic layer.  The result is that we sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the avail­able sur­face area for chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal process­es, which enables the man­u­fac­ture of more com­pact and pow­er­ful appli­ca­tions in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent indus­tri­al sec­tors – appli­ca­tions that are more ener­gy and cost-efficient. ### The benefits of additive manufacturing - Com­plex design: Enables shapes that are impos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture traditionally - Mate­r­i­al effi­cien­cy: Less waste and scrap as only nec­es­sary mate­ri­als are used - Cus­tomiza­tion: Per­fect for cus­tom components * * * Read more about our tech­nol­o­gy: [*Increas­ing the avail­able sur­face for crit­i­cal processes*](https://www.smoltek.com/technology/) --- title: "Elektronikmässan, Göteborg 2026 (past event)" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/elektronikmassan-goteborg-2026/23548/" date: 2026-04-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/magnus-andersson-1200x675-1.webp" categories: - name: "Events" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/events.md" --- # Elektronikmässan, Göteborg 2026 (past event) ### Power Supply in Turbulent Times – **from vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to resilience, how Smoltek enables the next gen­er­a­tion of power.** Nev­er before has our soci­ety depend­ed so deeply on reli­able, unin­ter­rupt­ed pow­er, and nev­er before has that pow­er sup­ply been under such pressure.  > “Real­i­ty has hit us. We live in tur­bu­lent times. Not just polit­i­cal­ly or eco­nom­i­cal­ly—**but elec­tri­cal­ly**.” AI is scal­ing faster than Moore’s Law ever did. Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion is accel­er­at­ing across trans­port, indus­try, and defense. Ener­gy sys­tems are becom­ing greener—yet also more fragile.  At the same time, effi­cien­cy mar­gins are shrinking:  - Pow­er den­si­ties are exploding - Mate­ri­als are becom­ing scarce - Infra­struc­ture vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties are increasing And yet, **fail­ure is not an option**. Smoltek sit right at the inter­sec­tion of these forces. *Smoltek is attend­ing Elek­tron­ikmäs­san in Göte­borg, April 16. On the pitch stage, CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son will talk about pow­er sup­ply in tur­bu­lent times—and how nanoscale inno­va­tion becomes a strate­gic answer to a sys­temic challenge.* **Con­nect with:** [Mag­nus Ander­s­son](https://www.linkedin.com/in/magnus-andersson-8331723b/) on site. \- See you in Göte­borg, April 16, 2026. **Where:** Åbymäs­san, Åby Are­naväg 10, 431 62 Möl­ndal **Date:** Apri 16 **Time:** 11:00–11:45 **Stage:** pitch stage --- title: "Smoltek appoints Gabriel Altby as CFO" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-appoints-gabriel-altby-as-cfo/23545/" date: 2026-04-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/gabriel-2000x1125-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek appoints Gabriel Altby as CFO > *“We are very pleased to wel­come Gabriel to Smoltek. His expe­ri­ence from both finan­cial man­age­ment and oper­a­tional lead­er­ship in inter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies will be valu­able in Smoltek’s con­tin­ued devel­op­ment and work to cre­ate long-term share­hold­er val­ue.”* > Mag­nus Ander­s­son, CEO of Smoltek. Gabriel has exten­sive expe­ri­ence from senior finan­cial and oper­a­tional posi­tions in inter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies. He most recent­ly came from Cur­tis Instru­ments, where he was Direc­tor, Finance & Admin­is­tra­tion – Europe with respon­si­bil­i­ty for finan­cial func­tions in sev­er­al Euro­pean sub­sidiaries and report­ing to the Group Management. * * * *Read the offi­cial press release: [Smoltek appoints Gabriel Alt­by as CFO](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-appoints-gabriel-altby-as-cfo,c4332711).* --- title: "Major Capacitor Manufacturer extends life test of CNF-MIM Capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/major-capacitor-manufacturer-extends-life-test-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/23511/" date: 2026-03-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cnf-mim-ai-chip.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "current leakage" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/current-leakage.md" - name: "life test" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/life-test.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Major Capacitor Manufacturer extends life test of CNF-MIM Capacitors Ultra-low leak­age and sta­ble elec­tri­cal para­me­ters at ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­ture are crit­i­cal for next-gen­er­a­tion advanced semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions, such as AI-chips, Radio Fre­quen­cy (RF) and optoelectronics.  **Why this is impor­tant** Reduced leak­age cur­rent min­i­mizes stress, lim­its heat gen­er­a­tion, and improves long-term sta­bil­i­ty – key require­ments in AI data cen­ters and advanced com­put­ing sys­tems where pow­er den­si­ty and ther­mal man­age­ment are deci­sive factors. [On Feb­ru­ary 23 we report­ed](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-reliability-validated-by-major-capacitor-manufacturer-duplicate/23490/ "CNF-MIM Capacitors Reliability Validated by Major Capacitor Manufacturer") that the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors showed sta­ble per­for­mance in a 1,000-hour reli­a­bil­i­ty test, per­fomed by a major capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er. Now we can announce that the inde­pen­dent third-par­ty oper­a­tional life test has been extend­ed to over 2,000 hours under applied voltage.  The lat­est mea­sure­ments show that the capac­i­tors con­tin­ue to exhib­it sta­ble elec­tri­cal behav­ior under long-term bias at ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­ture, with no major changes observed. This fur­ther sup­ports the robust­ness of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy in semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions where long-term sta­bil­i­ty, low leak­age and ther­mal reli­a­bil­i­ty are crucial. **Val­i­da­tion under very strict con­di­tions** The exter­nal life test sub­ject­ed the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors to con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion for 1,000 hours at 85°C and 105°C with con­stant volt­age bias, sim­u­lat­ing pro­longed use in ther­mal­ly demand­ing semi­con­duc­tor envi­ron­ments such as AI accel­er­a­tors, advanced proces­sors, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) sys­tems and RF appli­ca­tions. Test­ing at an ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­ture rep­re­sents an accel­er­a­tion of aging mech­a­nisms, pro­vid­ing con­fi­dence in long-term field reli­a­bil­i­ty and oper­a­tional stability. * * * Read the offi­cial press release: [*Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to demon­strate sta­ble per­for­mance in extend­ed life test con­duct­ed by glob­al capac­i­tor manufacturer*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-cnf-mim-technology-continues-to-demonstrate-stable-performance-in-extended-life-test-condu,c4327703) --- title: "CNF-MIM Capacitors Reliability Validated by Major Capacitor Manufacturer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-reliability-validated-by-major-capacitor-manufacturer-duplicate/23490/" date: 2026-02-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-10-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "current leakage" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/current-leakage.md" - name: "life test" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/life-test.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # CNF-MIM Capacitors Reliability Validated by Major Capacitor Manufacturer Ultra-low leak­age and sta­ble elec­tri­cal para­me­ters at ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­ture are crit­i­cal for next-gen­er­a­tion semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions. Reduced leak­age cur­rent min­i­mizes stress, lim­its heat gen­er­a­tion, and improves long-term sta­bil­i­ty – key require­ments in AI data cen­ters and advanced com­put­ing sys­tems where pow­er den­si­ty and ther­mal man­age­ment are deci­sive factors. On Feb­ru­ary 5 we report­ed that the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors showed [*sta­ble per­for­mance in a 1,000-hour reli­a­bil­i­ty test*](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-demonstrate-1000x-lower-current-leakage-in-life-test/21983/). Now we can announce that an inde­pen­dent third-par­ty oper­a­tional life test has ver­i­fied sta­ble per­for­mance over 1,000 hours under applied volt­age — with zero fail­ures and no observed degra­da­tion in capac­i­tance, equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR), or insu­la­tion resis­tance. Leak­age cur­rent remained in the picoam­pere range, with an insu­la­tion resis­tance of 1,000 GΩ at rat­ed voltage. **Val­i­da­tion under strict con­di­tions** The exter­nal life test sub­ject­ed the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors to con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion for 1,000 hours at 85°C with con­stant volt­age bias, sim­u­lat­ing pro­longed use in ther­mal­ly demand­ing semi­con­duc­tor envi­ron­ments such as AI accel­er­a­tors, advanced proces­sors, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) sys­tems and RF appli­ca­tions. Test­ing at an ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­ture rep­re­sents an accel­er­a­tion of aging mech­a­nisms, pro­vid­ing con­fi­dence in long-term field reli­a­bil­i­ty and oper­a­tional stability. * * * Read the offi­cial press release: [*Smoltek’s CNF-MIM Capac­i­tors Reli­a­bil­i­ty Val­i­dat­ed by Major Capac­i­tor Manufacturer*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-cnf-mim-capacitors-reliability-validated-by-major-capacitor-manufacturer,c4311507) --- title: "CNF-MIM Capacitors Demonstrate 1,000x Lower Current Leakage in Life Test" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-demonstrate-1000x-lower-current-leakage-in-life-test/21983/" date: 2026-02-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/smoltek-mc2-02-2000x1125-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "current leakage" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/current-leakage.md" - name: "life test" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/life-test.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # CNF-MIM Capacitors Demonstrate 1,000x Lower Current Leakage in Life Test The new life test (*a fol­low up on the [pre­vi­ous life test in Novem­ber 2025](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-pass-1000-hours-of-reliability-test/12845/)*) show strong results in the long-term sta­bil­i­ty of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy under real­is­tic oper­at­ing con­di­tions. In com­par­i­son, the new capac­i­tors demon­strate more than 1,000x low­er cur­rent leak­age while main­tain­ing sta­bil­i­ty through­out the 1,000-hour test. This cor­re­sponds to an impres­sive insu­la­tion resis­tance of 1,000 GΩ at the rat­ed voltage. Ultra-low leak­age increas­es reli­a­bil­i­ty by reduc­ing con­tin­u­ous stress and heat gen­er­a­tion dur­ing oper­a­tion. In large-scale AI data cen­ters as well as HPC appli­ca­tions, this leads to more sta­ble long-term per­for­mance, few­er field fail­ures, and most impor­tant­ly, less heat gen­er­a­tion and pow­er con­sump­tion – fac­tors that our cus­tomers con­sid­er critical.  > ***“In Novem­ber 2025, we report­ed that our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors showed min­i­mal changes dur­ing a 1,000-hour reli­a­bil­i­ty test, with one capac­i­tor fail­ing ear­ly in the test. This new 1,000-hour oper­a­tional life test on a sub­se­quent batch marks a major step for­ward, demon­strat­ing excep­tion­al­ly sta­ble behav­ior with zero fail­ures – most notably with leak­age remain­ing in the picoam­pere range, while capac­i­tance and ESR remain unchanged***.***“*** > *Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek* In par­al­lel with the inter­nal test, Smoltek has start­ed an exter­nal oper­a­tional life test of the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, expect­ing the final out­come with­in the next two weeks (mid-Feb­ru­ary 2026). The exter­nal test results are expect­ed to strength­en the company’s ongo­ing dis­cus­sions with poten­tial indus­tri­al partners. **Test results in brief (capac­i­tors were char­ac­ter­ized before and after com­ple­tion of the life test)**  - Capac­i­tance den­si­ty: 170 nF/​mm² (no change after test) - Equiv­a­lent Series Resis­tance (ESR): 1500 mΩ (no change after test) - Insu­la­tion resis­tance: 1000 GΩ cor­re­spond­ing to 2 pA leak­age cur­rent at 2 V DC (no change after test) * * * Read the offi­cial press release: [*CNF-MIM Capac­i­tors Demon­strate 1,000x Low­er Cur­rent Leak­age in Life Test*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-cnf-mim-capacitors-demonstrate-1-000x-lower-current-leakage-in-a-new-life-test,c4303252). --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen Selected for Swedish-German Cleantech Platform 2026" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-selected-for-swedish-german-cleantech-platform-2026/21304/" date: 2026-01-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen Selected for Swedish-German Cleantech Platform 2026 The SGCP-pro­gram pro­vides Smoltek Hydro­gen with a direct pipeline to key indus­tri­al play­ers, investors, and poten­tial cus­tomers with­in the Ger­man ener­gy sec­tor. This ini­tia­tive is expect­ed to fast-track the devel­op­ment and mar­ket entry of the company’s spe­cial­ized PEM elec­trolyz­er and fuel cell technologies. > “Ger­many is an impor­tant mar­ket for green hydro­gen and fuel cells. This pro­gram enables us to col­lab­o­rate direct­ly with indus­tri­al part­ners who are cen­tral to the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of our tech­nol­o­gy, and to act faster in key appli­ca­tions,” > *said Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen*. **Key high­lights of the SGCP-platform:**  - **Mar­ket Access:** Ger­many is a pri­ma­ry hub for indus­tri­al trans­for­ma­tion and ener­gy infra­struc­ture, offer­ing sig­nif­i­cant growth oppor­tu­ni­ties for green hydro­gen applications. - **Tech­no­log­i­cal Edge:** Smoltek uti­lizes a nan­otech­nol­o­gy-based mate­ri­als plat­form that reduces con­tact resis­tance and increas­es effi­cien­cy. This results in PEM sys­tems with high pow­er den­si­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and robustness. - **Tar­get­ed Appli­ca­tions:** Beyond gen­er­al ener­gy use (PEM elec­trolyz­ers), the com­pa­ny iden­ti­fies high poten­tial in defense-relat­ed appli­ca­tions. Smoltek’s fuel cells tech­nol­o­gy is ide­al for drones and portable pow­er solu­tions where tra­di­tion­al bat­ter­ies or diesel gen­er­a­tors are too heavy or eas­i­ly detected - **Strate­gic Growth:** The plat­form tar­gets inno­v­a­tive SMEs that strength­en the ener­gy sys­tem and sup­port the glob­al tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able energy. * * * - Read the offi­cial press release: *[Smoltek Hydro­gen admit­ted into Swedish-Ger­man Clean­tech Plat­form 2026 – strength­ens posi­tion in Europe’s lead­ing hydro­gen mar­ket](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-admitted-into-swedish-german-cleantech-platform-2026---strengthens-position-in-euro,c4298978).* --- title: "Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-part-iv-the-age-of-ai/17165/" date: 2025-12-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ai" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ai.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "edge-devices" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/edge-devices.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "hpc" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hpc.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Breaking Barriers, part IV: the age of AI So, what has hap­pened since then \[1, 2, 3]? Well, the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is strug­gling with more or less the same bot­tle­necks as back then. Of course, tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment has been steady – espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the AI boom – but the biggest obsta­cles remain. Such as the need for small­er and thin­ner high-per­for­mance and ener­gy-effi­cient capacitors. How­ev­er, with the rise of more pow­er­ful AI mod­els comes a surge need for elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er these devel­op­ments. And in this fol­low-up, I will delve into how Smoltek’s nan­otech­nol­o­gy could play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the future of AI. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-age-of-ai-and-how-i-see-the-two-sides-of-the-ai-coin-in-my-journey-with-smoltek)The age of AI and how I see the two sides of the AI Coin in my journey with Smoltek Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) is today reshap­ing the world — not only through algo­rithms and data, but also through the mate­ri­als and tech­nolo­gies that enable its phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture. At Smoltek, this trans­for­ma­tion is reflect­ed in two dis­tinct yet inter­con­nect­ed inno­va­tions: ultra-thin capac­i­tors (devel­oped by **Smoltek Semi**) and a low-irid­i­um con­tent elec­trode (devel­oped by **Smoltek Hydro­gen**). In my view, these inno­va­tions appear to rep­re­sent two sides of the same coin, each con­tribut­ing to the glob­al pur­suit of sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy progress towards smarter and sus­tain­able AI. As some­one deeply engaged in both aca­d­e­m­ic research and indus­tri­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, my per­son­al vision is to **break down bar­ri­ers and bridge the gap between research and indus­try**. I am a strong believ­er that mean­ing­ful inno­va­tion hap­pens when cut­ting-edge sci­ence meets real-world appli­ca­tion. Smoltek’s **dual path approach** exem­pli­fies this phi­los­o­phy. I think it is fair to say that I am wit­ness­ing Smoltek’s dual path towards a sus­tain­able future. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-semi-a-thinner-capacitor-for-smarter-ai)Smoltek Semi: A thinner capacitor for Smarter AI On one side of the coin is **Smoltek Semi**, which devel­ops ultra-thin capac­i­tors using pro­pri­etary car­bon nanos­truc­tures. These com­po­nents are designed for advanced semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing, where space, per­for­mance, speed and effi­cien­cy in deliv­er­ing ener­gy to the dig­i­tal cir­cuit are crit­i­cal. As AI sys­tems grow in com­plex­i­ty, they demand faster, more com­pact and pow­er-hun­gry dig­i­tal hard­ware per foot­print \[4]. ![CNF MIM on stage 2000x1125](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cnf-mim-on-stage-2000x1125-1-1200x675.webp) *The thinnest capac­i­tor in the world: A ful­ly func­tion­al CNF-MIM device, and an ear­ly devel­op­ment sample.* Smoltek Semi’s **world’s thinnest capac­i­tor** \[5, 10], a local ener­gy stor­age reser­voir for AI cir­cuits enable high-den­si­ty inte­gra­tion, can deliv­er high ener­gy den­si­ty and improved elec­tri­cal per­for­mances at **small­er vol­u­met­ric foot­print** \[6, 9], mak­ing them ide­al for high­ly inte­grat­ed, high per­form­ing next-gen­er­a­tion AI proces­sors and chiplet archi­tec­tures. Such prod­ucts not only will sup­port the evo­lu­tion of AI but also con­tributes to reduc­ing the expen­sive real estate vol­u­met­ric foot­print of dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture. By push­ing the bound­aries of mate­r­i­al sci­ence, Smoltek Semi aims at mak­ing AI hard­ware more sus­tain­able — a cru­cial step in align­ing AI tech­no­log­i­cal progress with envi­ron­men­tal responsibility. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen-clean-energy-through-nanotechnology-nanomaterials)Smoltek Hydrogen: Clean Energy Through Nanotechnology & Nanomaterials On the flip side of that coin, we find **Smoltek Hydro­gen**, which applies the same car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form to enable PEM elec­trolyz­er based Gigafac­to­ry a pos­si­bil­i­ty. Hydro­gen is a key enabler of the green ener­gy tran­si­tion, and Smoltek Hydrogen’s inno­va­tions aim to make its pro­duc­tion more effi­cient, scal­able, recy­clable and cost effec­tive through min­i­mal usage of scarce mined mate­ri­als (e.g. Ir, Pt etc.) \[7]. ![CNF PTE + anode side MEA](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cnf-pte-anode-side-mea-1200x675.webp) *Cor­ro­sion pro­tect­ed car­bon nanos­truc­tures (CNFs) for low irid­i­um load coat­ed* *trans­port elec­trodes (PTEs) for the MEA assem­bly in PEM electrolyzers.* **Why does it mat­ter to AI,** you may won­der, and the answer is sim­ple: The require­ments for AI pow­er sources must be fulfilled. Just to give a per­spec­tive of AI ener­gy needs; glob­al pow­er demand from AI data cen­ters alone could reach 68 GW by 2027 and 327 GW by 2030, com­pared to a total glob­al data cen­ter capac­i­ty of only 88 GW in 2022. AI train­ing could require up to 1 GW in a sin­gle loca­tion by 2028, and as much as 8 GW – the equiv­a­lent of eight nuclear reac­tors – by 2030 \[8]. Using car­bon nanos­truc­tures, Smoltek Hydro­gen enhances the per­for­mance of elec­trolyz­er cell mate­ri­als, increas­ing sur­face area, cur­rent den­si­ty and cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty. This leads to more effi­cient water split­ting and low­er pro­duc­tion costs — espe­cial­ly impor­tant for **green hydro­gen**, which is gen­er­at­ed using renew­able ener­gy. This will help reduce car­bon emis­sions from AI’s ener­gy needs. By push­ing the lim­its of mate­r­i­al sci­ence, Smoltek Hydro­gen aims at mak­ing AI pow­er sources green­er, sus­tain­able and enabler of CO2 foot­print reduc­tion per com­pu­ta­tion­al con­sump­tion — anoth­er cru­cial step in align­ing AI tech­no­log­i­cal progress with envi­ron­men­tal responsibility. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bridging-the-gap-between-research-and-industry-a-personal-mission)Bridging the gap between Research and Industry: A Personal Mission My jour­ney with Smoltek – through col­lab­o­ra­tions and indus­tri­al engage­ments – reflects a broad­er mis­sion: **to con­nect aca­d­e­m­ic insights with indus­tri­al impact**. The rea­son for this is that too often, ground­break­ing research remains con­fined to lab­o­ra­to­ries, and my ambi­tion has always been to help trans­late these dis­cov­er­ies into tech­nolo­gies that solve real-world problems. There­fore, it is encour­ag­ing to wit­ness Smoltek emerg­ing as a pow­er­ful exam­ple of how deep-tech research can direct­ly impact glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals. It is per­haps a research top­ic by itself to reflect on how a sin­gle tech­nol­o­gy plat­form of inno­va­tion — car­bon nanos­truc­tures — can serve vast­ly dif­fer­ent com­mer­cial mar­ket domain, yet again, as of now, con­verges through AI hard­ware plat­form needs. How­ev­er, this con­ver­gence of dis­ci­plines is not just excit­ing, **but it is nec­es­sary**. The chal­lenges we face today — cli­mate change, scarci­ty of ener­gy & raw mate­ri­als, and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion — require solu­tions that span across sec­tors. By fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between researchers, engi­neers, and indus­try lead­ers, we can accel­er­ate the path from idea to impact. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-unified-future-ai-and-sustainability-hand-in-hand)A Unified Future: AI and Sustainability Hand in Hand Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen may serve dif­fer­ent mar­kets, but they share a com­mon foun­da­tion: advanced car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy and a com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Togeth­er, they rep­re­sent the two sides of AI’s poten­tial — one dri­ving smarter elec­tron­ics, the oth­er enabling clean ener­gy source. This dual inno­va­tion the­sis reflects a deep­er truth: the future of AI is not just about smarter algo­rithms, but also about smarter mate­ri­als and green­er sys­tems. Smoltek’s work — and the col­lab­o­ra­tive spir­it behind it — offers a com­pelling vision of how tech­nol­o­gy can serve both progress and the plan­et. One tech­nol­o­gy plat­form but many possibilities! * * * **Dis­claimer:** the opin­ions that are expressed here are of my own. **Ref­er­ences:** \[1] Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part I: [The Hype](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-hype/1220/); \[2] Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part II: [The Real­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-reality/1227/); \[3 ]Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part III: [The Future](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-future/1255/) \[4] [www.lesswrong.com/posts/bdQhzQsHjNrQp7cNS/estimates-of-gpu-or-equivalent-resources-of-large-ai-players](http://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bdQhzQsHjNrQp7cNS/estimates-of-gpu-or-equivalent-resources-of-large-ai-players) \[5] [Smoltek demon­strates the thinnest capac­i­tor in the world](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-demonstrates-the-thinnest-capacitor-in-the-world/1408/) \[6] Capac­i­tor: [https://passive-components.eu/smolteks-cnf-mim-capacitor-break-1-%C2%B5f-mm%C2%B2/](https://passive-components.eu/smolteks-cnf-mim-capacitor-break-1-%C2%B5f-mm%C2%B2/) \[7] [Smoltek’s low-irid­i­um PTE reach tar­get of 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2](https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-low-iridium-pte-reach-target-of-0-1-mg-iridium-cm2/8105/) \[8] [www.rand.org/pubs/research\_reports/RRA3572‑1.html](http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3572-1.html) \[9] Mod­el: [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9501815 (High-fre­quen­cy elec­tri­cal cir­cuit mod­el for inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors uti­liz­ing lossy nanos­truc­tures)](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9501815%20%28High-frequency%20electrical%20circuit%20model%20for%20integrated%20capacitors%20utilizing%20lossy%20nanostructures%29) \[10] [CNF-MIM small scale production](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-and-itri-goes-for-small-scale-production-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/8954/) --- title: "Smoltek Semi & AI" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi-ai/13551/" date: 2025-12-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "advanced chips" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-chips.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "sustainability" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainability.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Smoltek Semi & AI ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#today-everyone-is-talking-about-ai-but-what-exactly-is-ai)Today, everyone is talking about AI. But what exactly is AI? This arti­cle digs into the devel­op­ment of the “myth­i­cal” AI – which is on every­one’s lips today – from its begin­nings to the present day, and a lit­tle fur­ther into the near future. It also pro­vides an update on how it is pow­ered (the “AI chips”) – and what require­ments future capac­i­tors will need to meet to sup­port the ever-increas­ing pow­er loads that AI requires to function. So, buck­le up. Here we go! First, AI is not new – there have been ideas and hard­ware imple­men­ta­tions since the 1950s. But it is the com­bi­na­tion of deep learn­ing, big data and new chip archi­tec­tures that have explod­ed devel­op­ment over the past decade that has led to the heavy impact AI has had just in the last cou­ple of years. And the next 2–5 years will be about ener­gy effi­cien­cy, inte­gra­tion and spe­cial­iza­tion to run even larg­er mod­els – both in the cloud and at the edge. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-ai-roadmap)The AI roadmap ### AI has been around in electronics/​microelectronics for quite some time. - 1950s–1970s: The first ideas about AI were for­mu­lat­ed (Tur­ing, Rosenblatt’s per­cep­tron). But the hard­ware was too slow. - 1980s–1990s: Wave of “expert sys­tems” and sim­pler ML algo­rithms. On the hard­ware side, CPUs and spe­cial­ized DSPs were used for sim­pler pat­tern recog­ni­tion, speech recog­ni­tion, and sig­nal processing. - 2000s: GPUs began to be used for par­al­lel com­put­ing, giv­ing AI a major boost (espe­cial­ly in image recognition). - 2010s: Deep learn­ing break­through (e.g. AlexNet 2012) – dri­ven by the com­bi­na­tion of large data sets + pow­er­ful GPUs + improved algo­rithms. This also saw the first ded­i­cat­ed AI chips (e.g. Google TPU 2016). ### AI development since the start - From rules to learn­ing: Ear­ly AI sys­tems were rule-based (“if X then Y”). Mod­ern sys­tems learn them­selves from data. - From small to gigan­tic mod­els: Net­works with a few thou­sand para­me­ters in the 90s → today hun­dreds of bil­lions of para­me­ters (e.g. GPT‑4, LLa­MA, PaLM). - From niche to gen­er­al: AI is used today in smart­phones, cars, health­care, indus­try, lan­guage mod­els – everywhere. ### Drivers for today’s AI chip development 1. Expo­nen­tial­ly growth of data sets – AI mod­els need more data. 2. New algo­rithms (deep learn­ing, trans­form­ers) – more com­pu­ta­tion­al­ly intensive. 3. Lim­i­ta­tions in CPU/​GPU archi­tec­tures → need for spe­cial­ized hard­ware (TPU, NPU, FPGA, ASIC). 4. Moore’s Law slows down → instead, they focus on het­ero­ge­neous chips, chiplets, 3D inte­gra­tion and ener­gy efficiency. 5. Mar­ket dri­ving force – huge demand from com­pa­nies like Ope­nAI, Google, NVIDIA, Meta and others. ### What does the future (2–5 years ahead) look like for AI chips? - Less ener­gy con­sump­tion per oper­a­tion: Ener­gy effi­cien­cy (TOPS/​Watt) becomes the biggest bottleneck. - Het­ero­ge­neous sys­tems: Com­bi­na­tion of CPU + GPU + NPU/​TPU on the same package. - Chiplets & advanced pack­ag­ing: 2.5D/3D inte­gra­tion, HBM (High Band­width Mem­o­ry) close to the com­pute cores. - Spe­cial­iza­tion: Dif­fer­ent chips for dif­fer­ent tasks (train­ing vs infer­ence, data cen­ter vs edge). - Mate­ri­als and new com­po­nents: Thin film capac­i­tors (like CNF-MIM), resis­tive RAM, pho­ton­ics for AI acceleration. - Edge AI: Small, ener­gy-effi­cient AI chips in mobiles, IoT and vehi­cles – not just in giant data centers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#moores-law-and-the-development-of-ai-hardware)Moore’s Law and the development of AI hardware ![Transisto evolution 1950](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/transisto-evolution-1950-2025-1200x800.webp) *Gen­er­al overview of proces­sor devel­op­ment 1950–2025.* ### 1950–2000 (CPU era) - Moore’s Law in full force: Num­ber of tran­sis­tors dou­bles every two years → expo­nen­tial improve­ment in com­put­ing power. - AI research lim­it­ed to aca­d­e­m­ic exper­i­ments (sym­bol­ic AI, perceptrons). - Hard­ware: CPUs (ser­i­al computing). ### 2000–2010 (GPU era) - Moore’s Law con­tin­ues → but ener­gy con­sump­tion and clock fre­quen­cies reach limits. - Par­al­lelism (GPUs) becomes the solu­tion for deep learn­ing → trains e.g. AlexNet (2012). - The start of AI as prac­ti­cal­ly use­ful in image recog­ni­tion, lan­guage, games. ### 2010–present (TPU/​NPU era) - Moore’s Law is start­ing to slow down: tran­sis­tor sizes <10 nm, fre­quen­cy increas­es are marginal. - Solu­tion: spe­cial­iza­tion → TPU (Google), NPU (Apple Neur­al Engine), AI-ASICs (Graph­core, Cerebras). - Focus on ener­gy effi­cien­cy per oper­a­tion (TOPS/​Watt) instead of just more transistors. - AI mod­els are explod­ing in size (GPT, BERT, etc.). ### Future (next-gen AI chip, 2025–2030) - Moore’s Law is on the verge to reach its phys­i­cal lim­its (sub 2 nm). - Het­ero­ge­neous chips (CPU+GPU+NPU), chiplets and 3D integration. - Advanced mem­o­ries (HBM, MRAM, RRAM). - New mate­ri­als & com­po­nents (CNF-MIM, pho­ton­ics, neuromorphic). - Focus on spe­cial­ized archi­tec­ture for dif­fer­ent AI work­loads: train­ing vs. infer­ence, data cen­ter vs. edge. ### From 1,000 transistors per chip in 1970 to over 50 billion transistors today. ![Moore's Law Transistor Count 1970](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/moores-law-transistor-count-1970-2020.webp) *50 years of CPU, tran­sis­tor count devel­op­ment. A log­a­rith­mic graph show­ing the time­line of how tran­sis­tor counts in microchips are almost dou­bling every two years from 1970 to 2020; also known as Moore’s law.* *Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moore%27s\_Law\_Transistor\_Count\_1970-2020.png* Moore’s Law states that the num­ber of tran­sis­tors will dou­ble every sec­ond year, roughly.This pre­dic­tion has cre­at­ed a glob­al need for high­ly advanced and high­ly minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors. Due to the enor­mous scal­ing of tran­sis­tors in advanced proces­sor chips, the need for decou­pling capac­i­tors mount­ed extreme­ly close to the proces­sor chip has explod­ed in recent years.  How­ev­er, tra­di­tion­al capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies have dif­fi­cul­ties deliv­er­ing high enough per­for­mance in a small enough form factor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf-mim-to-the-rescue)CNF-MIM to the rescue Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed nan­otech­nol­o­gy enables next-gen­er­a­tion capac­i­tors with extreme­ly high elec­tri­cal per­for­mance in a very small form factor. Smoltek’s capac­i­tors, called CNF-MIM (Car­bon Nanofiber Met­al-Insu­la­tor-Met­al), can be placed direct­ly adja­cent to the cir­cuits they are to sup­port – the key to the rapid­ly grow­ing mar­ket for decou­pling capac­i­tors for high-end proces­sors – such as AI, High-Per­for­mance Com­put­ing and edge devices. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors meets the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try’s demands for next-gen­er­a­tion capac­i­tors with unique characteristics:  - Extreme­ly high capac­i­tance* per unit area - Extreme­ly low elec­tri­cal losses - Sev­er­al place­ment options clos­er to the proces­sor than com­pet­ing technologies - Ener­gy effi­cien­cy (low ESR/​ESL, low leakage) - Sta­bil­i­ty and life­time (break­down volt­age, reliability) ** Capac­i­tance is the abil­i­ty of a com­po­nent or cir­cuit to col­lect and store ener­gy in the form of an elec­tri­cal charge.* ![CNF MIM AI chip](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/cnf-mim-ai-chip.webp) *Mod­el of a “CNF-MIM AI chip”.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-four-key-parameters-for-ai-capacitors)The four key parameters for “AI capacitors” Capac­i­tors intend­ed for use in next-gen­er­a­tion AI chips and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing tech­nol­o­gy need to be able to han­dle the following:  ### 1. Low ESR ([Equivalent Series Resistance](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Equivalent%20Series%20Resistance&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&mstk=AUtExfAYnkZml5AgR4-IKcT_VaUqe3LZnqpwMSkgvr4Yc8YvQAv99h4M6WpTnzGbQ8pe1GVw1NZj8JvQrwBGrKNdeXckBFOWpXCpAxRHT-orjZ9EGEGGWNyce8wMQVWtrCAcsahxcgBVa3L3XUudew7B5_mtleInfEghxWLbx7AmKP-GxiM&csui=3&ved=2ahUKEwiElaWat6aRAxUvKBAIHYjjCwUQgK4QegQIARAD)) and ESL ([Equivalent Series Inductance](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Equivalent%20Series%20Inductance&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&mstk=AUtExfAYnkZml5AgR4-IKcT_VaUqe3LZnqpwMSkgvr4Yc8YvQAv99h4M6WpTnzGbQ8pe1GVw1NZj8JvQrwBGrKNdeXckBFOWpXCpAxRHT-orjZ9EGEGGWNyce8wMQVWtrCAcsahxcgBVa3L3XUudew7B5_mtleInfEghxWLbx7AmKP-GxiM&csui=3&ved=2ahUKEwiElaWat6aRAxUvKBAIHYjjCwUQgK4QegQIARAE)) - ESR and ESL must be kept extreme­ly low for the capac­i­tor to deliv­er sta­ble and fast cur­rent dis­si­pa­tion at high frequencies. - AI and HPC proces­sors oper­ate with bil­lions of tran­sis­tors that switch extreme­ly fast → they require clean and sta­ble sup­ply volt­age with­out interference. - Low ESR/​ESL means fast response, less heat gen­er­a­tion and high­er ener­gy efficiency. ### 2. Breakdown voltage & reliability - The capac­i­tor must with­stand the volt­age lev­els used in advanced process nodes (often around 0.7–1.2 V). - An insuf­fi­cient­ly robust dielec­tric can lead to breakdown. - Reli­a­bil­i­ty (dura­bil­i­ty) is cru­cial for data cen­ters and AI train­ing, where 24⁄7 oper­a­tion for years is the norm. ### 3. High capacitance density - In today’s chips, sur­face area is extreme­ly valu­able – every square microm­e­ter must be uti­lized to its fullest. - A capac­i­tor with high capac­i­tance den­si­ty makes it pos­si­ble to build more decou­pling capac­i­tors close to the proces­sor cores with­out tak­ing up too much space. - This pro­vides local ener­gy stor­age that can deliv­er fast pow­er puls­es when mil­lions of cores are acti­vat­ed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, which is cen­tral to AI mod­els that require mas­sive parallelism. ### 4. Relevance for AI and HPC - AI chips (e.g. GPUs, TPUs) run matrix cal­cu­la­tions on a huge scale, with extreme­ly high and fast cur­rent variations. - HPC chips must run at high fre­quen­cy with max­i­mum stability. - In both cas­es, pow­er integri­ty (PI) becomes a bot­tle­neck – you have to be able to keep the volt­age sta­ble even though the cur­rent varies on a nanosec­ond scale. - Here, the thin form fac­tor and elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties of the CNF-MIM capac­i­tor are par­tic­u­lar­ly attrac­tive: they can be placed close to the tran­sis­tors in the chip instead of on the cir­cuit board, which reduces par­a­sitics and pro­vides faster response. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-three-capacitor-technologies-in-the-ai-race)The three capacitor technologies in the AI race Now, it’s fair to say that CNF-MIM is not the only tech­nol­o­gy for decou­pling and ener­gy stor­age in next-gen­er­a­tion advanced chips. It’s com­pet­ing with two oth­er big capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies; Trench Sil­i­con Capac­i­tors, or Deep Trench Capac­i­tors (TSC/​DTC) and Mul­ti­lay­er Ceram­ic Capac­i­tors (MLCC). The three tech­nolo­gies are all used for decou­pling and ener­gy stor­age, but they dif­fer great­ly in design, per­for­mance and integration.  Let’s take a look. ![CNF MIM caps competition](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cnf-mim-caps-competition-1200x329.webp) *CNF-MIM, TSC (or DTC) and MLCC. Illus­tra­tion of build­ing structure.* ### CNF-MIM (Carbon Nanofiber – Metal-Insulator-Metal) - Struc­ture: - Based on ver­ti­cal car­bon nanofibers that pro­vide a 3D struc­ture and very large sur­face area in a small vol­ume. A sin­gle dielec­tric lay­er (one ALD step) is placed between the nanofibers and met­al contacts. - Ben­e­fits: - Extreme­ly thin, can be inte­grat­ed direct­ly into the chip or on an interposer. - Very high capac­i­tance den­si­ty per area thanks to the nanostructure. - Low ESR/​ESL because the place­ment can be very close to the tran­sis­tors → fast tran­sient response. - Chal­lenges: - Rel­a­tive­ly new tech­nol­o­gy needs to prove long-term reli­a­bil­i­ty and indus­tri­al­iza­tion on a large scale. ### TSC (Trench Silicon Capacitors) /​ DTC (Deep Trench Capacitors) - Struc­ture: - Built by etch­ing “trench­es” (deep depres­sions) in sil­i­con and fill­ing them with dielec­tric and met­al in sev­er­al ALD steps. Uti­lizes sil­i­con as a substrate. - Ben­e­fits: - Can be inte­grat­ed into the semi­con­duc­tor process or into sil­i­con interposer. - Pro­vides rel­a­tive­ly high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, espe­cial­ly com­pared to pla­nar MIM capacitors. - Good reli­a­bil­i­ty and proven technology. - Chal­lenges: - Capac­i­tance den­si­ty is low­er than what CNF-MIM can achieve. - Process com­plex­i­ty (deep etch­ing) may lim­it cost-effectiveness. ### MLCC (Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors) - Struc­ture: - Con­sists of mul­ti­ple lay­ers of ceram­ic dielectrics and met­al lay­ers stacked in pack­ages. Mount­ed as dis­crete com­po­nents on print­ed cir­cuit boards (PCBs). - Ben­e­fits: - Cheap, mass-pro­duced and wide­ly avail­able technology. - High capac­i­tance in small vol­umes for dis­crete components. - Dis­ad­van­tages: - Rel­a­tive­ly high ESR/​ESL due to place­ment fur­ther from the proces­sor (on the PCB, not in the chip). - Capac­i­tance varies strong­ly with tem­per­a­ture, volt­age and aging (espe­cial­ly with X7R/​X5R ceramics). - Dif­fi­cult to scale down to inte­gra­tion direct­ly into the chip. ### Technological differences in summary | | | | | |---------------------------|----------------------------------|--------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------| | **Char­ac­ter­is­tic** | **CNF-MIM** | **TSC /​ DTC** | **MLCC** | | **Place­ment** | Direct­ly under chip/​interposer | In silicon/​interposer | On PCB | | **Capac­i­tance density** | Very high (nanos­truc­ture) | High (trench structure) | Mod­er­ate (bulk) | | **ESR/​ESL** | Very low | Low | Rel­a­tive­ly high | | **Inte­gra­tion** | Future tech­nol­o­gy for AI/​HPC | Already estab­lished in advanced packaging | Stan­dard com­po­nent, not chip-integrated | | **Matu­ri­ty** | In Devel­op­ment | Very mature and mass-produced | Very mature and mass-produced | - MLCCs are cheap but too “slow” and too far away from the proces­sor. They have served the ear­ly days of AI but is now on the verge to be obsolete. - TSC/​DTC is a proven solu­tion for inte­grat­ed capac­i­tance but lim­it­ed in den­si­ty. Serves today’s AI development. - CNF-MIM capac­i­tors have the poten­tial to pro­vide the next leap in capac­i­tance den­si­ty and inte­gra­tion, mak­ing them par­tic­u­lar­ly attrac­tive for AI and HPC chips where every nanosec­ond and every square mil­lime­ter counts. In con­clu­sion, by pio­neer­ing car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy Smoltek has a tru­ly dis­rup­tive capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that enables the com­bi­na­tion of extreme­ly high elec­tri­cal per­for­mance in a high­ly minia­tur­ized prod­uct. Smoltek Semi­’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor address­es key chal­lenges for next-gen­er­a­tion AI, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing and edge devices. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-does-ai-have-to-say-about-this)What does AI have to say about this? Okay, so this has been a deep dive into the devel­op­ment of AI and what is required of the capac­i­tors to keep this, not-so-new, thing rolling. But the first ques­tion – what is AI wasn’t real­ly answered, was it? That might take some time to explain though. Might as well ask the AI about it. ### *“Hello, what is AI?”* “Thanks for ask­ing. AI, or Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence, refers to com­put­er sys­tems designed to per­form tasks that typ­i­cal­ly require human intel­li­gence, such as learn­ing, prob­lem-solv­ing, deci­sion-mak­ing, and lan­guage under­stand­ing. It uses algo­rithms to ana­lyze data, iden­ti­fy pat­terns, and make deci­sions to achieve spe­cif­ic goals, with com­mon exam­ples includ­ing vir­tu­al assis­tants, rec­om­men­da­tion sys­tems, and self-dri­ving cars.” ### *“Alright, and what is HPC, or high-performance computing?”* “High-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) uses aggre­gat­ed com­put­ing pow­er, such as super­com­put­ers or clus­ters of com­put­ers, to solve large, com­plex prob­lems in sci­ence, engi­neer­ing, and busi­ness that would be impos­si­ble on a typ­i­cal com­put­er. HPC sys­tems process mas­sive datasets and per­form cal­cu­la­tions at extreme­ly high speeds, enabling com­plex mod­el­ing, data analy­sis, and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence appli­ca­tions that dri­ve inno­va­tion and pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant com­pet­i­tive advantages.” ### *“And also, what are edge devices?”* “Edge devices are hard­ware com­po­nents, like routers, sen­sors, smart­phones, and gate­ways, that con­nect to a core net­work and process data at or near its source, rather than send­ing it to a cen­tral­ized cloud or data cen­ter for analy­sis. These devices are essen­tial for edge com­put­ing, enabling real-time data pro­cess­ing, reduc­ing laten­cy, and improv­ing net­work effi­cien­cy in appli­ca­tions rang­ing from the Inter­net of Things to indus­tri­al automa­tion and smart cities.” So, there you have it. An overview of AI devel­op­ments and how Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to become an impor­tant pil­lar of ener­gy-effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment in future chips. * * * Want to learn more about the extreme­ly small and ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tor? [Go here!](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/) --- title: "Inside Smoltek Hydrogen: A conversation with Dr. Fabian Wenger" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/inside-smoltek-hydrogen-conversation-with-fabian-wenger/16692/" date: 2025-12-15 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/fabian-wenger.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "smoltalk" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltalk.md" --- # Inside Smoltek Hydrogen: A conversation with Dr. Fabian Wenger The sec­ond episode of Smoltek’s pod­cast Smoltalk is now avail­able on [YouTube](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLalEih6u8cstims5ClabEXWQH0gVpQ4oP&si=DwJ1MHcR0t2lwgr8), [Apple Pod­casts](https://podcasts.apple.com/kh/podcast/smoltalk/id1852789182), [Spo­ti­fy](https://open.spotify.com/show/0LAVMZUUhlnTEllu6sLOMu), and wher­ev­er pod­casts are found. In this con­ver­sa­tion, Mag­nus Ander­s­son speaks with Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D at Smoltek Hydro­gen, about every­thing from his per­son­al jour­ney to the com­pa­ny’s strate­gic indus­tri­al part­ner­ships and the roadmap ahead. For those who pre­fer read­ing to lis­ten­ing, this arti­cle cov­ers all the essen­tial insights from their discussion—from Fabi­an’s path from Switzer­land to Gothen­burg, to his thoughts on Smoltek Hydro­gen’s col­lab­o­ra­tions with AGC, Spark Nano, Impact Coat­ings, and Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als, and the future plans that could reshape the green hydro­gen industry. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dr-fabian-wenger)Dr. Fabian Wenger Fabi­an Wenger’s jour­ney to Smoltek began in Switzer­land, where he was born to a Swiss father and Ital­ian moth­er. After com­plet­ing his under­grad­u­ate stud­ies in physics at ETH Zurich, he moved to Swe­den in 1990 to pur­sue his doc­tor­ate at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy in Gothenburg. “I did my doc­tor­ate in sol­id state physics. The sub­ject was high-tem­per­a­ture super­con­duc­tors,” Fabi­an explains. “That was a top­ic that was very hot, and peo­ple envi­sioned appli­ca­tions like lev­i­tat­ing trains.” While room-tem­per­a­ture super­con­duc­tors remained elu­sive, the research laid foun­da­tions for today’s quan­tum com­put­ing technology. After a post­doc at Prince­ton’s NEC Research Insti­tute, Fabi­an returned to Swe­den dur­ing the tele­com boom. He spent 25 years in prod­uct devel­op­ment at com­pa­nies includ­ing Eric­s­son before dis­cov­er­ing Smoltek. “From the first con­tacts, I was fas­ci­nat­ed by the fact that through a spin-off from Chalmers, they had invest­ed in a com­plete­ly new type of nanos­truc­ture,” he recalls. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-hydrogen-was-chosen-as-focus-area)Why hydrogen was chosen as focus area Smoltek Hydro­gen was orig­i­nal­ly found­ed as Smoltek Inno­va­tion, with the mis­sion of explor­ing busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties for Smoltek’s core competency—growing elec­tri­cal­ly and ther­mal­ly con­duc­tive car­bon nanos­truc­tures with extreme precision—outside the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try that Smoltek Semi was already pur­su­ing. When the team iden­ti­fied green hydro­gen as the most promis­ing appli­ca­tion, the sub­sidiary shift­ed focus and changed its name to Smoltek Hydrogen. The tim­ing was cru­cial: Swedish indus­try was launch­ing major ini­tia­tives like H2 Green Steel and the Hybrit project, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between LKAB, SSAB, and Vat­ten­fall. “The con­nec­tion between the large sur­face area that these nanofibers can cre­ate and the fact that it could be inter­est­ing for cat­alyt­ic process­es was clear­ly there,” Fabi­an explains. Green hydro­gen offered both a mas­sive mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ty and an urgent need that aligned per­fect­ly with Smoltek’s capabilities. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanofibers-and-the-3d-surface-effect)Carbon nanofibers and the 3D surface effect The foun­da­tion of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy is decep­tive­ly sim­ple: grow­ing car­bon nanofibers on a sur­face. “That’s the com­mon denom­i­na­tor for every­thing we do, and that cre­ates this 3D sur­face effect,” Fabi­an notes. This expand­ed sur­face area enables two relat­ed ben­e­fits. First, less pre­cious met­al cat­a­lyst is need­ed to achieve the same reac­tion rates. Sec­ond, the same amount of cat­a­lyst deliv­ers high­er per­for­mance. “It’s either more effi­cient use of the mate­r­i­al or high­er per­for­mance,” Fabi­an summarizes. The key lies in pre­cise con­trol. Smoltek cre­ates mil­lions of extreme­ly thin fibers on a sur­face in an even, uni­form pat­tern. The pre­cious met­al cat­a­lyst then coats these nanofiber struc­tures, max­i­miz­ing con­tact with the reactants. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pem-electrolysis-technology-explained)PEM electrolysis technology explained In water elec­trol­y­sis, an elec­tri­cal cur­rent splits water mol­e­cules into hydro­gen and oxy­gen. Sev­er­al tech­nolo­gies exist, but PEM (Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane) elec­trol­y­sis offers dis­tinct advan­tages: it oper­ates at very high cur­rent den­si­ties, requires less sur­face area, and—critically—can rapid­ly adjust to fluc­tu­at­ing pow­er inputs. “That’s cru­cial because much of the green ener­gy that we’re now installing isn’t there con­stant­ly,” Fabi­an explains. Wind and solar pow­er vary with con­di­tions, and PEM elec­trolyz­ers can ramp up and down accordingly. The process works through a care­ful­ly orches­trat­ed mol­e­c­u­lar dance. On the anode side, water mol­e­cules are absorbed by irid­i­um cat­a­lyst, where oxy­gen atoms bind to the sur­face and release hydro­gen ions (pro­tons). These pro­tons migrate through the mem­brane to the cath­ode, where they com­bine to form hydro­gen gas. Mean­while, oxy­gen atoms pair up and exit as oxy­gen gas—safely sep­a­rat­ed from the hydro­gen by the membrane. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-critical-role-of-iridium)The critical role of iridium For indus­tri­al elec­trolyz­ers that must oper­ate reli­ably for ten or more years, irid­i­um oxide has emerged as the cat­a­lyst of choice. “The best trade-off between sta­bil­i­ty and activ­i­ty is a cat­a­lyst of irid­i­um,” Fabi­an confirms. The cat­a­lyst dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduces the ener­gy required to split water molecules—and since elec­tric­i­ty is the pri­ma­ry cost dri­ver in hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, cat­a­lyst effi­cien­cy direct­ly impacts the price of green hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#iridium-scarcity-and-smolteks-breakthrough)Iridium scarcity and Smoltek’s breakthrough Here lies the indus­try’s fun­da­men­tal chal­lenge: only 7 to 9 tons of irid­i­um are mined glob­al­ly each year, and it’s nev­er mined directly—only as a byprod­uct of plat­inum extrac­tion. This scarci­ty threat­ens to bot­tle­neck the entire green hydro­gen indus­try’s growth. “Our great strength is that we can use incred­i­bly much less irid­i­um than our com­peti­tors,” Fabi­an states. “We’ve announced that we can reach 0.1 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter. And that’s where we have our strongest card.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-porous-transport-electrode-pte)Smoltek’s Porous Transport Electrode (PTE) Smoltek has defined its prod­uct as a Porous Trans­port Elec­trode, or PTE. This com­bines a porous tita­ni­um trans­port lay­er, ver­ti­cal­ly grown car­bon nanofibers, a plat­inum cor­ro­sion-pro­tec­tion lay­er, and irid­i­um cat­a­lyst deposit­ed atom by atom. “I would say that it’s real­ly us who are pio­neers in mak­ing this type of nanos­truc­ture for this appli­ca­tion,” Fabi­an asserts. The com­pa­ny has built a strong patent port­fo­lio around this solution. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#industry-shift-from-ccm-to-pte)Industry shift from CCM to PTE When Smoltek began devel­op­ing its tech­nol­o­gy, the indus­try was focused almost exclu­sive­ly on CCM (Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Mem­brane), where cat­a­lysts are applied direct­ly to the mem­brane. Over time, the mar­ket has shifted. “There’s been a clear shift toward this type of PTE solu­tion, espe­cial­ly on the anode side where you’re work­ing with irid­i­um,” Fabi­an observes. “That’s real­ly where you want such tech­nol­o­gy going for­ward to open up the whole win­dow toward growth and low irid­i­um consumption.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cost-advantage-95-iridium-reduction)Cost advantage: 95% iridium reduction The num­bers tell a com­pelling sto­ry. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers a 95% reduc­tion in irid­i­um usage com­pared to con­ven­tion­al approach­es. But the ben­e­fits extend beyond mate­r­i­al savings. “Our com­pet­i­tive­ness is already there today on a small scale,” Fabi­an explains. “But in large-scale pro­duc­tion, we could get down to maybe one-sixth of com­pet­ing prod­ucts’ price. So we have an enor­mous com­pet­i­tive advantage.” This dual benefit—removing the irid­i­um scarci­ty bot­tle­neck while dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing costs—positions Smoltek to enable indus­try-wide scal­ing of green hydro­gen production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strategic-industrial-partnerships)Strategic industrial partnerships As a rel­a­tive­ly small com­pa­ny tar­get­ing a huge and grow­ing indus­try, Smoltek has strate­gi­cal­ly part­nered with estab­lished sup­pli­ers to build a scal­able solu­tion. “We bring an inno­va­tion. We show that we have a tech­nol­o­gy that’s scal­able, but then there needs to be a sup­ply chain,” Fabi­an explains. ### AGC AGC, the major Japan­ese indus­tri­al com­pa­ny, brings a plas­ma source tech­nol­o­gy crit­i­cal for grow­ing car­bon nanofibers at indus­tri­al scales. Indus­tri­al elec­trolyz­er elec­trodes mea­sure approx­i­mate­ly half a meter by half a meter. “The tech­nol­o­gy that AGC has guar­an­tees that we can actu­al­ly work with a CVD process that’s scal­able to those areas and also to the vol­umes of tens of thou­sands or hun­dreds of thou­sands of square meters per year,” Fabi­an notes. AGC has also announced invest­ments in hydro­gen indus­try mem­branes, with a major fac­to­ry under construction. ### Impact Coatings Impact Coat­ings is already estab­lished in the hydro­gen indus­try with coat­ing process­es and equip­ment. “Impact Coat­ings is also already in this indus­try with their coat­ing process­es, their machines, they also do some cus­tomer ser­vice, so they’re an impor­tant piece of the puz­zle for us,” Fabi­an explains. ### Spark Nano Spark Nano spe­cial­izes in Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD)—building coat­ings atom by atom. For Smoltek, this enables pre­cise plat­inum depo­si­tion for cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion, max­i­miz­ing uti­liza­tion of pre­cious met­als with rea­son­able cost struc­ture at scale. ### Heraeus Precious Metals Her­aeus, one of Europe’s largest fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­nies with roots in the 1600s, is today a world leader in cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als. “We’re very proud that we have a part­ner­ship with them and that they also see that this is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate growth for this green hydro­gen econ­o­my,” Fabi­an says. The part­ner­ship com­bines Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber exper­tise with Her­aeus’s cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als knowl­edge. Togeth­er, they’re eval­u­at­ing tech­nol­o­gy steps toward indus­tri­al pro­to­types and suf­fi­cient dura­bil­i­ty, with the goal of offer­ing solu­tions to joint customers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-iridium-reduction-potential)Future iridium reduction potential The part­ner­ship with Her­aeus opens pos­si­bil­i­ties for alter­na­tive cat­a­lyst for­mu­la­tions. “There are pos­si­bil­i­ties for oth­er ele­ments involved like ruthe­ni­um-irid­i­um. And even oth­er vari­ants,” Fabi­an notes. These com­bi­na­tions could fur­ther opti­mize cat­a­lyst per­for­mance while reduc­ing the depen­den­cy on pure iridium. When asked how low irid­i­um usage could ulti­mate­ly go, Fabi­an’s answer is strik­ing: “You real­ly don’t see any lim­i­ta­tions down­ward. It opens up a field. You can go to 0.1 and even much low­er through var­i­ous tricks.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fuel-cell-opportunities)Fuel cell opportunities While Smoltek Hydro­gen’s pri­ma­ry focus is PEM elec­trol­y­sis for green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, fuel cells rep­re­sent a close­ly relat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty. Approx­i­mate­ly 80% of com­po­nents in PEM elec­trolyz­ers are also used in fuel cells—which are essen­tial­ly elec­trolyz­ers run­ning in reverse, con­sum­ing hydro­gen to pro­duce electricity. Smoltek sees two oppor­tu­ni­ties in fuel cells. First, car­bon nanofibers alone can reduce con­tact resis­tance, improv­ing effi­cien­cy and con­ver­sion rates. Sec­ond, the nanofibers can serve as cat­a­lyst car­ri­ers, typ­i­cal­ly using plat­inum for fuel cell applications. “We’ve been con­tact­ed by indus­tri­al play­ers. They’ve part­ly bought sam­ples from us and have got­ten good results,” Fabi­an confirms. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#lab-facilities-h2-labs-and-chalmers-mc2)Lab facilities: H2 Labs and Chalmers MC2 Smoltek’s devel­op­ment work spans two key facil­i­ties. The com­pa­ny was found­ed at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy’s Depart­ment of Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience (MC2) twen­ty years ago. Ever since, Smoltek has used MC2’s clean­room and advanced ana­lyt­i­cal equip­ment for crit­i­cal car­bon nanos­truc­ture growth process­es. “MC2 is where we have our roots,” Fabi­an notes. H2 Labs is Smoltek Hydro­gen’s in-house lab­o­ra­to­ry where the team can test com­plete cells at lab­o­ra­to­ry scale. “That’s where we can test com­plete cells at lab scale \[…] and extract their max­i­mum per­for­mance and dura­bil­i­ty.” Fabi­an explains. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#roadmap-for-the-next-few-years)Roadmap for the next few years Smoltek Hydro­gen’s plan for the next two years is clear. “Over these two years, we want to con­vince cus­tomers that this is our solu­tion. And that it can be indus­tri­al­ized. So that they have every­thing in hand to use this in seri­ous prod­uct devel­op­ment,” Fabi­an outlines. This involves con­tin­u­ing to demon­strate per­for­mance across dif­fer­ent cell sizes, stress test­ing over extend­ed peri­ods, and prov­ing the scal­a­bil­i­ty of the under­ly­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing chain. The tim­ing aligns with indus­try real­i­ties: large elec­trolyz­er fac­to­ries built in recent years haven’t yet reached full capac­i­ty. “For the next gen­er­a­tion, we’re high­ly rel­e­vant to be able to pro­duce next-gen­er­a­tion cost-effec­tive elec­trolyz­ers,” Fabi­an explains. With­in four to five years, the indus­try will reach gigawatt scales—and effi­cient raw mate­r­i­al uti­liza­tion will deter­mine com­pet­i­tive advantage. Beyond mar­ket tim­ing, hydro­gen offers unique advan­tages for ener­gy resilience. Unlike bat­ter­ies, hydro­gen can store ener­gy across sea­sons. “If the grid goes down, we still need to be able to get ener­gy in some form,” Fabi­an notes. “Hydro­gen and hydro­gen deriv­a­tives are pos­si­ble ways to store ener­gy and actu­al­ly extract elec­tri­cal ener­gy in a crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion.” As Europe’s focus on ener­gy secu­ri­ty inten­si­fies, this capa­bil­i­ty becomes increas­ing­ly valuable. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-applications-beyond-hydrogen)Future applications beyond hydrogen While Smoltek Hydro­gen focus­es on elec­trolyz­ers, the under­ly­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form devel­oped by par­ent com­pa­ny Smoltek has broad­er poten­tial. Before Smoltek Hydro­gen nar­rowed its focus to hydro­gen, the team explored sev­er­al oth­er promis­ing markets. “The com­pa­ny had already worked with super­ca­pac­i­tors, for exam­ple, which sit between capac­i­tors on one side and bat­ter­ies on the oth­er,” Fabi­an recalls. Con­tact resis­tance chal­lenges also affect sol­id-state batteries—“a major mar­ket going forward”—and med­ical appli­ca­tions showed promise as well. “When you get down to nan­otech­nol­o­gy, there’s a clear advan­tage for many ver­ti­cals,” Fabi­an observes. These appli­ca­tions remain poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties for Smoltek to pur­sue through new sub­sidiaries, just as they cre­at­ed Smoltek Hydro­gen to focus on the hydro­gen mar­ket. Suc­cess requires the clas­sic prod­uct-mar­ket fit: “The mar­ket must be there when we have the prod­uct ready and vice versa.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#investment-perspective-and-megatrends)Investment perspective and megatrends Fabi­an offers a clear per­spec­tive on Smoltek’s posi­tion­ing: “The posi­tion­ing is excep­tion­al, hav­ing the two biggest mega­trends of our time.” What he means is that Smoltek’s two sub­sidiaries are each posi­tioned to address one of the defin­ing tech­no­log­i­cal shifts of our era. Smoltek Semi enables con­tin­ued AI devel­op­ment by pro­vid­ing ultra-thin capac­i­tors that ensure sta­ble pow­er sup­ply to the chips per­form­ing the inten­sive cal­cu­la­tions AI requires. Smoltek Hydro­gen enables the green ener­gy tran­si­tion by ensur­ing that suf­fi­cient elec­trolyz­ers can be built at rea­son­able cost—despite the depen­dence on extreme­ly scarce iridium. “I think an invest­ment in Smoltek is an invest­ment in what’s time­ly and in our future,” Fabi­an concludes. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#watch-and-listen)Watch and listen The full con­ver­sa­tion between Mag­nus Ander­s­son and Fabi­an Wenger is avail­able on [Smoltek’s YouTube chan­nel](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLalEih6u8cstims5ClabEXWQH0gVpQ4oP&si=DwJ1MHcR0t2lwgr8) and as episode two of the Smoltalk pod­cast on [Apple Pod­casts](https://podcasts.apple.com/kh/podcast/smoltalk/id1852789182), [Spo­ti­fy](https://open.spotify.com/show/0LAVMZUUhlnTEllu6sLOMu), and oth­er pod­cast plat­forms. For those who want to hear the nuances firsthand—including Fabi­an’s Swiss-accent­ed Swedish—the orig­i­nal record­ing awaits. --- title: "Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-celebrates-20-years-in-nanotechnology/16275/" date: 2025-12-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/youtube-this-is-smoltek-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "advanced chips" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-chips.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "celebration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/celebration.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "sustainability" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainability.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Smoltek celebrates 20 years in nanotechnology Over two decades, Smoltek has devel­oped from a research-dri­ven deep tech com­pa­ny to an indus­tri­al play­er with ground­break­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy for both semi­con­duc­tors and hydro­gen – val­i­dat­ed by lead­ing glob­al part­ners and on its way to commercialization. Much water has flowed under the bridge since the com­pa­ny was found­ed, and today Smoltek is devel­op­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of ener­gy and cost-effi­cient capac­i­tors for advanced chips in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, as well as cost-sav­ing elec­trodes for elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells in the hydro­gen industry. But let’s take a trip down mem­o­ry lane. Here’s what Shafiq Kabir said about why he took the ini­tia­tive to found the com­pa­ny back in Decem­ber 2005:  > *“I found­ed the com­pa­ny out of sci­en­tif­ic curios­i­ty and with the ambi­tion to devel­op tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions based on nanos­truc­tures that can be use­ful in many indus­tri­al areas. The rea­son was my ambi­tion to dri­ve my research results in nan­otech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate new inno­va­tions for use in indus­try. By switch­ing to research and devel­op­ment on a com­mer­cial basis, we want­ed to make the pos­si­bil­i­ties of nan­otech­nol­o­gy avail­able on a much larg­er scale.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#20-years-of-innovation-in-the-service-of-nanotechnology)20 years of innovation in the service of nanotechnology Since its incep­tion, Smoltek has method­i­cal­ly built and patent­ed a com­pre­hen­sive tech­nol­o­gy plat­form based on cat­alyt­ic growth of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures, with much of the com­po­nent and appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment focused on car­bon nanofibers and their var­i­ous prop­er­ties – which have supe­ri­or elec­tri­cal, mechan­i­cal and ther­mal strength.  The tech­nol­o­gy increas­es the reac­tion sur­face for chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal process­es on a sub­strate by sev­er­al mag­ni­tudes and enables prod­ucts that are sig­nif­i­cant­ly more com­pact, ener­gy-effi­cient and cost-effec­tive than con­ven­tion­al solutions.  For instance, if you were to cov­er a Rubik’s Cube with Smoltek’s con­duc­tive car­bon nanofibers, the avail­able sur­face area for chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal process­es would be as large as a foot­ball field. That is the great advan­tage of Smoltek’s car­bon nanotechnology. ![Cnf equivalent surface area the pitch](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cnf-equivalent-surface-area-the-pitch-1200x959.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-brief-background-and-development)Smoltek – brief background and development Smoltek has built up an exten­sive IP port­fo­lio and grad­u­al­ly val­i­dat­ed the tech­nol­o­gy. Dur­ing the ear­ly years, the car­bon growth process and the first pro­to­types in semi­con­duc­tors were devel­oped. Between 2012 and 2016, work was deep­ened towards semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions such as inter­con­nects and inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors. The big break­through came in 2017 when the indus­try showed strong inter­est in Smoltek’s ultra-thin capac­i­tor technology. Today, Smoltek is a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny with three subsidiaries: - Smoltek AB: Holds the com­pa­ny’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights (patents and know-how). - Smoltek Semi AB: Dri­ves devel­op­ment with­in semi­con­duc­tors and devel­ops extreme­ly minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors (CNF-MIM) with high per­for­mance intend­ed to be placed in advanced chips where space is min­i­mal and require­ments are high. The cus­tomers for these capac­i­tors con­sist of a few very large man­u­fac­tur­ers of advanced semi­con­duc­tor components. - Smoltek Hydro­gen AB: Devel­ops solu­tions for the hydro­gen indus­try. In par­tic­u­lar, the com­pa­ny devel­ops elec­trodes intend­ed for elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells in the hydro­gen indus­try with a tech­nol­o­gy that max­i­mizes the use of expen­sive pre­cious met­als while reduc­ing the con­tact resis­tance between dif­fer­ent met­al lay­ers. The cus­tomers are found among com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers in the hydro­gen industry. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-possibilities-of-the-nanotechnology-platform)The possibilities of the nanotechnology platform Smoltek devel­ops appli­ca­tions based on nan­otech­nol­o­gy to solve advanced mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing chal­lenges. By grow­ing nanos­truc­tures direct­ly on a mate­r­i­al, the con­tact sur­face can be increased tens of thou­sands of times.  **Prop­er­ties of car­bon nanofibers** - Three-dimen­sion­al effect that max­i­mizes the avail­able sur­face area for a giv­en substrate - Equiv­a­lent sur­face area expands x‑fold - Excel­lent elec­tri­cal conductivity - Excel­lent mechan­i­cal properties - Excel­lent ther­mal properties - Enables high­er pow­er in cir­cuits (semi­con­duc­tors) - Enables low­er ener­gy con­sump­tion (semi­con­duc­tors) - Enables small­er form fac­tors (semi­con­duc­tors) - Reduces the pro­por­tion of cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles (hydro­gen) - Increas­es pro­ton through­put (hydro­gen) - Max­i­mizes the uti­liza­tion of cat­a­lysts (hydro­gen) - Reduces the con­tact resis­tance between dif­fer­ent met­al lay­ers (hydro­gen) - Increas­es the avail­able sur­face area for chem­i­cal and phys­i­cal processes - Cre­ates new oppor­tu­ni­ties for mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing challenges - Sub­strate inde­pen­dence – car­bon atom growth pos­si­ble on most indus­tri­al substrates **Indus­tri­al tech­nol­o­gy areas pos­si­ble for Smoltek’s nanotechnology** - Minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors (semi­con­duc­tors) - Inter­con­nects (semi­con­duc­tors) - Ther­mal dis­si­pa­tion (semi­con­duc­tors) - Antire­flec­tive sur­faces (semi­con­duc­tors) - Elec­trolyz­er elec­trodes (hydro­gen) - Elec­trolyz­er fuel cells elec­trodes (hydro­gen) - Ener­gy stor­age (bat­tery technology) - Biosen­sors (med­ical technology) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-milestones)Smoltek Milestones YearMile­stone 2005First **core patent filed**. 2006Selec­tive car­bon nanofiber **growth on sil­i­con**. 2007Smoltek boosts the devel­op­ment activ­i­ties at the MC2 lab­o­ra­to­ry at the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology. 2008Car­bon nanofiber **growth on ASIC chip** (an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit with a spe­cif­ic function). 2009**Patent plat­form in place**, sev­er­al patents filed. Car­bon nanofiber **growth on a sil­i­con car­bide device** (SiC – a pow­er mod­ule with a wide band gap that pro­vides low cou­pling loss­es and high switch­ing frequencies). 2010**First cus­tomer project**, ini­ti­at­ed from the **CERN lab­o­ra­to­ry** in Switzer­land. Devel­op­ment of car­bon nanofiber inter­con­nects in an RF device (inter­con­nect­ed struc­tures for reg­u­lat­ing radio frequencies/​oscillation rates of elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves). 2011Devel­ops con­trolled **growth of car­bon nanofibers at only 390°C**, mean­ing Smoltek has now achieved **CMOS com­pat­i­bil­i­ty** (indus­try stan­dard in semiconductors). 2012Sig­nif­i­cant increase in growth rate of car­bon nanofibers in vac­u­um cham­ber. Obtains proof of CMOS com­pat­i­bil­i­ty (indus­try stan­dard) for car­bon growth concept. 2013Inten­si­fi­ca­tion of R&D focus on capac­i­tors. Agree­ment on indus­tri­al process devel­op­ment for growth of car­bon nanofibers. 2014First pro­to­type of a **super­ca­pac­i­tor** (a chem­i­cal capac­i­tor with very high capac­i­tance that can store very high elec­tri­cal charges) based on Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers developed. 2015First pro­to­type of an **inte­grat­ed car­bon nanofiber-based capac­i­tor** (capac­i­tor in an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit – pro­tects the cir­cuit from noise that can affect its per­for­mance and pre­vents the cir­cuit from trans­mit­ting noise that can in turn affect the per­for­mance of oth­er cir­cuits) based on Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers developed. 2016**3D elec­trodes** based on Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers developed. 2017The semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is show­ing great inter­est in Smoltek’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, which can enable fur­ther minia­tur­iza­tion of chips while main­tain­ing or improv­ing per­for­mance. Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB is formed and the com­pa­ny is pre­pared for an IPO. 2018**Smotek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB is list­ed on Spot­light Stock Mar­ket** in Stock­holm, Swe­den. The capac­i­tance (per unit area) of our car­bon-based (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tors is dou­bled, mak­ing the tech­nol­o­gy very attrac­tive to the semi­con­duc­tor industry. 2019Con­tin­u­ous progress with CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy. **Capac­i­tance is increased to 650 nF/​square mil­lime­ter** and inter­nal resis­tance is kept below 40 mΩ, show­ing per­for­mance com­pa­ra­ble to oth­er solu­tions at a frac­tion of their build height. Smoltek Semi AB is formed, to han­dle licens­ing agree­ments with the semi­con­duc­tor industry. 2020**Smoltek Semi sings a license agree­ments for the eval­u­a­tion of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy**. **Smoltek Inno­va­tion (Hydro­gen) AB is formed** as a new sub­sidiary to bring Smoltek’s rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy to new mar­kets. The main area is the hydro­gen indus­try, where our tech­nol­o­gy can be used for ener­gy con­ver­sion and ener­gy storage. 2021**Smoltek Semi man­u­fac­tures the “world’s thinnest capac­i­tor”** – a pro­to­type of a ful­ly func­tion­al CNF-MIM capac­i­tor with a total height of 38.2 µm (includ­ing the nec­es­sary sub­strate). Smoltek Hydro­gen has focus on Proof-of-Con­cept test­ing of a new nanofiber-based cell mate­r­i­al for PEM electrolyzers. 2022**Smoltek Semi signs a Joint Devel­op­ment Agree­ment** with glob­al capac­i­tor giant Yageo group to com­mer­cial­ize ultra-thin decou­pling capac­i­tors for appli­ca­tion proces­sors. **Smoltek Hydro­gen signs a col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment** with an inter­na­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­er of advanced mate­ri­als for elec­trolyz­ers. This includes the joint con­struc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­er cell pro­to­types to show that the per­for­mance sig­nif­i­cant­ly improves with our car­bon nanofibers. 2023**Smoltek Semi** devel­ops a man­u­fac­tur­ing process for **8‑inch wafers** intend­ed to pro­duce indus­tri­al­ly man­u­fac­tured CNF-MIM capac­i­tor pro­to­types in high vol­umes. **Smoltek Hydro­gen** shows that the car­bon nanofiber-based elec­trode for elec­trolyz­ers **pro­duces** as much **hydro­gen with only 0.5 mg of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter** as a com­mer­cial stan­dard mate­r­i­al with 2.5 mg of irid­i­um per square centimeter. 2024**Smotek Semi** takes a major step for­ward in the devel­op­ment of CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy by **intro­duc­ing Gen-Zero** – a new way to build high capac­i­tance capac­i­tors in a small foot­print. This allows Smoltek to cre­ate a **vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty of up to 120 nano­farads per square mil­lime­ter** and per microm­e­ter of nanofiber. **Smoltek Hydro­gen proves**, in a 1,000-hour dura­bil­i­ty test, that the PTE (porous trans­port elec­trode) tech­nol­o­gy can **pro­duce hydro­gen with a cat­a­lyst load of only 0,2 mg Irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter**. The PTE tech­nol­o­gy is also val­i­dat­ed by Dr. Felix Büchi, a high­ly regard­ed expert on PEM electrolysis. 2025**Smoltek Semi signs a tech­ni­cal ser­vice agree­ment** with Tai­wan’s Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute (ITRI) f**or small-scale pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors**. The agree­ment enables low-vol­ume pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, both indus­tri­al­ly man­u­fac­tured pro­to­types for cus­tomer tests and indus­tri­al­ized capac­i­tors in small­er vol­umes for spe­cial­ized cus­tomer projects. Dur­ing the year, the **CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy** has suc­cess­ful­ly passed a **1,000-hour high-tem­per­a­ture dura­bil­i­ty test**, con­firm­ing the robust­ness of the tech­nol­o­gy for advanced appli­ca­tions. **Smoltek Hydro­gen and Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als** are ini­ti­at­ing a joint devel­op­ment project in hydro­gen tech­nol­o­gy to **devel­op low irid­i­um** **PTE elec­trodes** (Porous Trans­port Elec­trode) for PEM elec­trolyz­ers. The com­pa­ny is also ini­ti­at­ing a **strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion with Impact Coat­ings** with the ambi­tion to joint­ly eval­u­ate the pos­si­bil­i­ties of i**ndus­tri­al­iz­ing and scal­ing up** Smoltek’s patent­ed **car­bon nanofiber (CNF) tech­nol­o­gy** for use in, among oth­er things, PEM elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells. Two decades of pio­neer­ing research and IP devel­op­ment have laid the foun­da­tion for Smoltek’s next phase—commercializing advanced nan­otech­nol­o­gy solu­tions for the semi­con­duc­tor and green-ener­gy industries.  > “Look­ing ahead, we see enor­mous poten­tial in apply­ing our nan­otech­nol­o­gy to real-world prob­lems. Every­thing we have learned—from the ear­li­est exper­i­ments to today’s indus­tri­al collaborations—has pre­pared us for this moment. We are enter­ing a phase where tech­nol­o­gy, mar­ket need, and capa­bil­i­ty align.” > > Dr. Shafiq Kabir, founder and VP Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen. * * * Read the offi­cial press release about Smoltek turn­ing 20: [Smoltek Marks 20 Years of Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Inno­va­tion and Looks Ahead to an Era of Scal­able Appli­ca­tions](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-marks-20-years-of-nanotechnology-innovation-and-looks-ahead-to-an-era-of-scalable-applicatio,c4280403). Read more about Smoltek’s [tech­nol­o­gy](https://www.smoltek.com/technology/). --- title: "Characterization and Reliability Engineer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/characterization-and-reliability-engineer/16566/" date: 2025-12-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_c8f90ce8a3434e66a692a791eb99a32amv2_d_2000_1400_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Semiconductor job postings" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/jobs/semiconductor-jobs.md" --- # Characterization and Reliability Engineer Smoltek Semi AB is pio­neer­ing ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber-based met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. To accel­er­ate our tech­nol­o­gy plat­form towards robust, high-yield prod­ucts, we are look­ing for a hands-on Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and Reli­a­bil­i­ty Engi­neer to take own­er­ship of the elec­tri­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and elec­tri­cal reli­a­bil­i­ty assess­ment of our ALD-based dielec­tric stacks and CNF-MIM capacitors. This is a lab-cen­tric and data-dri­ven role where you will work close­ly with process, mate­ri­als, and device col­leagues to under­stand per­for­mance, iden­ti­fy fail­ure modes, and dri­ve design and process improvements. You will direct­ly report to the CTO. ### **What you will do:** - **Own and devel­op the elec­tri­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion method­ol­o­gy for CNF-MIM capac­i­tors includ­ing:** - C–V, I–V, break­down, and leak­age measurements - Fre­quen­cy-depen­dent char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and loss measurements - Tem­per­a­ture-depen­dent characterization - **Dri­ve com­pact mod­el­ing and cir­cuit-lev­el eval­u­a­tion of CNF-MIM capacitors:** - o Devel­op­ment or cal­i­bra­tion of simplified/​compact capac­i­tor mod­els based on mea­sured elec­tri­cal behavior - o Use of SPICE or equiv­a­lent cir­cuit sim­u­la­tion tools to pre­dict and mod­el the behav­ior of CNF-MIM capacitors - o Cor­re­la­tion of sim­u­la­tion results with mea­sured data to refine mod­els and sup­port device and stack optimization - **Design and exe­cute reli­a­bil­i­ty test plans for CNF-MIM capac­i­tors and dielec­tric stacks, includ­ing:** - Time-depen­dent dielec­tric break­down (TDDB) - Endurance and cycling tests and reten­tion measurements - High-tem­per­a­ture stor­age /​ HTOL-like tests and ther­mal cycling - Eval­u­a­tion of sta­bil­i­ty vs. bias, tem­per­a­ture, and environment - **Ana­lyze mea­sure­ment and reli­a­bil­i­ty data using appro­pri­ate sta­tis­ti­cal tools:**  - Weibull analy­sis, con­fi­dence inter­vals, and life­time extrapolation - Cor­re­la­tion of reli­a­bil­i­ty met­rics with process and struc­tur­al parameters - Clear visu­al­iza­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion of trends, out­liers, and fail­ure mechanisms - **Con­tribute to the set­up, main­te­nance, and con­tin­u­ous improve­ment of:**  - Elec­tri­cal test bench­es (para­me­ter ana­lyz­ers, LCR meters, probers, etc.) - Auto­mat­ed test scripts and data pipelines (e.g. Python) - Inter­nal reli­a­bil­i­ty test stan­dards and documentation - **Work with exter­nal labs/​foundries** when need­ed for advanced char­ac­ter­i­za­tion or pilot production. - **Con­tribute to IP gen­er­a­tion** through nov­el­ty in mate­ri­als stacks and inte­gra­tion schemes. **What you bring:**  - M.Sc. or Ph.D. in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing, Sol­id State Physics, Mate­ri­als Sci­ence, or similar. - Strong hands-on expe­ri­ence in elec­tri­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of capac­i­tors or relat­ed devices (MIM, MOS, DRAM, var­ac­tors, etc.). - Expe­ri­ence in SPICE or equiv­a­lent cir­cuit modeling. - Prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence with reli­a­bil­i­ty test­ing of dielec­tric stacks and/​or capac­i­tors, for exam­ple TDDB, BTI, stress tests, HTOL, cycling, or similar. - Good under­stand­ing of High‑k dielectrics and met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) or met­al-oxide-semi­con­duc­tor (MOS) structures - Com­fort­able work­ing with semi­con­duc­tor test equip­ment (para­me­ter ana­lyz­ers, SMUs, LCR meters, probers) - Basic project man­age­ment skills – abil­i­ty to define tasks, plan mea­sure­ment and reli­a­bil­i­ty cam­paigns, and com­mu­ni­cate sta­tus, risks, and conclusions. - A struc­tured way of work­ing, with atten­tion to detail, repro­ducibil­i­ty, and trace­abil­i­ty of data and results. ### **Nice to have:** - Knowl­edge of **car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als** (CNT/​CNF/​graphene). - Famil­iar­i­ty with **semi­con­duc­tor process flows**. - Expe­ri­ence work­ing with exter­nal sup­pli­ers, foundries, or equip­ment vendors. - Patent or pub­li­ca­tion track record in thin films or MIM devices. ### Why Smoltek? Smoltek is work­ing on a tech­nol­o­gy you won’t find just any­where; we com­bine car­bon nanofibers with advanced thin films to enable next-gen­er­a­tion capac­i­tors. Here you get to work close to the actu­al devices, see the impact of your exper­i­ments quick­ly, and dri­ve the process flow rather than just fol­low­ing it. The team is small, skilled, and col­lab­o­ra­tive, so good ideas move fast. And you get to do all of this in a bal­anced work–life environment.  ### How to apply: Send your appli­ca­tion to [recruitment@smoltek.com](mailto:recruitment@smoltek.com) lat­est April 30th, 2026 ### Learn more about Smoltek: - [www.smoltek.com](https://www.smoltek.com/) - [Smoltek – YouTube ‑chan­nel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTvSd8PcI5vS7p3ei3BHlMQ) * * * [Career main page](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/) [Smoltek start](https://www.smoltek.com) --- title: "Smoltek launches SmolTALK – a podcast about deep tech" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-launches-smoltalk-a-podcast-about-deep-tech/14481/" date: 2025-11-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pexels-kehn-hermano-4675376-webbformat-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "pte" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pte.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek launches SmolTALK – a podcast about deep tech SmolTALK is a pod­cast about our dis­rup­tive mate­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy, most­ly viewed from a busi­ness and investor per­spec­tive. How­ev­er, it also dives deep into the back­ground ground­break­ing technology. The tar­get audi­ence is any­one who wants to know more about how Smoltek’s mate­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy enables the man­u­fac­ture of new prod­ucts, solves indus­tri­al prob­lems – and cre­ates eco­nom­ic val­ue all the way from “lab-to-fab” and ulti­mate­ly share­hold­er value.  The for­mat is con­ver­sa­tions between CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son and invit­ed guests who are researchers, entre­pre­neurs, indus­try experts or investors.  In the first episode CEO, Mag­nus Ander­s­son and CTO, Farzan Gha­vani­ni dis­cuss­es the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy – ben­e­fits, com­pe­ti­tion, indus­tri­al­iza­tion and more. **SmolTALK is avail­able at:** - Apple Pod­casts: [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/smoltalk/id1852789182](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/smoltalk/id1852789182) - Spo­ti­fy: [https://open.spotify.com/show/0LAVMZUUhlnTEllu6sLOMu](https://open.spotify.com/show/0LAVMZUUhlnTEllu6sLOMu) - YouTube: [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLalEih6u8cstims5ClabEXWQH0gVpQ4oP](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLalEih6u8cstims5ClabEXWQH0gVpQ4oP) - RSS: [https://feeds.libsyn.com/599675/rss](https://feeds.libsyn.com/599675/rss) * * * --- title: "A deep dive into Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/deep-dive-into-smoltek-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology/14127/" date: 2025-11-20 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/smoltalk-s1-e1.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ald" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ald.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "deep trench capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deep-trench-capacitors.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "ITRI" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/itri.md" - name: "smoltalk" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltalk.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # A deep dive into Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology 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](https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/smoltalk/id1852789182), [Spo­ti­fy](https://open.spotify.com/show/0LAVMZUUhlnTEllu6sLOMu), and most oth­er pod­cast direc­to­ries, as well as on [YouTube](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLalEih6u8cstims5ClabEXWQH0gVpQ4oP&si=wIOEtQDFJeKRi9D5). Below is a sum­ma­ry of the dis­cus­sion between the two gentlemen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-20-year-journey)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-makes-the-technology-special)**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](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/) (for capac­i­tors) and [Smoltek Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/) (for elec­trolyz­ers) lever­age to build com­po­nents that are far more effi­cient and com­pact than tra­di­tion­al solutions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ultra-thin-capacitors-explained)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-ai-and-data-center-revolution)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#miniaturization-and-wearables)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#technology-comparison-cnf-mim-vs-silicon-trench)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#product-development-status)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#itri-partnership-in-taiwan)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#yageo-and-kemet-collaboration)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-roadmap-and-integration-plans)**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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#eu-chiplet-project)**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](https://www.chips-ju.europa.eu/) (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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#listen-to-the-full-episode)**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](https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/smoltalk/id1852789182), [Spo­ti­fy](https://open.spotify.com/show/0LAVMZUUhlnTEllu6sLOMu), and most oth­er pod­cast direc­to­ries, as well as on [YouTube](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLalEih6u8cstims5ClabEXWQH0gVpQ4oP&si=wIOEtQDFJeKRi9D5). --- title: "Smoltek Semi Optimizes the PECVD System prior to installation" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi-optimizes-the-pecvd-system-prior-to-installation/15163/" date: 2025-11-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/smoltek-pecvd-system-draft.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "pecvd" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pecvd.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek Semi Optimizes the PECVD System prior to installation In June 2025, Smoltek Semi signed a two-year tech­ni­cal ser­vice agree­ment with the Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute (ITRI), Taiwan’s lead­ing semi­con­duc­tor foundry. As part of the agree­ment, the instal­la­tion of Smoltek’s advanced PECVD sys­tem at ITRI was planned. Smoltek Semi is now opti­miz­ing the sys­tem in prepa­ra­tion for instal­la­tion. When com­plet­ed, it will be fine-tuned to deploy the company’s lat­est inno­va­tions in CNF syn­the­sis to meet cus­tomer requirements.  At this stage, how­ev­er, instal­la­tion is not essen­tial for the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the company’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy as the ongo­ing pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM sam­ples con­tin­ues as planned using exist­ing PECVD equipment. > ***“Smoltek Semi can already pro­duce ini­tial CNF-MIM™ capac­i­tor pro­to­types for cus­tomer-spe­cif­ic projects using exist­ing equip­ment. This allows the com­pa­ny and ITRI to con­cen­trate on opti­miza­tions and improve­ments before com­mis­sion­ing the PECVD sys­tem, which will make the next phase more effi­cient and cost-effec­tive.“*** > *Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek* * * * Read the offi­cial press release: [Smoltek Semi Opti­mizes PECVD Sys­tem as CNF-MIM Pro­to­type Pro­duc­tion Continues](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-optimizes-pecvd-system-as-cnf-mim-prototype-production-continues,c4263852) --- title: "Smoltek’s ALD investment: From months to days" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-ald-investment-from-months-to-days/13787/" date: 2025-11-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ald-machine-crushes-days.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ald" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ald.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" --- # Smoltek’s ALD investment: From months to days Smoltek Semi’s recent acqui­si­tion of a plas­ma-enhanced atom­ic lay­er depo­si­tion (PEALD) sys­tem is a tech­ni­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant announce­ment. The fig­ures men­tioned in the [press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-brings-ald-in-house-to-accelerate-innovation-and-shorten-time-to-market,c4256239) – reduc­ing an iter­a­tion loop from up to a month to a sin­gle day – are remark­able in them­selves. But to under­stand the full strate­gic val­ue of this invest­ment, we need to go deep­er. We must under­stand what the tech­nol­o­gy is, why it was a crit­i­cal bot­tle­neck, and what it means to move it from an exter­nal ser­vice to an inter­nal core competence. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-is-atomic-layer-deposition)**What is atomic layer deposition?** Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) is an advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing method used to build ultra-thin mate­r­i­al films. The process works via a repeat­ing chem­i­cal cycle, build­ing up mate­r­i­al lit­er­al­ly one atom­ic lay­er at a time. What makes ALD unique is its extreme pre­ci­sion. The method pro­vides atom­ic-scale con­trol over thick­ness, which is impos­si­ble to achieve with tra­di­tion­al meth­ods. Crit­i­cal­ly, ALD has the unique abil­i­ty to per­fect­ly and uni­form­ly coat com­plex 3D struc­tures, reach­ing deep into com­plex geome­tries where oth­er tech­niques fail. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-the-ald-process-is-crucial-for-smoltek)**Why the ALD process is crucial for Smoltek** In Smoltek’s man­u­fac­tur­ing of [CNF-MIM capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/), the ALD process serves a crit­i­cal, dual func­tion. It is used to apply *both* the ultra-thin, insu­lat­ing dielec­tric lay­er and the con­duc­tive met­al elec­trodes that encase the [car­bon nanofibers (CNF)](https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-unfair-advantage/6582/). The car­bon nanofiber struc­ture is inher­ent­ly com­plex and three-dimen­sion­al. Only ALD can coat these nanofibers uni­form­ly from all angles, ensur­ing all lay­ers are per­fect­ly con­sis­tent across [the mas­sive sur­face area](https://www.smoltek.com/why-increased-capacitance-density-matter/7906/#cnf-as-area-multiplier) the fibres cre­ate. Any thin spots or gaps would cause the capac­i­tor to fail; any thick spots would reduce its capac­i­tance density. Smoltek has specif­i­cal­ly invest­ed in *plas­ma-enhanced* ALD (PEALD). This process adds ener­gy via an ionised gas plas­ma (typ­i­cal­ly argon or nitro­gen). This plas­ma pro­vides addi­tion­al *reac­tive species* – ener­gised atoms and rad­i­cals – mak­ing it pos­si­ble to cre­ate high-qual­i­ty, dense films at much low­er tem­per­a­tures, which is essen­tial to pro­tect the sen­si­tive mate­ri­als and struc­tures with­in the capacitor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#from-bottleneck-to-strategic-accelerator)**From bottleneck to strategic accelerator** Before this invest­ment, Smoltek Semi was depen­dent on exter­nal ser­vice providers for ALD coat­ings. This cre­at­ed a fun­da­men­tal bot­tle­neck in the devel­op­ment work. A sin­gle iter­a­tion cycle – where sam­ples were sent, queued for coat­ing, coat­ed, returned, and then analysed – could take up to one month. This long feed­back loop made mean­ing­ful process devel­op­ment and opti­mi­sa­tion almost impos­si­ble. Fur­ther­more, each exter­nal coat­ing rep­re­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant oper­a­tional cost. By bring­ing the process in-house, Smoltek Semi becomes its own top pri­or­i­ty. The team can now com­plete an entire coat­ing cycle in a sin­gle day. The ALD sys­tem is installed at the [Chalmers MC2](https://www.chalmers.se/en/infrastructure/myfab-chalmers/facility/) world-class clean­room, a facil­i­ty that main­tains Class 1000 and Class 100 stan­dards and pro­vides access to essen­tial char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion equip­ment and research exper­tise. With Smoltek’s oth­er CVD tools already at MC2, the entire R&D work­flow is now seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed in one location. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#an-investment-that-minimises-three-key-risks)**An investment that minimises three key risks** The imme­di­ate time sav­ing is obvi­ous, but the strate­gic val­ue lies just as much in proac­tive­ly elim­i­nat­ing sev­er­al crit­i­cal busi­ness risks. 1. **Sup­ply chain and ven­dor risk:** The depen­den­cy on exter­nal ven­dors is gone. Smoltek no longer needs to wor­ry about a supplier’s equip­ment down­time, price changes, or pri­ori­ti­sa­tion of com­pet­ing clients. The com­pa­ny now has full con­trol over one of its most crit­i­cal processes. 2. **IP risk:** Every time sam­ples were sent out, pro­pri­etary infor­ma­tion about device archi­tec­ture, mate­r­i­al stacks, and process para­me­ters was dis­closed to third par­ties. By keep­ing the process in-house, all this vital know-how is protected. 3. **Qual­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy risk:** Dif­fer­ent exter­nal ven­dors may use dif­fer­ent equip­ment and stan­dards, intro­duc­ing vari­abil­i­ty. With its own in-house ALD, Smoltek main­tains com­plete vis­i­bil­i­ty and con­trol, stan­dar­d­is­ing the process and opti­mis­ing it specif­i­cal­ly for the company’s pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber structures. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-knowledge-generator-that-builds-an-ip-moat)**A knowledge generator that builds an IP moat** While the invest­ment deliv­ers sig­nif­i­cant oper­a­tional cost sav­ings, its pri­ma­ry val­ue is strate­gic. This invest­ment is fun­da­men­tal­ly an accel­er­a­tor for future rev­enue generation. The tim­ing of rev­enue depends on how quick­ly the com­pa­ny can val­i­date and launch Gen-One of the CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. By com­press­ing the devel­op­ment time­line, this invest­ment direct­ly accel­er­ates the time-to-market. In the long term, the new tool is a “knowl­edge gen­er­a­tor”. By oper­at­ing ALD process­es in-house, Smoltek accu­mu­lates pro­pri­etary data, opti­mi­sa­tion insights, and process recipes that become increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult for com­peti­tors to repli­cate. This knowl­edge com­pounds over time and cre­ates a gen­uine com­pet­i­tive moat. This new know-how can, in turn, be patent­ed, fur­ther strength­en­ing Smoltek’s patent portfolio. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-signal-of-progress-and-industrialisation)**A signal of progress and industrialisation** The tim­ing of this invest­ment is no coin­ci­dence. It sig­nals a strate­gic shift. While ear­ly research can tol­er­ate slow feed­back cycles, the cur­rent phase of val­i­da­tion and indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion demands a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent pace. The one-month exter­nal coat­ing cycle was no longer acceptable. For share­hold­ers and investors, the pur­chase of the ALD sys­tem is a con­crete man­i­fes­ta­tion of progress. It shows the com­pa­ny is tak­ing con­trol of its own des­tiny, proac­tive­ly man­ag­ing risk, and is laser-focused on accel­er­at­ing the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the Gen-One capac­i­tor. It is about build­ing long-term, defen­si­ble val­ue – one atom­ic lay­er at a time. The author would like to thank Qi Li for patient­ly answer­ing the ques­tions that made this arti­cle possible. --- title: "Where is Eddie?" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/where-is-eddie/11946/" date: 2025-11-14 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/eddie-the-machine.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "cvd" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cvd.md" - name: "cvd-tool" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cvd-tool.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "pecvd" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pecvd.md" --- # Where is Eddie? Eddie is the share­hold­ers’ affec­tion­ate name for Smoltek Semi­’s advanced plas­ma enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (PECVD) tool for high-vol­ume car­bon nanofiber pro­duc­tion. Back in June, Smoltek [announced](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-and-itri-initiate-technical-service-agreement-for-small-scale-production-of-cnf-mim-capacito,c4166188) that it was head­ing to Tai­wan to join ITRI, where it would facil­i­tate a com­plete fab­ri­ca­tion process under one roof. That was months ago. Since then? Radio silence. Some­where between a ware­house in Swe­den and a research facil­i­ty in Tai­wan, Eddie has van­ished from the share­hold­er radar. Has it left Swe­den? Is it on a car­go ship cross­ing the Pacif­ic? Has it arrived? [Smoltek’s investor com­mu­ni­ty on Dis­cord](https://discord.gg/hz6mf2ss) went wild with speculation. As clue­less as every­one else, I decid­ed to solve the mystery. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-investigation-begins)The investigation begins As a free­lance writer for Smoltek, I’m rarely in the loop. But armed with noth­ing but a key­board and deter­mi­na­tion, I set out to become the share­hold­ers’ own Her­cule Poirot. Well, with­out the ele­gant three-piece suits. Or the Bel­gian accent. And frankly, with con­sid­er­ably less impres­sive deduc­tive rea­son­ing. But I had determination. My first move was sim­ple: I emailed my con­tact at Smoltek. Sure­ly some­one there must know where their mul­ti-mil­lion kro­nor machine had end­ed up? The response came quick­ly. Too quick­ly, per­haps. As Poirot would say: when the answer comes eas­i­ly, one must sus­pect that the ques­tion was wrong all along. “Eddie,” my con­tact informed me, “is in Gothen­burg. In a ware­house. Where it has been all along.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-great-anticlimax)The great anticlimax I stared at my screen. That was it? No dra­mat­ic ocean cross­ing? No tri­umphant arrival announce­ment? No instal­la­tion pho­tos from Taiwan? Eddie had­n’t even left Swe­den. It had been sit­ting in stor­age the entire time. My career as a share­hold­er detec­tive seemed to have peaked ear­ly. The mys­tery was solved in a sin­gle email exchange. Case closed. But wait. The lit­tle grey cells start­ed work­ing. (I may not have Poirot’s need for order and sym­me­try, but I’ve read enough detec­tive nov­els to know that the obvi­ous answer demands the most inter­est­ing explanation.) Why would a machine specif­i­cal­ly ordered, cus­tom-built, and des­tined for Tai­wan still be sit­ting in a Swedish ware­house months after the announce­ment? This was­n’t the end of the sto­ry. It was just the beginning. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-real-mystery)The real mystery The ques­tion was­n’t “Where is Eddie?” The real ques­tion was: “Why has­n’t Eddie moved?” And the answer reveals some­thing far more impor­tant about Smoltek’s busi­ness strat­e­gy than any ship­ping update ever could. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sleeping-beauty-in-western-gothenburg)Sleeping Beauty in western Gothenburg Eddie stands dis­as­sem­bled and packed on pal­lets in a ware­house some­where in an indus­tri­al area in west­ern Gothen­burg. In fact, Smoltek has nev­er even unpacked it. Every­thing remains in the orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing from the man­u­fac­tur­er in the Unit­ed States. And here’s the cru­cial detail: the agree­ment with ITRI was nev­er about ship­ping Eddie imme­di­ate­ly. It gives Smoltek the flex­i­bil­i­ty to decide *when* to ship and assem­ble Eddie at ITRI. So why not do it immediately? ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-optimization-strategy)The optimization strategy First, there is no urgency. The estab­lished net­work of part­ners cur­rent­ly man­u­fac­tur­ing for Smoltek Semi is ful­ly capa­ble of pro­duc­ing the vol­umes Smoltek requires at present. They can already pro­duce CNF-MIM capac­i­tor pro­to­types for cus­tomer projects using exist­ing equip­ment. Instal­la­tion at ITRI sim­ply isn’t essen­tial right now. This cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Since pro­duc­tion needs are being met through exist­ing chan­nels, Smoltek Semi can fine-tune the Eddie machine to deploy their lat­est inno­va­tions in CNF growth before com­mis­sion­ing it. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#optimizing-before-the-journey)Optimizing before the journey The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is con­tin­u­ous­ly being devel­oped. As research pro­gress­es, Smoltek Semi iden­ti­fies ways to improve Eddie. One improve­ment would be to adapt the machine to enable nick­el to be used in the growth process. Nick­el offers cer­tain advan­tages, includ­ing being cheap­er than pal­la­di­um (though cost is not a dri­ving fac­tor). But… Nick­el requires high­er pro­cess­ing tem­per­a­tures. There­fore, if Smoltek Semi wants to use this approach with Eddie, the com­pa­ny first needs to ensure that the machine can reli­ably han­dle those high­er temperatures. This is just one poten­tial opti­miza­tion among many. And here’s where the strat­e­gy becomes clear: if you want to make such improve­ments, Tai­wan might not be the best place to do it. Mod­i­fi­ca­tions might be more effec­tive­ly con­duct­ed in Swe­den or back at the man­u­fac­tur­er’s facil­i­ty in the Unit­ed States. Now con­sid­er the costs: ship­ping Eddie to Tai­wan involves sig­nif­i­cant expens­es, espe­cial­ly with high cus­toms tar­iffs. Installing it requires addi­tion­al invest­ment. Run­ning it means pay­ing for on-site per­son­nel, insur­ance, and main­te­nance. And if mod­i­fi­ca­tions are need­ed after all that? You’d have to dis­as­sem­ble, re-ship, pay those cus­toms fees again, and then ship back once more. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-economics-of-strategic-patience)The economics of strategic patience The finan­cial log­ic is straight­for­ward: it’s unnec­es­sary to incur costs for ship­ping, instal­la­tion, and oper­a­tion only to poten­tial­ly dis­as­sem­ble and ship again short­ly after. Bet­ter to wait and see. Bet­ter to focus on under­stand­ing exact­ly what opti­miza­tions would make Eddie pro­duc­tion-ready for the long term. As [CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son explains](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-optimizes-pecvd-system-as-cnf-mim-prototype-production-continues,c4263852), it’s strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant at this stage to focus on under­stand­ing cus­tomer require­ments and build­ing them into the pro­duc­tion line. That way, when the sys­tem is final­ly installed, it will already be opti­mized to pro­duce CNF-MIM capac­i­tors accord­ing to spe­cif­ic needs. So Eddie remains in stor­age. It will stay there as long as Smoltek can man­age pro­duc­tion through exist­ing part­ners, ready to be deployed when – and *where* – the opti­miza­tions are com­plete and the move becomes strate­gi­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly sound. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-timing-dilemma)The timing dilemma One might ask: why did Smoltek’s for­mer CEO [order](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-orders-industrial-carbon-growth-machine,c3528816) the machine before know­ing exact­ly what opti­miza­tions would be needed? Tim­ing is dif­fi­cult. If he had­n’t ordered it and demand had sud­den­ly mate­ri­al­ized, Smoltek would have faced prob­lems ramp­ing up pro­duc­tion quick­ly. He was wise to order it so we’d be ready. But secur­ing the capa­bil­i­ty ear­ly cre­at­ed a new lux­u­ry: time to opti­mize properly. Iron­i­cal­ly, cur­rent CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son faces the same fun­da­men­tal dilem­ma as his pre­de­ces­sor: Should he incur the costs for ship­ping, assem­bly, per­son­nel, and insur­ance now to be ready slight­ly ear­li­er? Or should he con­serve the com­pa­ny’s resources and ensure Eddie is tru­ly opti­mized first? Mag­nus has cho­sen the cau­tious path. Eddie waits. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#but-what-does-eddie-actually-do)But what does Eddie actually do? For those unfa­mil­iar with the tech­ni­cal details, let me back up. Eddie isn’t just “a machine.” It’s a cus­tom-built plas­ma enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (PECVD) sys­tem designed to pro­duce car­bon nanofibers at indus­tri­al scale. These nanofibers are the key to Smoltek Semi­’s ultra­thin CNF-MIM capacitors. Eddie has an impres­sive work capac­i­ty. Cur­rent­ly, it can process one 8‑inch wafer every half hour. Each 8‑inch wafer con­tains 48,000 CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. With 500 wafers per month, that’s 24 mil­lion capac­i­tors per month. And that’s just the begin­ning. The machine can be scaled up ten­fold to pro­duce 5,000 wafers per month. If you want the full tech­ni­cal sto­ry – and trust me, it’s fas­ci­nat­ing – I wrote about it back in June: [The Machine](https://www.smoltek.com/the-machine/6091/). The short ver­sion: Eddie rep­re­sents the future of high-vol­ume CNF-MIM pro­duc­tion. It’s the bridge between lab­o­ra­to­ry inno­va­tion and indus­tri­al real­i­ty. But it’s a bridge that only needs cross­ing when traf­fic demands it. ![The Machine](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-machine-1200x721.webp) The high-vol­ume machine for indus­tri­al-scale car­bon nanofiber pro­duc­tion (“Eddie”) at its man­u­fac­tur­er, CVD Equip­ment Cor­po­ra­tion in the USA, before it was pack­aged and shipped to Smoltek. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-eddie)Why “Eddie”? You might be won­der­ing: why does a sophis­ti­cat­ed piece of indus­tri­al equip­ment have a name that sounds like your neigh­bor’s friend­ly gold­en retriever? Inter­nal­ly, Smoltek has always called the machine the “High-Vol­ume Machine” or “HVM” for short. Pro­fes­sion­al. Descrip­tive. Utter­ly boring. But in the [Smoltek’s share­hold­er com­mu­ni­ty on Dis­cord](https://discord.gg/hz6mf2ss), one par­tic­u­lar­ly influ­en­tial mem­ber – an Iron Maid­en fan – saw some­thing else. The machine’s reac­tor cham­ber, topped with a gold­en per­fo­rat­ed met­al box, remind­ed him of some­thing: [Eddie the Head](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Eddie_the_Head). Eddie the Head is Iron Maid­en’s icon­ic mas­cot – a skele­tal fig­ure that’s graced their album cov­ers since 1980. Cre­at­ed by artist Derek Rig­gs, Eddie has appeared in var­i­ous incar­na­tions: as a pup­pet mas­ter, a cyborg, a pharaoh, even as Satan him­self. He’s been shot, stabbed, lobot­o­mized, and res­ur­rect­ed more times than a hor­ror movie villain. The orig­i­nal Eddie drew ear­ly inspi­ra­tion from a mask Rig­gs saw in street the­ater and World War II imagery, but the visu­al style quick­ly became unique­ly his own. Over four decades, Eddie has evolved into some­thing more: a sym­bol of resilience, trans­for­ma­tion, and—perhaps most rel­e­vant here—heavy met­al power. When the Dis­cord mem­ber shared his obser­va­tion about the visu­al sim­i­lar­i­ty, the name stuck. The com­mu­ni­ty adopt­ed it imme­di­ate­ly. And now, even out­side the com­mu­ni­ty, it’s sim­ply what every­one calls it. A sophis­ti­cat­ed piece of indus­tri­al equip­ment, nick­named after a heavy met­al mas­cot by enthu­si­as­tic share­hold­ers. It’s per­fect­ly absurd and per­fect­ly fitting. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#poirots-revelation)Poirot’s revelation So here we are at the end of our inves­ti­ga­tion, and what have we learned? The mys­tery was nev­er about where Eddie phys­i­cal­ly was. Eddie isn’t lost. The sto­ry is about under­stand­ing why it’s wait­ing – and why that’s exact­ly right. Eddie is a solu­tion wait­ing for the right moment – packed on pal­lets some­where in west­ern Gothen­burg, still in its orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing, ready to wake from its Sleep­ing Beau­ty slum­ber when opti­miza­tions are com­plete and the tim­ing is right. Smoltek ordered capac­i­ty in antic­i­pa­tion of demand. They have a high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion machine ready. Until they need it, they pro­duce through estab­lished chan­nels, stay flex­i­ble on poten­tial improve­ments, and avoid the costs of run­ning expen­sive equip­ment at low uti­liza­tion or mod­i­fy­ing it after installation. *Les apparences sont trompeuses*, as Poirot would say. Appear­ances are deceptive. Some­times the most inter­est­ing sto­ry is the one where noth­ing hap­pens yet. Some­times wis­dom looks like wait­ing. And Eddie, like Iron Maid­en’s mas­cot, knows how to wait for its moment. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen’s technology leads in the race for green hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogens-technology-leads-in-the-race-for-green-hydrogen/13665/" date: 2025-11-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/pemwe-in-landscape.webp" categories: - name: "Media mentions" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/media-mentions.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "porous transport electrode" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/porous-transport-electrode.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen’s technology leads in the race for green hydrogen This is a sum­ma­ry of an arti­cle fea­tur­ing Smoltek titled “Europes Race For Green Hydro­gen” pub­lished by The Euro­pean Cor­re­spon­dent on Novem­ber 11, 2025. The arti­cle high­lights that Europe’s race to lead in green hydro­gen is well under­way, but suc­cess hinges on over­com­ing not just pol­i­cy and finance chal­lenges, but very real tech­nol­o­gy and mate­ri­als constraints. The arti­cle also men­tions that the solu­tion to the lat­ter mat­ter exists: *“Smoltek Hydrogen’s inno­va­tion in nanos­truc­tured elec­trodes offers a clear tool to help over­come one of those con­straints — enabling more elec­trol­y­sers, with less rare mate­r­i­al require­ment, at low­er cost and short­er time.”* If Europe is to meet its 2030 ambi­tions (and beyond), such con­tri­bu­tions matter. * * * *Read the full arti­cle: [Europe’s race for green hydro­gen](https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/europes-race-for-green-hydrogen).* --- title: "ALD Research Engineer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/ald-research-engineer/13422/" date: 2025-11-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/220608-smoltek-renrum-03.webp" categories: - name: "Semiconductor job postings" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/jobs/semiconductor-jobs.md" --- # ALD Research Engineer Smoltek Semi AB is pio­neer­ing ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber-based met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. To accel­er­ate our tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, we are look­ing for an expe­ri­enced and hands-on ALD Research Engi­neer who can devel­op, char­ac­ter­ize, and opti­mize dielec­tric stacks as well as met­al elec­trode lay­ers for inte­gra­tion on CNF-based struc­tures. The work will pri­mar­i­ly be per­formed using Smoltek’s in-house ALD tool. This is a lab-cen­tric role where you will work close to process, mate­ri­als, and device col­leagues to push per­for­mance, yield, and manufacturability. You will direct­ly report to the CTO. ### **What you will do:** - **Devel­op ALD dielec­tric stacks** (e.g. Al₂O₃, HfO₂, ZrO₂, lam­i­nates) tai­lored for high-capac­i­tance CNF-MIM devices, with focus on con­for­mal­i­ty over 3D/​CNF struc­tures, low leak­age, and reliability. - **Engi­neer ALD/CVD/PVD-com­pat­i­ble met­al elec­trodes** (e.g. TiN, Ru, W) suit­able for CNF-based MIM integration. - **Plan and exe­cute exper­i­men­tal series/​DOEs** – define objec­tives, time­line, and deliv­er­ables, and fol­low up with clear report­ing to stakeholders. - **Coor­di­nate with adja­cent teams** (CNF growth, device, reli­a­bil­i­ty) to align process require­ments, time plans, and tool availability. - **Char­ac­ter­ize films and stacks** using ellip­som­e­try, XRD (with part­ners), SEM, TEM (with part­ners), AFM, and elec­tri­cal tests (C‑V, I‑V, breakdown). - **Doc­u­ment and trans­fer process­es** into well-described run sheets and con­tribute to design rules for the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy platform. - **Work with exter­nal labs/​foundries** when need­ed for advanced char­ac­ter­i­za­tion or pilot production. - **Con­tribute to IP gen­er­a­tion** through nov­el­ty in mate­ri­als stacks and inte­gra­tion schemes. ### **What you bring:** - M.Sc. or Ph.D. in Mate­ri­als Sci­ence, Sol­id State Physics, Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing, Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, or similar. - **Hands-on expe­ri­ence with ALD** (ther­mal and/​or PEALD) for high‑k dielectrics or barrier/​seed/​electrode layers. - Good under­stand­ing of **film growth on 3D or high-aspect-ratio struc­tures** and the chal­lenges of con­for­mal­i­ty, nucle­ation, and sur­face preparation. - Expe­ri­ence with at least some of the following:  - High‑k dielectrics for MIM/​MOS devices - Con­duc­tive nitrides (TiN, TaN) or Ru/​W electrodes - Leak­age, break­down and reli­a­bil­i­ty test­ing of dielec­tric stacks - Plas­ma sur­face treat­ments and adhe­sion promotion - **Basic project man­age­ment skills** – abil­i­ty to define tasks, pri­or­i­tize exper­i­ments, keep sim­ple time plans, and com­mu­ni­cate progress/​risks. - A struc­tured way of work­ing, with atten­tion to detail and reproducibility. ### **Nice to have:** - Knowl­edge of **car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als** (CNT/​CNF/​graphene). - Famil­iar­i­ty with **semi­con­duc­tor process flows**. - Expe­ri­ence work­ing with exter­nal sup­pli­ers, foundries, or equip­ment vendors. - Patent or pub­li­ca­tion track record in thin films or MIM devices. ### Why Smoltek? Smoltek is work­ing on a tech­nol­o­gy you won’t find just any­where; we com­bine car­bon nanofibers with advanced thin films to enable next-gen­er­a­tion capac­i­tors. Here you get to work close to the actu­al devices, see the impact of your exper­i­ments quick­ly, and dri­ve the process flow rather than just fol­low­ing it. The team is small, skilled, and col­lab­o­ra­tive, so good ideas move fast. And you get to do all of this in a bal­anced work–life environment. ### How to apply: Send your appli­ca­tion to [recruitment@smoltek.com](mailto:recruitment@smoltek.com) lat­est Decem­ber 19th, 2025 ### Learn more about Smoltek: - [www.smoltek.com](https://www.smoltek.com/) - [Smoltek – YouTube ‑chan­nel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTvSd8PcI5vS7p3ei3BHlMQ) * * * [Career main page](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/) [Smoltek start](https://www.smoltek.com) --- title: "Semicon Taiwan 2025 – Interviews" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/semicon-taiwan-2025-interviews/13052/" date: 2025-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" --- # Semicon Taiwan 2025 – Interviews Dur­ing Semi­con Tai­wan 2025, one of the world’s most influ­en­tial semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy expos, Smoltek was invit­ed by the strate­gic part­ner ITRI (Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute) to show­case the ground­break­ing CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy – enabling more ener­gy-effi­cient capac­i­tors for the next gen­er­a­tion of advance chips for AI, data cen­ters and High-Per­for­mance Com­put­ing (HPC). In this video Dr. Qi Li, Project Man­ag­er at Smoltek Semi inter­views both Dr. Arthur Lin, Divi­sion Direc­tor Smart Sens­ing & Sys­tems Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter at ITRI, and Dr. Shun Chiu Lin, Team Man­ag­er for the Gen-One devel­op­ment pro­gram at ITRI. --- title: "CNF-MIM capacitors pass 1,000 hours of reliability test" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-capacitors-pass-1000-hours-of-reliability-test/12845/" date: 2025-11-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/220608-smoltek-renrum-07.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # CNF-MIM capacitors pass 1,000 hours of reliability test The suc­cess­ful test proves the long-term reli­a­bil­i­ty and strength­ens the ongo­ing indus­tri­al­iza­tion work togeth­er with Yageo and oth­er poten­tial part­ners, which also brings the tech­nol­o­gy clos­er to com­mer­cial production. > **“The results are extreme­ly promis­ing – they demon­strate that our CNF-MIM con­cept is not only high-per­for­mance, but also fun­da­men­tal­ly reli­able over time under real­is­tic oper­at­ing con­di­tions. We have already shared the out­come with Yageo, and thanks to this progress, the next dura­bil­i­ty test will be car­ried out direct­ly at their facil­i­ties.“** > *Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek* **Test results in brief** The test was con­duct­ed on 20 CNF-MIM capac­i­tors that were con­tin­u­ous­ly oper­at­ed for 1,000 hours at 85°C while being biased at 2 V – stan­dard con­di­tions for capac­i­tor indus­try dura­bil­i­ty tests. After the test, none of the capac­i­tors showed any notice­able change in capac­i­tance. More impor­tant­ly, 19 out of 20 units main­tained an insu­la­tion resis­tance above the tar­get lev­el of 1 GΩ, which is con­sis­tent with well-estab­lished indus­try criteria. The sin­gle ear­ly out­lier that did not meet the tar­get had already been iden­ti­fied as the com­po­nent with the high­est leak­age in the batch before the test start­ed. Such ear­ly out­liers (“infant fail­ures”) are nor­mal­ly sort­ed out in a burn-in step before reli­a­bil­i­ty test­ing. Smoltek is now imple­ment­ing this burn-in process, and with this step in place, the com­pa­ny expects all units in the future to pass cor­re­spond­ing test conditions. * * * Read the offi­cial press release here: [*Smoltek Semi reach­es key mile­stone that brings CNF-MIM capac­i­tors clos­er to com­mer­cial­iza­tion*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-reaches-key-milestone-that-brings-cnf-mim-capacitors-closer-to-commercialization,c4262457). --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen launches development project with Heraeus Precious Metals" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-launches-development-project-with-heraeus-precious-metals/12640/" date: 2025-11-04 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/smoltek-pte-03-1920x1080-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen launches development project with Heraeus Precious Metals The joint project rep­re­sents an impor­tant step towards indus­tri­al­iz­ing low-irid­i­um PEM elec­trolyz­er tech­nol­o­gy. In the project, the two com­pa­nies will joint­ly spec­i­fy pro­to­type PTEs for Smoltek Hydro­gen to pro­duce. Her­aeus will inte­grate the PTEs with mem­brane and cat­a­lyst into full PEM elec­trolyz­er cells, which will then be test­ed in Heraeus’s state-of-the-art PEM cell laboratories. > “This project is the basis for a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant col­lab­o­ra­tion between Smoltek Hydro­gen and Her­aeus. Togeth­er, we are test­ing a prod­uct that could rede­fine PEM elec­trolyz­ers while future-proof­ing the use of irid­i­um, one of the world’s rarest and most crit­i­cal metals,” > > *Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen* The project will run through the fall of 2025, with a joint eval­u­a­tion of the results planned for ear­ly 2026. > “Smoltek’s elec­trodes with ultra-thin irid­i­um lay­ers hold great promise, and we are eager to see the results. By com­bin­ing our glob­al exper­tise in mate­ri­als and test­ing with Smoltek Hydrogen’s inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy, we aim to accel­er­ate the tran­si­tion to next-gen­er­a­tion PEM electrolyzers,” > > *Philipp Wal­ter, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Busi­ness Line Hydro­gen Sys­tems at Her­aeus Pre­cious Metals* * * * - Read the offi­cial press release: [*Smoltek Hydro­gen and Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als launch joint devel­op­ment project in hydro­gen technology*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-and-heraeus-precious-metals-launch-joint-development-project-in-hydrogen-technology,c4261465) --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen highlights global iridium shortage: “Every atom counts”" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-highlights-global-iridium-shortage-every-atom-counts/12129/" date: 2025-10-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen highlights global iridium shortage: “Every atom counts” In her speech, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg high­light­ed one of the most cru­cial chal­lenges for the hydro­gen indus­try today – the glob­al short­age of iridium. > “At the very heart of a PEM elec­trolyz­er lies irid­i­um – and there is cur­rent­ly no sub­sti­tute. Only 7–9 tons are mined glob­al­ly each year, and pro­duc­tion can­not be increased. Unless we dras­ti­cal­ly reduce the amount used in hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, the irid­i­um short­age will stop the scale-up of green hydro­gen before it even starts,” > > *said Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen*. ![2025 10 htwe2025 hamburg](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/2025-10-htwe2025-hamburg-1200x675.webp) Elli­nor also pre­sent­ed Smoltek’s nan­otech­nol­o­gy-based solu­tion for large-scale and fos­sil-free hydro­gen pro­duc­tion that enables small­er and more cost-effec­tive electrolyzers. > Scal­ing green hydro­gen isn’t just about pro­duc­ing more—it’s about pro­duc­ing smarter. > We need to rethink the mate­ri­als, the man­u­fac­tur­ing, and even the mind­sets that built yesterday’s indus­try. Every atom count,” > > El*linor Ehrn­berg added.* * * * - Read the offi­cial press release: [*Smoltek high­lights glob­al irid­i­um short­age at hydro­gen event in Hamburg*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-highlights-global-iridium-shortage-at-hydrogen-event-in-hamburg,c4258418) - Read the sum­ma­ry from the event: [*Mak­ing every atom count in the race for scal­able green hydrogen*](https://www.smoltek.com/making-every-atom-count-in-the-race-for-scalable-green-hydrogen/12019/) --- title: "Making every atom count in the race for scalable green hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/making-every-atom-count-in-the-race-for-scalable-green-hydrogen/12019/" date: 2025-10-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/satirical-lighthearted-caricature-of-female-president-holding-flags-of-sweden-and-germany.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Making every atom count in the race for scalable green hydrogen On stage among major elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers and pol­i­cy experts, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen, offered a refresh­ing­ly direct answer: “start with the atoms.” ![2025 10 htwe2025 hamburg](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/2025-10-htwe2025-hamburg-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-hidden-bottleneck-iridium)The hidden bottleneck: Iridium “At the very heart of a PEM elec­trolyz­er lies irid­i­um. That’s where the mag­ic hap­pens. When a water mol­e­cule meets irid­i­um, is splits into oxy­gen and hydro­gen. This process can be made repeat­ed­ly at an afford­able cost, as long as we just pour in more water. But irid­i­um is dif­fer­ent sto­ry; it is one of the rarest met­als on Earth, more expen­sive than gold — and we can’t pro­duce so much more of it,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg explained.  Every pro­ton exchange mem­brane (PEM) elec­trolyz­er depends on irid­i­um as its cat­a­lyst to split water into hydro­gen and oxy­gen. The prob­lem? Only 7–9 tons of irid­i­um are mined glob­al­ly per year, most­ly in South Africa and Rus­sia, and pro­duc­tion can­not be scaled up. This makes the world’s green hydro­gen ambi­tions severe­ly constrained.  “At today’s small hydro­gen vol­umes, using 2 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter is man­age­able. But if we want to scale to hun­dreds of gigawatts, it sim­ply isn’t pos­si­ble. The lim­it­ed sup­ply of irid­i­um will stop the hydro­gen econ­o­my before it even starts—unless we use it more effi­cient­ly,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg continued. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-95-reduction-in-iridium-use-is-possible)A 95% reduction in iridium use is possible Smoltek Hydrogen’s answer is a nan­otech­nol­o­gy break­through that dra­mat­i­cal­ly extends the life of this pre­cious resource. Using a pro­pri­etary Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE) built with cor­ro­sion pro­tect­ed car­bon nanos­truc­tures the com­pa­ny has increased the active sur­face area of the cat­a­lyst lay­er by up to 30 times. This allows irid­i­um atoms to be applied pre­cise­ly where they are needed—and nowhere else. The result is a 95% reduc­tion in irid­i­um use, down to just 0.1 mil­ligram per square cen­time­ter, while main­tain­ing full per­for­mance and durability. “We can make the elec­trolyz­er up to three times more com­pact. Instead of three stacks, you only need one. That’s how we make green hydro­gen tru­ly scal­able,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg noted. The cost sav­ings are just as strik­ing. “Using only five per­cent of the irid­i­um saves sev­er­al thou­sand euros per square meter of stack area. That’s real money—and real scal­a­bil­i­ty”, she said.  In sum­ma­ry: Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE tech­nol­o­gy enables small­er, more cost-effi­cient elec­trolyz­ers that require sig­nif­i­cant­ly less irid­i­um. This inno­va­tion allows for a more com­pact stack design, reduc­ing both sys­tem size and over­all cost — sav­ing thou­sands of euros per square meter of stack area. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#building-the-future-through-collaboration-and-partnerships)Building the future through collaboration and partnerships But who will man­u­fac­ture these PEM elec­trolyz­ers that will unlock the green hydro­gen economy? Elli­nor Ehrn­berg empha­sized that no sin­gle com­pa­ny can solve the mate­ri­als chal­lenge alone “Col­lab­o­ra­tion is the only way to make such pre­ci­sion scal­able. We are for­tu­nate to work with part­ners who share our vision of build­ing a sus­tain­able hydro­gen econ­o­my through smarter mate­ri­als engineering.”  Today Smoltek Hydro­gen has estab­lished indus­tri­al part­ner­ships with Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als, AGC Plas­ma Tech­nolo­gies, Spark Nano, and Impact Coat­ings, along­side oth­er undis­closed glob­al tech­nol­o­gy lead­ers. These part­ners and cus­tomers are help­ing Smoltek move from pro­to­type to pro­duc­tion-scale systems. “We build nanos­truc­tures atom by atom—from tita­ni­um, plat­inum, and iridium—and we must co-devel­op each lay­er with part­ners across the val­ue chain,” she added. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#efficiency-and-circularity-the-next-frontier)Efficiency and circularity: The next frontier Beyond tech­no­log­i­cal effi­cien­cy, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg believes resource cir­cu­lar­i­ty will define the future of hydro­gen. “We have to use much less iridium—and recy­cle it,” she said. “Effi­cien­cy and cir­cu­lar­i­ty are key if we want to future-proof the hydro­gen economy.” In oth­er words, inno­va­tion can­not come at the expense of sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Every improve­ment must serve both the eco­nom­ics and the ecol­o­gy of green hydro­gen production. While the con­ver­sa­tion around hydro­gen often focus­es on scale—more elec­trolyz­ers, larg­er plants, big­ger num­bers— Elli­nor Ehrn­berg cau­tioned against equat­ing vol­ume with progress. “Scal­ing green hydro­gen isn’t just about pro­duc­ing more—it’s about pro­duc­ing smarter. We need to rethink the mate­ri­als, the man­u­fac­tur­ing, and even the mind­sets that built yesterday’s indus­try. Every atom count,” she said. That sen­ti­ment cap­tured the spir­it of this year’s Hydro­gen Tech­nol­o­gy World Expo: that break­throughs in mate­ri­als sci­ence, not just pol­i­cy or fund­ing, will deter­mine how fast the hydro­gen tran­si­tion can tru­ly accelerate. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-role-in-the-hydrogen-evolution)Smoltek’s role in the hydrogen evolution From its base in Gothen­burg, Smoltek Hydro­gen is demon­strat­ing how deep mate­ri­als exper­tise can unlock the next era of renew­able ener­gy. By com­bin­ing nanos­truc­tured engi­neer­ing with indus­tri­al part­ner­ships, the com­pa­ny is help­ing make green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion both cost-effec­tive and resource responsible. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy direct­ly address­es one of the hydro­gen industry’s most crit­i­cal pain points—the irid­i­um bottleneck—and in doing so, it opens the door to the mass deploy­ment of fos­sil-free hydro­gen need­ed to decar­bonize heavy indus­try, trans­porta­tion, and ener­gy storage. As the ener­gy world piv­ots from promise to imple­men­ta­tion, Smoltek’s mes­sage from Ham­burg was clear: “We can’t cre­ate more irid­i­um, but we can use what we have infi­nite­ly bet­ter. And that’s how we make the hydro­gen econ­o­my tru­ly sus­tain­able,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg concluded. Before leav­ing the stage, she remind­ed the hydro­gen com­mu­ni­ty: “So, please — stop putting thick lay­ers of irid­i­um on mem­branes. Use thin, effi­cient lay­ers on elec­trodes instead. Because every atom counts.” And with these clos­ing words we leave Ham­burg, for this time.  * * * ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#key-takeaways-from-hydrogen-technology-world-expo-2025-in-hamburg)Key takeaways from Hydrogen Technology World Expo 2025 in Hamburg - Nan­otech­nol­o­gy is the enabler: Irid­i­um scarci­ty can no longer be afford­ed to over­look. Smoltek’s PTE uses 95% less irid­i­um while main­tain­ing per­for­mance and durability. - Com­pact and cost-effec­tive: Up to three times small­er stack foot­print, cut­ting sys­tem costs dramatically. - Strate­gic part­ner­ships: Col­lab­o­ra­tion with major indus­tri­al play­ers ensures scal­able, high-pre­ci­sion manufacturing. - Sus­tain­abil­i­ty through effi­cien­cy: Reduced crit­i­cal mate­r­i­al use and poten­tial for recy­cling are essen­tial for long-term growth. --- title: "Acquisition of ALD system – accelerating innovation and shorten time to market" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/acquisition-of-ald-system-accelerating-innovation-and-shorten-time-to-market/11966/" date: 2025-10-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/lab-01-2000x1123-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Acquisition of ALD system – accelerating innovation and shorten time to market Smoltek Semi has acquired and com­mis­sioned a plas­ma-enhanced Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) sys­tem in the clean­room of Chalmers MC2 lab­o­ra­to­ry, enabling high-qual­i­ty ALD film deposition. With this capa­bil­i­ty, Smoltek Semi can now com­plete a full coat­ing cycle with­in a sin­gle day – reduc­ing devel­op­ment time for its CNF-MIM capac­i­tors from up to a month to a sin­gle day. > **“By bring­ing ALD in-house, we gain the free­dom to inno­vate and devel­op pro­pri­etary dielec­tric stacks, tai­lored to our tech­nol­o­gy. This is a key step toward build­ing our own intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty with­in dielec­tric stacks and strength­en­ing Smoltek’s long-term com­pet­i­tive posi­tion.“** > *Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek* **Increas­ing inno­va­tion and accel­er­at­ing time to mar­ket** Until now, Smoltek relied on exter­nal part­ners for ALD coat­ings — a process that slowed down inno­va­tion and added costs. With its new in-house sys­tem, the com­pa­ny can move from idea to pro­to­type faster than ever before, cut­ting devel­op­ment cycles and accel­er­at­ing time to market.  The invest­ment marks a strate­gic leap for­ward, giv­ing Smoltek full con­trol of its coat­ing process­es and the free­dom to devel­op pro­pri­etary ALD recipes opti­mized for car­bon nanofibers — exper­tise that doesn’t exist any­where else. This posi­tions Smoltek at the fore­front of advanced dielec­tric devel­op­ment and fur­ther strength­ens its grow­ing IP portfolio.  This new capa­bil­i­ty brings Smoltek one step clos­er to indus­tri­al­iz­ing its CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. By com­bin­ing full process con­trol with faster devel­op­ment cycles, the com­pa­ny can now move more rapid­ly from inno­va­tion to real-world imple­men­ta­tion — bridg­ing the gap between lab­o­ra­to­ry break­throughs and large-scale manufacturing.  * * * Read the offi­cial press release here: [*Smoltek Semi Brings ALD In-House to Accel­er­ate Inno­va­tion and Short­en Time to Mar­ket*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-brings-ald-in-house-to-accelerate-innovation-and-shorten-time-to-market,c4256239). --- title: "Smoltek is awarded an additional patent to improve capacitor density" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-awarded-an-additional-patent-to-improve-capacitor-density/11955/" date: 2025-10-16 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/pat-no-97-patent-letter.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek is awarded an additional patent to improve capacitor density The Mul­ti­lay­er Cap patent fam­i­ly details an inven­tion for a lay­ered ener­gy stor­age device, specif­i­cal­ly a capac­i­tor, built using a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) configuration. > With the Mul­ti­lay­er Cap patent fam­i­ly, we are intro­duc­ing an inno­v­a­tive mul­ti-lay­er struc­ture that can dou­ble or triple the capac­i­tance den­si­ty, which is a key per­for­mance indi­ca­tor of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor technology. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The patent, grant­ed in Tai­wan is the third grant­ed patent in this fam­i­ly, for the inno­va­tion that dis­clos­es a car­bon nanofiber (CNF) based mul­ti­lay­er MIM struc­ture in which elec­trodes and dielectrics are deposit­ed one after anoth­er. This is a tech­nique that has poten­tial to great­ly increase the capac­i­tance den­si­ty and hence is con­sid­ered impor­tant for Smoltek busi­ness and technology. The Mul­ti­lay­er Cap patent appli­ca­tion includes two inde­pen­dent claims: A device claim, that describes the stacked mul­ti­lay­er capac­i­tor struc­ture hav­ing alter­nat­ing con­duc­tor-insu­la­tor lay­ers. And a method claim, describ­ing the fab­ri­ca­tion of such device with con­for­mal coat­ing on the CNFs. ![Pat No 93 Illustration](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pat-no-93-illustration.webp) Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 97 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Interview with Dr. Arthur Lin of ITRI" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interview-with-dr-arthur-lin-of-itri/11381/" date: 2025-09-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/semicon-taiwan-2025-interview-02-1.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" --- # Interview with Dr. Arthur Lin of ITRI Dur­ing Semi­con Tai­wan 2025, one of the world’s most influ­en­tial semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy expos, Smoltek was invit­ed by our strate­gic part­ner ITRI (Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute, Tai­wan) to show­case our ground­break­ing capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. Our ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is cru­cial for the next gen­er­a­tion of AI and High-Per­for­mance Com­put­ing (HPC). In this video, you’ll get an exclu­sive look of our col­lab­o­ra­tion with ITRI and the future of the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. Watch as Dr. Qi Li, Project Man­ag­er at Smoltek Semi, inter­views Dr. Arthur Lin, Divi­sion Direc­tor of the Smart Sens­ing & Sys­tems Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter at ITRI. **Top­ics dis­cussed in the video include:** - The impor­tance of strate­gic part­ner­ships in dri­ving inno­va­tion with­in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. - How Smoltek’s ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy can meet the grow­ing demands of AI and HPC. - The future out­look for the Tai­wanese and glob­al semi­con­duc­tor markets. --- title: "Smoltek Showcases Ultra-Thin Capacitor Technology for Next-Generation AI and High-Performance Computing" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-showcases-ultra-thin-capacitor-technology-for-next-generation-ai-and-high-performance-computing/11341/" date: 2025-09-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/semicon-taiwan-2025-interview-02-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek Showcases Ultra-Thin Capacitor Technology for Next-Generation AI and High-Performance Computing - Smoltek Semi, show­cased our ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy CNF-MIM (Car­bon Nanofiber Met­al-Insu­la­tor-Met­al) at Semi­con Tai­wan 2025 (Sep­tem­ber 10–12) in the ITRI booth. - CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is intend­ed for pow­er sup­ply in AI chips, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) sys­tems and edge devices. - CNF-MIM com­bines high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, low ESL and ESR and very thin form fac­tor – enabling advanced inte­gra­tion near/​under proces­sors. These prop­er­ties are cru­cial for the next gen­er­a­tion of chips. - Unlike tra­di­tion­al deep trench capac­i­tors (DTC), Smoltek uses an addi­tive process where car­bon nanofibers grow direct­ly on the sub­strate. This allows struc­tures with high aspect ratios and large areas, and a dielec­tric that can be applied in an ALD step, which can reduce costs. **Com­ments about Smoltek’s CNF-MIM Technology** > **Dr. Arthur Lin (ITRI):** Empha­sizes that AI servers require high speed and low pow­er con­sump­tion, and that heat and ener­gy sav­ing are key. He believes that the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, with its high aspect ratio and large spe­cif­ic sur­face area, is a tech­ni­cal advantage. > **Mag­nus Ander­s­son, CEO of Smoltek:** Sees the choice to present the tech­nol­o­gy at Semi­con Tai­wan as a val­i­da­tion of the com­pa­ny’s strat­e­gy. He also says that the mar­ket for AI, HPC and edge com­put­ing requires sta­ble, ener­gy-effi­cient and minia­tur­ized pow­er solutions. * * * Watch the inter­view with Dr. Arthur Lin of ITRI: Read the offi­cial press release here: [Smoltek Show­cas­es Ultra-Thin Capac­i­tor Tech­nol­o­gy for Next-Gen­er­a­tion AI and High-Per­for­mance Com­put­ing at Semi­con Tai­wan](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-showcases-ultra-thin-capacitor-technology-for-next-generation-ai-and-high-performance-comput,c4235917). --- title: "Semicon Taiwan – CNF-MIM Capacitors for Next-Gen AI and High-Performance Computing" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/semicon-taiwan-cnf-mim-capacitors-for-next-gen-ai-and-high-performance-computing/11406/" date: 2025-09-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/smoltek-ai-society-1920x1080-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Semicon Taiwan – CNF-MIM Capacitors for Next-Gen AI and High-Performance Computing > We are pleased to get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present our tech­nol­o­gy at Semi­con Tai­wan togeth­er with ITRI. It is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to meet some of the world’s lead­ing play­ers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and show how Smoltek Semi can con­tribute to solu­tions that make it pos­si­ble to con­tin­ue the devel­op­ment of increas­ing­ly and ener­gy-effi­cient AI chips pow­er­ful AI chips. > > *Mag­nus Ander­s­son, CEO* Semi­con Tai­wan is one of the world’s lead­ing meet­ing places for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and brings togeth­er play­ers from the entire val­ue chain – from mate­r­i­al and com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers to the largest glob­al chip companies. Smoltek Semi sees Semi­con Tai­wan as a strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant plat­form to estab­lish con­tacts with poten­tial cus­tomers and part­ners in the semi­con­duc­tor and AI indus­try. In ITRIs booth (L0600 in TaiNEX 1) Smoltek Semi will be rep­re­sent­ed on site by Chin­Jung Kuo, Process Engi­neer based in Tai­wan, Dr. Qi Li, Project Manager. * * * Read the offi­cial press release here: [Smoltek Semi presents its capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy for next-gen­er­a­tion AI and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing sys­tems at Semi­con Tai­wan](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-presents-its-capacitor-technology-for-next-generation-ai-and-high-performance-computing,c4231852). --- title: "From Lab to Fab: Why ITRI Partnership is a game-changer for Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/from-lab-to-fab-why-itri-partnership-is-a-game-changer-for-smoltek/11011/" date: 2025-07-30 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/satirical-scientist-businessman-romance.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "ITRI" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/itri.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # From Lab to Fab: Why ITRI Partnership is a game-changer for Smoltek 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)](https://www.itri.org.tw/english/) 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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#more-than-an-agreement)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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-itri)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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-happens-now)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](https://www.smoltek.com/the-machine/6091/) 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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strategic-positioning-in-semiconductors-epicenter)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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#risk-mitigation-through-proven-expertise)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. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#securing-smolteks-place-in-semiconductors-elite)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. --- title: "Industrial Standard in Thermal and Voltage Stability in CNF-MIM Capacitor Technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/industrial-standard-in-thermal-and-voltage-stability-in-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology/9097/" date: 2025-06-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/fg-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Industrial Standard in Thermal and Voltage Stability in CNF-MIM Capacitor Technology > “This is a break­through in our CNF-MIM per­for­mance. The com­bi­na­tion of CNF elec­trodes with a ZrO₂/​Al₂O₃ stack, not only lever­ages the proven reli­a­bil­i­ty of DRAM-grade dielectrics but also deliv­ers excep­tion­al TCC and VCC char­ac­ter­is­tics that out­per­forms what’s cur­rent­ly offered by the ultra-thin MLCCs being used as land­side decou­pling capac­i­tors in high-end processors”. > > *Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek* **Key Per­for­mance Highlights:** - Ther­mal Sta­bil­i­ty (TCC): The test­ed capac­i­tors main­tained robust per­for­mance up to 125°C, exhibit­ing only \~2.5% change in capac­i­tance from room tem­per­a­ture (22°C). No signs of degra­da­tion were observed, under­scor­ing the dura­bil­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of the dielec­tric stack under extend­ed ther­mal stress. - Volt­age Sta­bil­i­ty (VCC): When test­ed across a bipo­lar volt­age range of ±4V, the devices only showed as lit­tle as \~3% change in capac­i­tance, fur­ther val­i­dat­ing the dielec­tric integri­ty. At a 2V oper­at­ing range — the tar­get rat­ing volt­age rep­re­sent­ing the land­side appli­ca­tion — the capac­i­tance shift was con­tained with­in \~1%, high­light­ing the suit­abil­i­ty of these devices for high-per­for­mance systems. **A Leap For­ward in Smoltek’s CNF-MIM Tech­nol­o­gy** The advanced dielec­tric stack, com­posed of zir­co­ni­um oxide (ZrO₂) and alu­minum oxide (Al₂O₃), that Smotek Semi are using in the pro­to­types is the same stack used in the charge stor­age capac­i­tor of most advanced DRAM technologies. * * * Read the offi­cial press release here: [*Smoltek Smoltek Achieves Indus­tri­al Stan­dard in Ther­mal and Volt­age Sta­bil­i­ty in CNF-MIM Capac­i­tor Tech­nol­o­gy*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-achieves-industrial-standard-in-thermal-and-voltage-stability-in-cnf-mim-capacitor-technolog,c4170147). --- title: "Smoltek and ITRI Goes for Small Scale Production of CNF-MIM Capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-and-itri-goes-for-small-scale-production-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/8954/" date: 2025-06-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-12-smoltek-at-itri-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek and ITRI Goes for Small Scale Production of CNF-MIM Capacitors The for­mal sign­ing process of the agree­ment, enabling low-vol­ume pro­duc­tion of Smoltek’s ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in days. As part of the col­lab­o­ra­tion, Smoltek will install and bring up its advanced CVD tool (car­bon nanofiber growth tool) at ITRI. This marks the begin­ning of the indus­tri­al­iza­tion of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy for ultra-thin capac­i­tors aimed at advanced proces­sor chips. > “The Tech­ni­cal Ser­vice Agree­ment allows us to accel­er­ate our roadmap and engage more close­ly with poten­tial cus­tomers who require ear­ly sam­ples of our high-per­for­mance, ultra-thin capacitors.”  > > *Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek* The tech­ni­cal ser­vice agree­ment ensures that Smoltek gains seam­less access to ITRI’s spe­cial­ized tech­ni­cal com­pe­tence and engi­neer­ing resources—an essen­tial step in prepar­ing for com­mer­cial deploy­ment. This arrange­ment allows the com­pa­ny to refine its process­es under indus­tri­al con­di­tions while lever­ag­ing ITRI’s semi­con­duc­tor R&D environment. > “Smoltek’s inno­v­a­tive CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is high­ly rel­e­vant to the semi­con­duc­tor industry’s dri­ve for greater minia­tur­iza­tion and per­for­mance. By com­bin­ing our advanced R&D infra­struc­ture and engi­neer­ing exper­tise with Smoltek’s unique nan­otech­nol­o­gy, we aim to accel­er­ate the path toward indus­tri­al adoption.”  > > *Dr. Arthur Lin, Divi­sion Direc­tor at ITRI’s Smart Sens­ing & Sys­tems Tech­nol­o­gy Center* Fur­ther­more, the instal­la­tion and inte­gra­tion of Smoltek’s cus­tom-designed CVD tool at ITRI’s facil­i­ties enables a com­plete and seam­less fab­ri­ca­tion process to be car­ried out in one loca­tion. This inte­grat­ed set­up is a crit­i­cal enabler for small-scale pro­duc­tion, as it reduces logis­tics com­plex­i­ty, short­ens devel­op­ment cycles, and ensures tighter process control. > “Hav­ing our advanced CVD tool on-site at ITRI gives us access to a com­plete val­ue chain—from mate­r­i­al growth to capac­i­tor integration—in a sin­gle loca­tion. This is a key mile­stone toward bring­ing our tech­nol­o­gy from lab to fab.” > > *Mag­nus Ander­s­son, CEO of Smoltek* Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed **CNF-MIM™ tech­nol­o­gy** enables the fab­ri­ca­tion of extreme­ly thin capac­i­tors with high capac­i­tance den­si­ty. These are ide­al­ly suit­ed for inte­gra­tion in the min­i­mal space beneath advanced proces­sor chips—an area where elec­tri­cal per­for­mance and form fac­tor are both crit­i­cal. This gives Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy a unique com­pet­i­tive advan­tage for next-gen­er­a­tion devices in mobile, AI, and high-per­for­mance com­put­ing markets. * * * Read the offi­cial press release here: [*Smoltek and ITRI Ini­ti­ate Tech­ni­cal Ser­vice Agree­ment for small scale pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM Capac­i­tors*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-and-itri-initiate-technical-service-agreement-for-small-scale-production-of-cnf-mim-capacito,c4166188). --- title: "Smoltek bryter teknisk barriär och söker pengar" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-bryter-teknisk-barriar-och-soker-pengar/8841/" date: 2025-06-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/elektronik-tidnikngen-smoltek-bryter-teknisk-barriar-och-soker-pengar.webp" categories: - name: "Media mentions" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/media-mentions.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" --- # Smoltek bryter teknisk barriär och söker pengar Göte­borg-based nan­otech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Smoltek has achieved a sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal mile­stone by man­u­fac­tur­ing a CNF-MIM capac­i­tor with a capac­i­tance of 1 micro­farad per square mil­lime­ter. This break­through was accom­plished through col­lab­o­ra­tion between sub­sidiary Smoltek Semi and Tai­wanese part­ner Skytech, uti­liz­ing advanced Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) equipment. The devel­op­ment work, ini­ti­at­ed ear­li­er this year, focused on opti­miz­ing ALD films deposit­ed on Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary CNF-MIM test capac­i­tor struc­tures. The dielec­tric stack incor­po­rates zir­co­ni­um oxide and alu­minum oxide, achiev­ing an active lay­er thick­ness of 6 μm and a vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty exceed­ing 160 nF/mm²-μm—among the high­est report­ed for ultra-thin capac­i­tors in the industry. Con­cur­rent with this tech­ni­cal achieve­ment, Smoltek announced a rights issue tar­get­ing 26–32 mil­lion SEK, with a sub­scrip­tion peri­od from June 9–24, 2025. The fund­ing will sup­port ongo­ing dia­logues with indus­tri­al part­ners for tech­nol­o­gy com­mer­cial­iza­tion, main­tain R&D momen­tum across sub­sidiaries, and pro­vide work­ing capital. Addi­tion­al­ly, Smoltek Hydro­gen has advanced its PTE (Porous Trans­port Elec­trode) tech­nol­o­gy, designed to enhance cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty while sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing pre­cious met­al usage, includ­ing irid­i­um and plat­inum, in elec­trolyz­er cells. * * * *Read the full arti­cle (in Swedish): [Smoltek bry­ter teknisk bar­ri­ar och efterl­yser pengar](https://etn.se/index.php/nyheter/72223-smoltek-bryter-teknisk-barriar-och-efterlyser-pengar.html)* --- title: "Smoltek breaks the 1 µF/​mm² barrier with ultra-thin profile" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-breaks-the-1-%c2%b5f-mm%c2%b2-barrier-with-ultra-thin-profile/8751/" date: 2025-06-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/happy-scientist-crossing-finish-line.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek breaks the 1 µF/​mm² barrier with ultra-thin profile Smoltek Semi has achieved 1 µF (one micro­farad) of capac­i­tance on an area mea­sur­ing just one square mil­lime­ter. This rep­re­sents a dra­mat­ic leap from nano­farad to micro­farad ter­ri­to­ry – a thresh­old that seemed almost myth­i­cal just years ago for ultra-thin inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors. While we’re not the first to cross this cov­et­ed line – a few oth­er com­pa­nies have achieved this pres­ti­gious mile­stone in the spe­cial­ized field of ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies – our accom­plish­ment sets us apart in this exclu­sive club. We reached 1 µF/​mm² while keep­ing our capac­i­tor incred­i­bly thin, unlock­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties that oth­ers sim­ply can­not match. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-proximity-imperative)The proximity imperative Today’s smart­phones pack more com­put­ing pow­er than room-sized super­com­put­ers from decades past. High-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) cen­ters and AI accel­er­a­tors push pro­cess­ing speeds to extra­or­di­nary lim­its. But this per­for­mance comes with a fun­da­men­tal chal­lenge: as chips become faster, they become more demand­ing about their pow­er supply. Think of tran­sis­tors as incred­i­bly fast switch­es, flip­ping bil­lions of times per sec­ond between ones and zeros. Each flip demands instant ener­gy, cre­at­ing pow­er fluc­tu­a­tions that would crip­ple per­for­mance with­out inter­ven­tion. Capac­i­tors serve as light­ning-fast ener­gy reser­voirs, absorb­ing excess pow­er and releas­ing stored ener­gy pre­cise­ly when needed. The clos­er these capac­i­tors sit to the chip, the bet­ter they per­form. Dis­tance means delay, and delay means degrad­ed per­for­mance. The ulti­mate prox­im­i­ty lies direct­ly under the chip, nes­tled between the sol­der balls that con­nect the proces­sor to the cir­cuit board. But this prime real estate comes with a mer­ci­less con­straint: height. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-ultra-thin-breakthrough)The ultra-thin breakthrough Here’s where most solu­tions hit their lim­i­ta­tion wall. Achiev­ing 1 µF/​mm² while fit­ting under sol­der balls demands an ultra-thin pro­file. The sol­der balls them­selves define the height lim­it – typ­i­cal­ly allow­ing only min­i­mal clear­ance for inte­grat­ed components. Smoltek has cracked this code with a capac­i­tor fea­tur­ing an active lay­er of just 6 µm. To put this in per­spec­tive, a human hair mea­sures about 70 µm in diam­e­ter. Smoltek’s active capac­i­tor lay­er could fit more than ten times under the width of a sin­gle hair. This isn’t just thin – it’s what engi­neers call ”tru­ly ultra-thin” for the crit­i­cal per­for­mance area. This achieve­ment trans­forms Smoltek from anoth­er mem­ber of the 1 µF/​mm² club into the only com­pa­ny capa­ble of deliv­er­ing that per­for­mance where it mat­ters most: in the space-con­strained under-chip envi­ron­ment where every microm­e­ter counts. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#building-forests-not-digging-trenches)Building forests, not digging trenches Under­stand­ing Smoltek’s break­through requires grasp­ing how CNF-MIM capac­i­tors work. [Deep Trench Capac­i­tors (DTC) carve deep trench­es](https://www.smoltek.com/deep-trench-capacitors-dtc-is-a-dead-end-cnf-mim-is-the-way-forward/8078/) – like minia­ture wells – in a sil­i­con sub­strate. In con­trast, CNF-MIM man­u­fac­tur­ing takes a fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent approach by grow­ing forests of car­bon nanofibers on a sub­strate. Pic­ture micro­scop­ic trees, each about 10,000 times thin­ner than human hair, stand­ing ver­ti­cal­ly in dense formation. The mag­ic hap­pens in the lay­er­ing process. Each car­bon nanofiber gets coat­ed with met­al, applied atom by atom using Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD). Over this met­al lay­er, Smoltek applies [our pro­pri­etary ZrO₂–Al₂O₃ dielec­tric stack](https://www.smoltek.com/why-increased-capacitance-density-matter/7906/) – again, atom by atom with atom­ic pre­ci­sion. Final­ly, anoth­er met­al lay­er com­pletes the struc­ture, cre­at­ing a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capac­i­tor at nanoscale. This atom-by-atom con­struc­tion allows Smoltek to uti­lize 100% of the sur­face area pro­vid­ed by the car­bon nanofibers. No oth­er depo­si­tion method achieves this com­plete cov­er­age, mak­ing ALD essen­tial for max­i­miz­ing capac­i­tance density. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#skytech-partnership-enables-production-scale)SkyTech partnership enables production scale The pre­ci­sion ALD process­es that make CNF-MIM pos­si­ble require spe­cial­ized equip­ment at indus­tri­al scale. Smoltek has part­nered with SkyTech, a Tai­wanese leader in ALD equip­ment for the semi­con­duc­tor industry. The part­ner­ship gives Smoltek access to the same indus­tri­al-scale depo­si­tion tech­nol­o­gy used through­out semi­con­duc­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing. SkyTech’s exper­tise ensures our process­es main­tain their per­for­mance char­ac­ter­is­tics as they tran­si­tion from lab­o­ra­to­ry to mass production. Most impor­tant­ly, the col­lab­o­ra­tion proves real-world scal­a­bil­i­ty. Once the process­es are ful­ly devel­oped, scal­ing up for mass pro­duc­tion becomes straight­for­ward. This isn’t lab­o­ra­to­ry inno­va­tion that might work some­day – it’s pro­duc­tion-ready tech­nol­o­gy with a clear path to market. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-cost-equation-advantage)The cost equation advantage Beyond supe­ri­or per­for­mance, CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers com­pelling eco­nom­ics. While com­pet­ing tech­nolo­gies, such as DTC, demand mul­ti­ple expen­sive ALD process­es to achieve sim­i­lar results, Smoltek’s approach requires sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er lay­ers – direct­ly trans­lat­ing to low­er pro­duc­tion costs. ALD rep­re­sents one of the most expen­sive process­es in semi­con­duc­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing. Since CNF tech­nol­o­gy can achieve the same capac­i­tance with few­er ALD lay­ers com­pared to deep trench alter­na­tives, the cost advan­tage com­pounds with each per­for­mance incre­ment. This isn’t just about bet­ter tech­nol­o­gy – it’s about bet­ter tech­nol­o­gy that costs less to produce. The eco­nom­ic impli­ca­tions are pro­found: as per­for­mance require­ments increase, tra­di­tion­al approach­es see expo­nen­tial cost growth, while CNF-MIM main­tains cost effi­cien­cy through its supe­ri­or three-dimen­sion­al architecture. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#from-laboratory-to-production-reality)From laboratory to production reality These results aren’t lab­o­ra­to­ry curiosi­ties achieved under per­fect con­di­tions. The major­i­ty of test­ed devices showed con­sis­tent capac­i­tance den­si­ty with reli­able repro­ducibil­i­ty – the hall­mark of mature tech­nol­o­gy ready for commercialization. While cur­rent data comes from sim­pli­fied CNF-MIM devices in lab­o­ra­to­ry set­tings, the same dielec­tric stack pro­duces pro­to­types and prod­ucts achiev­ing iden­ti­cal per­for­mance. The 18-month devel­op­ment process has cre­at­ed pro­duc­tion-ready process­es that trans­late direct­ly to com­mer­cial manufacturing. Devel­op­ment focus has now shift­ed to improv­ing insu­la­tion resis­tance – essen­tial for min­i­miz­ing leak­age cur­rent and ensur­ing long-term reli­a­bil­i­ty in com­mer­cial applications. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#industry-validation)Industry validation The sig­nif­i­cance of Smoltek’s achieve­ment extends beyond tech­ni­cal met­rics. In [a recent inter­view](https://www.smoltek.com/yageo-highlights-unique-advantages-of-smolteks-technology/8008/), lead­ing capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er Yageo acknowl­edged the ground­break­ing capa­bil­i­ties of CNF-MIM technology. This indus­try val­i­da­tion con­firms what the tech­ni­cal data sug­gests: Smoltek has devel­oped some­thing gen­uine­ly unique in the capac­i­tor indus­try. Expert recog­ni­tion from a major indus­try play­er under­scores the com­mer­cial poten­tial of a tech­nol­o­gy that solves prob­lems oth­ers can­not even address. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-investment-equation)The investment equation Every smart­phone, AI accel­er­a­tor, and HPC proces­sor requires capac­i­tors for pow­er sta­bi­liza­tion. Physics dic­tates that clos­er place­ment means bet­ter per­for­mance, and under-chip real estate offers the ulti­mate prox­im­i­ty. Yet until now, no tech­nol­o­gy could deliv­er mean­ing­ful capac­i­tance in this space while meet­ing height constraints. Smoltek has solved this equa­tion. We’ve joined the exclu­sive 1 µF/​mm² club while stand­ing alone in our abil­i­ty to achieve this per­for­mance with ultra-thin pro­files. As elec­tron­ics con­tin­ue their relent­less march toward high­er per­for­mance in small­er pack­ages, this unique capa­bil­i­ty trans­forms from tech­ni­cal curios­i­ty to com­mer­cial necessity. The path from lab­o­ra­to­ry break­through to mar­ket dom­i­nance runs through prob­lems that only one com­pa­ny can solve. For investors seek­ing expo­sure to tech­nolo­gies that address seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble con­straints, Smoltek offers capa­bil­i­ties that lit­er­al­ly don’t exist any­where else. --- title: "Smoltek’s Fuel Cell Breakthrough Slashes Iridium Use, Advancing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Tech" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-fuel-cell-breakthrough-slashes-iridium-use-advancing-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tech/8843/" date: 2025-06-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/hydrogen-fuel-news-smolteks-fuel-cell-breakthrough-slashes-iiridium-use-advancing-hydrogen-fuel-cell-ech.webp" categories: - name: "Media mentions" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/media-mentions.md" tags: - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" --- # Smoltek’s Fuel Cell Breakthrough Slashes Iridium Use, Advancing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Tech Smoltek Hydro­gen, the hydro­gen divi­sion of Swe­den’s Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, has achieved a sig­nif­i­cant break­through in fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy. The com­pa­ny suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed pro­to­type tests on its pro­pri­etary nanos­truc­tured fuel cell elec­trodes in part­ner­ship with a lead­ing glob­al auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­er. The tests demon­strat­ed that these advanced PEM hydro­gen fuel cells deliv­er sol­id per­for­mance and excep­tion­al durability. The rev­o­lu­tion­ary aspect of this devel­op­ment lies in Smoltek’s abil­i­ty to reduce irid­i­um usage by up to 95%. This achieve­ment address­es a crit­i­cal indus­try chal­lenge, as irid­i­um is rare, expen­sive, and dif­fi­cult to source—creating major obsta­cles for fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy scal­ing. By uti­liz­ing smart con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures, Smoltek main­tains high per­for­mance lev­els while dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing mate­r­i­al costs and sup­ply chain constraints. Fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful ini­tial test­ing, Smoltek plans to expand pro­to­typ­ing and pur­sue com­mer­cial pilot projects with auto­mo­tive part­ners. The Swe­den-based com­pa­ny aims to tran­si­tion from tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tor to com­mer­cial sup­pli­er between 2025–2028, tar­get­ing heavy-duty trans­port appli­ca­tions. This break­through could sig­nif­i­cant­ly advance hydro­gen mobil­i­ty acces­si­bil­i­ty and afford­abil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in freight trans­port, con­tribut­ing to indus­tri­al decar­boniza­tion and reduc­ing emis­sions from heavy-duty vehicles. * * * *Read the full arti­cle: [Smoltek’s Fuel Cell Break­through Slash­es Irid­i­um Use, Advanc­ing Hydro­gen Fuel Cell Tech](https://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/smolteks-fuel-cell-breakthrough-slashes-iridium-use-advancing-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tech/8571247/)* --- title: "Webinar: Future direction" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/webinar-future-direction/8768/" date: 2025-06-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/magnus-andersson-2000x1125-02.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" - name: "webinar" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/webinar.md" --- # Webinar: Future direction Smoltek held a webi­nar where CEO Mag­nus Ander­s­son and Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen and CTO Farzan Gha­vani­ni talked about the future direc­tion of the company. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen completes successful fuel cell electrode test with automotive manufacturer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-completes-successful-fuel-cell-electrode-test-with-automotive-manufacturer/8692/" date: 2025-06-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ellinor-2024-06-webb.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "Heraeus" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus.md" - name: "Heraeus Precious Metals" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus-precious-metals.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen completes successful fuel cell electrode test with automotive manufacturer The tests are a result of the pro­to­type order from Novem­ber 2024, and the cus­tomer has expressed sat­is­fac­tion with the test results. Dis­cus­sions are ongo­ing regard­ing addi­tion­al pro­to­types as the next step in the collaboration. The recent­ly con­clud­ed test series involved cus­tomized fuel cell elec­trode pro­to­types eval­u­at­ed in small-scale fuel cell setups. The focus was on assess­ing both per­for­mance and dura­bil­i­ty of Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary nanos­truc­ture electrodes. > “We are very pleased that the results meet the customer’s expec­ta­tions. It con­firms the rel­e­vance of our tech­nol­o­gy for fuel cell appli­ca­tions and strength­ens our belief in its com­mer­cial potential,”  > > says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen. Smoltek Hydro­gen has sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al for con­tin­ued test­ing in a larg­er for­mat and is cur­rent­ly in dis­cus­sions with the cus­tomer on how a poten­tial next phase could be struc­tured. A deci­sion is expect­ed with­in the com­ing months. > “While no for­mal deci­sion yet has been made, we are opti­mistic about con­tin­u­ing the col­lab­o­ra­tion to scale up for more exten­sive pro­to­type orders,”  > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg adds. Read the offi­cial press release: *[Smoltek Hydro­gen com­pletes suc­cess­ful fuel cell elec­trode test with lead­ing auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­er](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-completes-successful-fuel-cell-electrode-test-with-leading-automotive-manufacturer,c4163493).* --- title: "Strategic update for Smoltek Hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/strategic-update-for-smoltek-hydrogen/8690/" date: 2025-06-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-hydrogen-strategic-update-2025.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Strategic update for Smoltek Hydrogen Smoltek Hydro­gen’s porous trans­port elec­trode tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty of an elec­trolyz­er cell, while reduc­ing irid­i­um con­sump­tion by up to 95% – with­out com­pro­mis­ing per­for­mance. This tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion is con­sid­ered a break­through with great sig­nif­i­cance for the pro­duc­tion of green hydro­gen and oth­er sus­tain­able ener­gy applications. Smoltek Hydro­gen’s PTE tech­nol­o­gy has been rec­og­nized this spring by enabling hydro­gen pro­duc­tion with only 0.1 mg of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter – while main­tain­ing per­for­mance in the elec­trolyz­er cell. The com­pa­ny has also ini­ti­at­ed col­lab­o­ra­tions to indus­tri­al­ize the tech­nol­o­gy togeth­er with Impact Coat­ings (man­u­fac­tur­ing), as well as with Her­aeus to opti­mize irid­i­um mix­tures with the aim of fur­ther increas­ing the amount of hydro­gen pro­duced per gram of iridium. [*Read the full strate­gic update here*](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-hydrogen-strategic-update-2025-final-sources.pdf) --- title: "Major technological milestone in CNF-MIM capacitor development" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/major-technological-milestone-in-cnf-mim-capacitor-development/8688/" date: 2025-06-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-12-skytech-visit-2.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Major technological milestone in CNF-MIM capacitor development Smoltek Semi has togeth­er with SkyTech, a Tai­wanese leader in Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) equip­ment for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, suc­cess­ful­ly engi­neered an advanced dielec­tric stack com­posed of zir­co­ni­um oxide (ZrO₂) and alu­mini­um oxide (Al₂O₃) that has result­ed in a capac­i­tance den­si­ty in excess of 1 µF/​mm². The joint devel­op­ment effort, which began at the start of the year, focused on the opti­miza­tion and eval­u­a­tion of ALD films deposit­ed by SkyTech on Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary CNF-MIM (Car­bon Nanofiber–Metal-Insulator-Metal) test capac­i­tor struc­tures. The result is a capac­i­tance den­si­ty in excess of 1 µF/​mm² using an active lay­er thick­ness of only 6 µm—corresponding to a vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty exceed­ing 160 nF/m­m²-µm, which is among the high­est report­ed vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty for ultra-thin capac­i­tors in the industry. > “Break­ing the 1 µF/​mm² bar­ri­er is a major mile­stone for us,” says Dr. Gha­vani­ni, CTO of Smoltek. “Our long-term invest­ment in ALD process devel­op­ment is clear­ly bear­ing fruit, and SkyTech’s advanced ALD tech­nol­o­gy has been instru­men­tal in reach­ing this record-break­ing performance.” Smotek Semi has now set its focus is to tran­si­tion this break­through from the lab to prod­uct-lev­el pro­to­types, with an empha­sis on improv­ing yield and improv­ing insu­la­tion resistance. > “We are excit­ed to sup­port Smoltek in push­ing the bound­aries of capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy,” says George Yi, CEO of SkyTech. “Our col­lab­o­ra­tion is a great exam­ple of how com­bin­ing mate­ri­als inno­va­tion with advanced ALD process con­trol can unlock entire­ly new per­for­mance lev­els. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our work togeth­er as Smoltek moves towards prod­uct integration.” * * * Read the offi­cial press release here: [*Smoltek Sur­pass­es 1 Micro­farad per Square Mil­lime­ter Capac­i­tance Mile­stone – Prov­ing Com­mer­cial Readiness*](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-surpasses-1-microfarad-per-square-millimeter-capacitance-milestone---proving-commercial-read,c4163125) --- title: "Strategic update for Smoltek Semi" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/strategic-update-for-smoltek-semi/8668/" date: 2025-06-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-semi-strategic-update-2025.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Strategic update for Smoltek Semi Smoltek Semi’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy offers up to 50 per­cent high­er capac­i­tance den­si­ty com­pared to exist­ing solu­tions. The tech­nol­o­gy is scal­able, cost-effec­tive and com­pat­i­ble with mul­ti­ple sub­strate types – includ­ing sil­i­con, glass and alu­minum – and is being devel­oped in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with lead­ing play­ers in the semi­con­duc­tor ecosys­tem, includ­ing ITRI and Tong Hsing in Taiwan.  Dur­ing the peri­od 2025–2026, Smoltek Semi plans to car­ry out sev­er­al impor­tant activ­i­ties, includ­ing tech­ni­cal val­i­da­tion of the Gen-One tech­nol­o­gy gen­er­a­tion, cus­tomer eval­u­a­tions, and ini­tial dis­cus­sions regard­ing future licens­ing agree­ments with indus­tri­al partners. [*Read the full strate­gic update here*](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/smoltek-semi-strategic-update-2025-final.pdf) --- title: "Smoltek utvecklar grön vätgas-process ”En framtid vi vill leva i”" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-tar-taten-i-kampen-for-gront-stal-genom-att-anvanda-gron-vatgas-framstalld-med-fornybar-el/8845/" date: 2025-06-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/it-hallbarhet-smoltek-utvecklar-gron-vatgas-process-en-framtid-vi-vill-leva-i.webp" categories: - name: "Media mentions" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/media-mentions.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" --- # Smoltek utvecklar grön vätgas-process ”En framtid vi vill leva i” Smoltek is lead­ing the devel­op­ment of green hydro­gen process­es to enable “green steel” pro­duc­tion, address­ing the steel indus­try’s sig­nif­i­cant envi­ron­men­tal impact—accounting for approx­i­mate­ly 8% of glob­al ener­gy-relat­ed CO2 emis­sions accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency. The com­pa­ny is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy through a WISE-fund­ed research project to devel­op break­through process technology. In an inter­view, Fabi­an Wenger, Head of Research and Devel­op­ment at Smoltek Hydro­gen, explains how their inno­va­tions focus on green electrolysis—splitting water into hydro­gen and oxy­gen using renew­able elec­tric­i­ty from solar or wind sources. The key chal­lenge involves cat­a­lysts that “kick­start” the reac­tion, tra­di­tion­al­ly using expen­sive and rare met­als like irid­i­um diox­ide and platinum. Smoltek is devel­op­ing smart met­al com­bi­na­tions that can per­form equal­ly well at low­er costs with improved dura­bil­i­ty, address­ing the wear and expense issues of pre­cious met­als. This advance­ment is cru­cial for scal­ing green ener­gy solu­tions and enabling sus­tain­able steel production. The next phase involves build­ing a strong val­ue chain between indus­try and research to trans­form research results into con­crete growth with­in elec­trol­y­sis tech­nol­o­gy and green indus­tri­al tran­si­tion, sup­port­ing a future where mate­ri­als are pro­duced using renew­able ener­gy and sus­tain­able mate­r­i­al flows.  * * * *Read the full arti­cle (in Swedish): [Smoltek utveck­lar grön vät­gas-process ”En framtid vi vill leva i”](https://it-hallbarhet.se/ssmoltek-utvecklar-gron-vatgas-process/)* --- title: "Smoltek has been granted a new patent within hydrogen technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-granted-a-new-patent-within-hydrogen-technology-2/8484/" date: 2025-05-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/xin-wen-smoltek-hydrogen.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek has been granted a new patent within hydrogen technology This is the sev­enth grant­ed patent pro­tect­ing our inno­va­tions in hydro­gen solu­tions and it brings our IP port­fo­lio to a total of 96 grant­ed patents. This spe­cif­ic inno­va­tion pro­tects an elec­trolyz­er anode that com­bines nanos­truc­tures, such as car­bon nanofibers, with a com­pre­hen­sive cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion in the form of plat­inum. The plat­inum coat­ing is designed to fol­low the con­tours of the nanos­truc­tures and there­by uti­lize the sur­face area to the max­i­mum. Parts of the sur­face are also cov­ered with irid­i­um oxide par­ti­cles that form a coher­ent cat­alyt­ic lay­er, which con­tributes to both cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty and increased cor­ro­sion protection. > **This spe­cif­ic inno­va­tion pro­tects an elec­trolyz­er anode that com­bines nanos­truc­tures, such as car­bon nanofibers, with a com­pre­hen­sive cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion in the form of plat­inum. The plat­inum coat­ing is designed to fol­low the con­tours of the nanos­truc­tures and there­by uti­lize the sur­face area to the max­i­mum. Parts of the sur­face are also cov­ered with irid­i­um oxide par­ti­cles that form a coher­ent cat­alyt­ic lay­er, which con­tributes to both cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty and increased cor­ro­sion protection.** > > *Xin Wen, Senior Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Sci­en­tist at Smoltek Hydrogen* The patent strength­ens Smoltek’s posi­tion as a tech­nol­o­gy leader in next-gen­er­a­tion hydro­gen tech­nol­o­gy – where effi­cient use of irid­i­um is cru­cial for sus­tain­able and scal­able hydro­gen production. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 96 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Electrode Conformal Coating" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/electrode-conformal-coating/8473/" date: 2025-05-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/smoltek-patents-website-images.webp" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Electrode Conformal Coating The Inno­va­tion: an elec­trode for water elec­trolyz­ers com­pris­ing an elec­tro­cat­a­lyst lay­er, which in turn com­pris­es a plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures on a PTL (porous trans­port lay­er). The elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures are coat­ed with a con­for­mal pro­tec­tive lay­er and a cat­a­lyst lay­er arranged on top of the that. This cat­a­lyst lay­er is in turn con­for­mal­ly coat­ed with nanopar­ti­cles and serve all togeth­er as a cat­a­lyst sup­port, enabling a more effi­cient use of cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als pro­vid­ing both high cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty and addi­tion­al cor­ro­sion protection. [Link to patent/​paten file](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=yShkGFyBHYh7eM42P9NdVA&p2=YPLVOyNm1q4&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=1) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Swe­den | [SE 547 112 C2](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=yShkGFyBHYh7eM42P9NdVA&p2=YPLVOyNm1q4&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=1) | --- title: "Oskar Säfström elected new Chairman of the Board at Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/oskar-safstrom-elected-new-chairman-of-the-board-at-smoltek/8494/" date: 2025-05-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/snh-board-2025-05-2000x1125-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Oskar Säfström elected new Chairman of the Board at Smoltek > *I am incred­i­bly hap­py and hon­ored to have been elect­ed Chair­man of the Board of Direc­tors of Smoltek! I look for­ward to con­tribut­ing my expe­ri­ence to sup­port Smoltek’s devel­op­ment in licens­ing deals and strate­gic ini­tia­tives. Now it is time to fire up the engines and launch this inno­va­tion rock­et. Togeth­er with the team, I look for­ward to dri­ving inno­va­tion and tak­ing the com­pa­ny to new heights.*  > > Oskar Säf­ström, Chair­man of the Board at Smoltek. We also extend our warm thanks to Per Zell­man, who has declined re-elec­tion due to per­son­al rea­sons. He leaves a last­ing impres­sion after three years on the board, includ­ing two as Chairman. *“My time on the Board has been inten­sive and reward­ing. I have great con­fi­dence in the cur­rent team and wish Smoltek con­tin­ued suc­cess.”, says Per Zellman.* Lena Olv­ing, Chair of the Nom­i­na­tion Com­mit­tee, com­ments: *“Per Zell­man has laid a sol­id foun­da­tion. We pro­posed Oskar Säf­ström due to his strong strate­gic and finan­cial back­ground, and he brings rel­e­vant com­pe­tence and expe­ri­ence for Smoltek´s next phase.”* After the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing, the new board mem­bers and par­tic­i­pat­ing share­hold­ers were giv­en a tour of Smoltek’s two in-house lab­o­ra­to­ries, [H2LAB](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-inaugurates-in-house-hydrogen-laboratory/5610/ "Inauguration of our in-house hydrogen laboratory") and SmolLAB. In H2LAB, senior nan­otech­nol­o­gy sci­en­tist Xin Wen, gave a pre­sen­ta­tion of the tech­nol­o­gy for the com­pa­ny’s porous trans­port elec­trodes (PTE), and in Smol­LAB, project man­ag­er Anders Lund­gren pre­sent­ed the CNF-MIM capac­i­tor technology. * * * ![2024 09 11 Xin H2lab 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-09-11-xin-h2lab-01-1200x675.webp) Dr. Xin Wen, Senior Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Sci­en­tist at Smoltek Hydrogen ![Anders L + Wirebonded Stv Pp Caps](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/anders-l-wirebonded-stv-pp-caps-1200x675.webp) Anders Lund­gren, Project Man­ag­er at Smoltek Semi **Head image:** *The new com­po­si­tion of the Smoltek Board. From left to right; Gus­tav Bris­mark, Johan Rask, Emma Rön­n­mark, Oskar Säf­ström (Chair­man) and David Gramnaes.* --- title: "Smoltek has received a new patent for the CNF-MIM technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-received-a-new-patent-for-the-cnf-mim-technology/8445/" date: 2025-04-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/farzan-interview-2024-04.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has received a new patent for the CNF-MIM technology Smoltek’s new­ly approved patent in Korea is the sev­enth for the Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly. Dis­crete CNF-MIM is an inno­va­tion that exploits the extra­or­di­nary sur­face-to-vol­ume ratio enabled by our car­bon nanofiber technology. “This Kore­an patent fur­ther strength­ens our posi­tion in advanced capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy as the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try moves toward ultra-thin capac­i­tors for tighter inte­gra­tion with elec­tron­ic com­po­nents with large pow­er con­sump­tion foot­print.”, says Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. > *This Kore­an patent fur­ther strength­ens our posi­tion in advanced capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy as the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try moves toward ultra-thin capac­i­tors for tighter inte­gra­tion with elec­tron­ic com­po­nents with large pow­er con­sump­tion foot­print.* > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The Dis­crete CNF-MIM patents dis­close an ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that could achieve extreme­ly high capac­i­tance den­si­ties thanks to unpar­al­leled sur­face den­si­ty pro­vid­ed by car­bon nanofibers. Such a tech­nol­o­gy enables advanced inte­gra­tion method­olo­gies bring­ing the capac­i­tors in the pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work as close as pos­si­ble to the proces­sors, which is cru­cial in areas like Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI), Inter­net of Things (IoT), wear­able devices, and high-per­for­mance computing. ![Discrete CNF-MIM patent US20220013305a1](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/us20220013305a1.webp) Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 95 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "How Disruptive Innovation Accelerates Industrial Adoption" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/how-disruptive-innovation-accelerates-industrial-adoption/8371/" date: 2025-04-22 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/desert-walk-vs-smoltek.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "pte" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pte.md" --- # How Disruptive Innovation Accelerates Industrial Adoption When Clay­ton Chris­tensen intro­duced the con­cept of [dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion](https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/disruptive-innovation/) in 1995, he described how small­er com­pa­nies with few­er resources could suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenge estab­lished indus­try lead­ers. Today, this con­cept has evolved far beyond a the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work – it now shapes cor­po­rate strat­e­gy across indus­tries, espe­cial­ly when decid­ing how to respond to poten­tial­ly game-chang­ing tech­nolo­gies like Smoltek Hydro­gen’s *Porous Trans­port Elec­trode* (*PTE*). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#understanding-disruptive-innovation-in-todays-market)Understanding disruptive innovation in today’s market The busi­ness land­scape has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly since Chris­tensen devel­oped his the­o­ry 30 years ago. Back then, large indus­tri­al enter­pris­es like Vol­vo, SKF, Eric­s­son, and Intel set the pace for prod­uct devel­op­ment with method­i­cal, often mul­ti-year cycles. Today, com­pa­nies like Apple, NVIDIA, and even hydro­gen spe­cial­ists like Pow­er­Cell demon­strate how faster, more agile approach­es to inno­va­tion can cap­ture mar­kets in a frac­tion of the time. This accel­er­a­tion has been dri­ven part­ly by com­pet­i­tive pres­sure and part­ly by indus­tri­al enter­pris­es adapt­ing their strate­gies to iden­ti­fy, eval­u­ate, and adopt break­through tech­nolo­gies more rapid­ly. Many have devel­oped spe­cial­ized units ded­i­cat­ed to track­ing emerg­ing inno­va­tions and rec­om­mend­ing swift action when they encounter tru­ly dis­rup­tive potential. Dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion isn’t just about build­ing a bet­ter prod­uct. It’s about fun­da­men­tal­ly chang­ing the eco­nom­ics of a mar­ket in a way that cre­ates new oppor­tu­ni­ties or elim­i­nates long-stand­ing con­straints. This dis­tinc­tion is cru­cial for under­stand­ing why some tech­nolo­gies trig­ger rapid adop­tion while oth­ers progress through tra­di­tion­al devel­op­ment timelines. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-smolteks-pte-technology-qualifies-as-truly-disruptive)Why Smoltek’s PTE technology qualifies as truly disruptive Smoltek Hydrogen’s Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE) tech­nol­o­gy rep­re­sents a text­book case of dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion, fun­da­men­tal­ly chang­ing the eco­nom­ics and pos­si­bil­i­ties of hydro­gen production. The chal­lenge fac­ing the hydro­gen indus­try is not mere­ly tech­ni­cal but struc­tur­al: PEM elec­trolyz­ers (which con­vert renew­able elec­tric­i­ty into hydro­gen) require irid­i­um as a cat­a­lyst. This ultra-rare met­al is 2–3 times more expen­sive than gold, with glob­al pro­duc­tion lim­it­ed to just 7–8 tons annu­al­ly, most­ly as a byprod­uct from mines in South Africa and Zimbabwe. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-iridium-bottleneck)The iridium bottleneck At cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy lev­els requir­ing 2 mg of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter, the lim­it­ed glob­al sup­ply avail­able after account­ing for oth­er indus­tri­al needs (like elec­tron­ics and chem­i­cal cat­a­lysts) can sup­port only 4–5 gigawatts of PEM elec­trolyz­er capac­i­ty annu­al­ly. This is less than 1% of the 560 GW the IEA’s Net Zero sce­nario requires by 2030 to meet cli­mate goals. This severe sup­ply bot­tle­neck cre­ates a sig­nif­i­cant cost prob­lem: cat­a­lyst costs alone account for approx­i­mate­ly $60 mil­lion per gigawatt of pro­duc­tion capacity. Smoltek’s break­through tack­les this prob­lem at its root. Instead of coat­ing the mem­brane with ink con­tain­ing irid­i­um of which most nev­er comes into con­tact with the water, we grow car­bon nanofibers direct­ly onto the porous trans­port lay­ers, through which water flows, cre­at­ing a struc­ture with 30 times more sur­face area. We then pre­cise­ly place irid­i­um atoms on this expand­ed sur­face, ensur­ing that near­ly every atom par­tic­i­pates in the reac­tion – achiev­ing full per­for­mance at just 0.1 mg/​cm², a 95% reduc­tion that solves both cost and sup­ply constraints. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#transforming-the-economics-of-hydrogen-production)Transforming the economics of hydrogen production The impact is trans­for­ma­tive in two ways: 1. It slash­es cat­a­lyst costs from $60 mil­lion to just $3 mil­lion per gigawatt – a $57 mil­lion sav­ing that makes clean hydro­gen eco­nom­i­cal­ly com­pet­i­tive with fos­sil-derived hydrogen. 2. It removes the sup­ply bot­tle­neck that would oth­er­wise pre­vent indus­try scal­ing, allow­ing the same lim­it­ed glob­al irid­i­um sup­ply to sup­port 20 times more elec­trolyz­er capacity. What makes this inno­va­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­rup­tive is that despite decades of research by major indus­tri­al play­ers, no one has man­aged to reduce irid­i­um load­ing below 0.5 mg/​cm² while main­tain­ing per­for­mance in real-world appli­ca­tions – these load­ings remain five times high­er than Smoltek’s break­through 0.1 mg/​cm², which works beyond lab­o­ra­to­ry conditions. When con­front­ed with poten­tial­ly dis­rup­tive tech­nolo­gies like Smoltek’s PTE, indus­tri­al enter­pris­es face a crit­i­cal strate­gic deci­sion point. His­to­ry shows they typ­i­cal­ly choose one of three paths, each with dra­mat­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent outcomes: ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#option-1-continue-business-as-usual-and-risk-obsolescence)Option 1: Continue business as usual and risk obsolescence Some com­pa­nies believe their estab­lished posi­tion is secure enough to weath­er tech­no­log­i­cal shifts. This often proves to be a fatal miscalculation. Con­sid­er Fac­it, the Swedish man­u­fac­tur­er that dom­i­nat­ed the mechan­i­cal cal­cu­la­tor mar­ket in the 1960s. When elec­tron­ic cal­cu­la­tors emerged, Fac­it’s lead­er­ship dis­missed them as too lim­it­ed com­pared to their pre­ci­sion mechan­i­cal devices. By 1973, the com­pa­ny was essen­tial­ly bank­rupt, out­com­pet­ed by elec­tron­ics that quick­ly became both cheap­er and more capable. Sim­i­lar­ly, Kodak – despite actu­al­ly invent­ing the first dig­i­tal cam­era in 1975 – clung to its prof­itable film busi­ness rather than aggres­sive­ly pur­su­ing dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. The result? A 130-year-old indus­try giant filed for bank­rupt­cy in 2012, while com­pa­nies that embraced dig­i­tal imag­ing flourished. Block­buster faced the same fate by dis­miss­ing Net­flix’s stream­ing mod­el until it was too late, stub­born­ly main­tain­ing its store-based rental approach even as con­sumer behav­ior rapid­ly shift­ed toward dig­i­tal consumption. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#option-2-attempt-internal-development-and-risk-missing-the-market-window)Option 2: Attempt internal development and risk missing the market window Oth­er com­pa­nies rec­og­nize the threat but choose to devel­op com­pet­ing tech­nol­o­gy in-house, often under­es­ti­mat­ing the time required to catch up to spe­cial­ized innovators. Nokia saw the smart­phone rev­o­lu­tion com­ing but spent years try­ing to mod­ern­ize its Sym­bian oper­at­ing sys­tem rather than quick­ly adopt­ing Android. By the time they final­ly embraced Win­dows Phone, the mar­ket had moved on, and their dom­i­nant posi­tion had evaporated. Black­Ber­ry made a sim­i­lar mis­step, invest­ing years devel­op­ing Black­Ber­ry 10 when they could have lever­aged Android much ear­li­er. The delay proved fatal to their smart­phone business. Per­haps most famous­ly, Xerox devel­oped many rev­o­lu­tion­ary tech­nolo­gies at its PARC research cen­ter – includ­ing the graph­i­cal user inter­face and mouse – but failed to com­mer­cial­ize them quick­ly. This gave com­pa­nies like Apple the oppor­tu­ni­ty to refine these inno­va­tions and bring them to mar­ket first. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#option-3-partner-with-or-acquire-innovative-technology-and-thrive)Option 3: Partner with or acquire innovative technology and thrive The most suc­cess­ful indus­tri­al enter­pris­es rec­og­nize when it’s faster and more effi­cient to part­ner with or acquire inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies rather than devel­op­ing them internally. Google’s acqui­si­tion of Android in 2005 gave them a foun­da­tion to build a mobile ecosys­tem that now pow­ers bil­lions of devices world­wide. Mean­while, Nokia and Black­Ber­ry wast­ed years on inter­nal devel­op­ment before even­tu­al­ly los­ing almost their entire mar­ket share. Assa Abloy trans­formed itself from a tra­di­tion­al mechan­i­cal lock man­u­fac­tur­er into a glob­al leader in dig­i­tal access solu­tions through strate­gic acqui­si­tions of com­pa­nies like HID Glob­al. Instead of spend­ing a decade devel­op­ing com­pet­ing dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies inter­nal­ly, they inte­grat­ed exist­ing inno­va­tions and rapid­ly scaled them through their glob­al dis­tri­b­u­tion network. John Deere sim­i­lar­ly rec­og­nized that devel­op­ing AI-based pre­ci­sion agri­cul­ture tech­nol­o­gy in-house would take years they could­n’t afford to lose. By acquir­ing Blue Riv­er Tech­nol­o­gy, they imme­di­ate­ly gained cut­ting-edge capa­bil­i­ties that now give them sig­nif­i­cant advan­tages over com­peti­tors still devel­op­ing sim­i­lar systems. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-hydrogen-industrys-strategic-imperative)The hydrogen industry’s strategic imperative The hydro­gen indus­try faces a clear strate­gic need for irid­i­um reduc­tion. For PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides exact­ly the kind of oppor­tu­ni­ty that cre­ates the three-choice sce­nario described above. Com­pa­nies can either: 1. Con­tin­ue with cur­rent irid­i­um-inten­sive approach­es, know­ing sup­ply con­straints will pre­vent scaling. 2. Spend years on inter­nal R&D attempt­ing to match Smoltek’s break­through, like­ly delay­ing mar­ket growth. 3. Part­ner with Smoltek to imme­di­ate­ly imple­ment the 95 % irid­i­um reduc­tion and accel­er­ate their mar­ket position. The stakes are par­tic­u­lar­ly high because the win­dow for estab­lish­ing lead­er­ship in the green hydro­gen mar­ket is now. With gov­ern­ments world­wide com­mit­ting hun­dreds of bil­lions to hydro­gen infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment, com­pa­nies that can scale pro­duc­tion fastest will secure dom­i­nant posi­tions for decades to come. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-breakthrough-technologies-accelerate-the-traditional-development-process)How breakthrough technologies accelerate the traditional development process When indus­tri­al enter­pris­es rec­og­nize tru­ly dis­rup­tive poten­tial, they don’t aban­don their [struc­tured devel­op­ment process](https://www.smoltek.com/navigating-corporate-product-development-as-small-high-tech-company/8148) described in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle – they accel­er­ate it. The six stages we described in the arti­cle remain the same, but com­pa­nies move through them much faster when faced with a break­through like Smoltek’s PTE technology. This accel­er­a­tion hap­pens because the typ­i­cal ques­tions that slow each stage become eas­i­er to answer: - Dur­ing the **fuzzy front end**, eval­u­a­tion becomes sim­pler when a tech­nol­o­gy solves an obvi­ous indus­try bot­tle­neck, like irid­i­um scarcity. - In the **div­ing deep** phase, the busi­ness case becomes clear­er when the tech­nol­o­gy offers dra­mat­ic cost sav­ings (e.g., $57 mil­lion per gigawatt) and removes sup­ply constraints. - The **forg­ing part­ner­ship** stage often accel­er­ates as com­pa­nies rec­og­nize the com­pet­i­tive risk of being late to adopt a game-chang­ing innovation. - Even **deep­ened co-cre­ation** and **prac­ti­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion** can move faster when the tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers clear per­for­mance advan­tages that have already been inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied, [as by the PEM expert Dr. Felix Büchi](https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-pte-technology-stands-out-expert-states-in-interview/8047/). - The final **go to mar­ket** stage ben­e­fits from increased urgency when com­pa­nies rec­og­nize first-mover advan­tages in a rapid­ly devel­op­ing mar­ket like green hydrogen. This accel­er­at­ed pro­gres­sion through the same struc­tured stages explains why for­ward-think­ing com­pa­nies, like [Her­aeus](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-enters-into-strategic-collaboration-with-heraeus-to-redefine-iridium-efficiency-in-,c4103035) and [Impact Coat­ings](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-enters-into-collaboration-with-impact-coatings-to-evaluate-opportunities-for-volume,c4136449) move quick­ly to estab­lish strate­gic part­ner­ships with inno­va­tors like Smoltek. They rec­og­nize that while the devel­op­ment process remains the same, the time­line can com­press dra­mat­i­cal­ly with tru­ly dis­rup­tive technologies. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#real-world-acceleration-examples-in-hydrogen-technology)Real-world acceleration examples in hydrogen technology Sev­er­al hydro­gen indus­try play­ers exem­pli­fy how lever­ag­ing exter­nal inno­va­tion through part­ner­ships and acqui­si­tions accel­er­ates progress: - **Bosch & Pow­er­Cell:** The glob­al tech­nol­o­gy giant **Bosch**, for instance, sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­at­ed its entry and scal­ing with­in the fuel cell mar­ket by part­ner­ing with and even­tu­al­ly acquir­ing a major­i­ty stake in the spe­cial­ized stack devel­op­er **Pow­er­Cell Swe­den**. This allowed Bosch to rapid­ly inte­grate cut­ting-edge fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy, sig­nif­i­cant­ly com­press­ing inter­nal devel­op­ment timelines. - **SFC Ener­gy & Bal­lard Assets:** Sim­i­lar­ly, fuel cell provider **SFC Ener­gy** acquired sta­tion­ary hydro­gen fuel cell assets, tech­nol­o­gy, and cus­tomers from **Bal­lard Pow­er Sys­tems Europe** in 2024. This strate­gic acqui­si­tion pro­vid­ed SFC with an expand­ed prod­uct port­fo­lio and explic­it­ly aimed for “*accel­er­at­ed mar­ket access*” in key regions, show­cas­ing how acquir­ing exter­nal capa­bil­i­ties speeds up mar­ket expansion. - **Cum­mins & Hydro­gen­ics:** Glob­al pow­er leader **Cum­mins Inc.** dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­at­ed its capa­bil­i­ties across the hydro­gen val­ue chain by acquir­ing **Hydro­gen­ics Cor­po­ra­tion** in 2019. This move gave Cum­mins imme­di­ate access to estab­lished exper­tise and tech­nol­o­gy in both elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells, pro­vid­ing a cru­cial head start and accel­er­at­ing their abil­i­ty to offer inte­grat­ed hydro­gen solu­tions com­pared to organ­ic growth. What these exam­ples illus­trate is the pow­er of the ‘Option 3’ strat­e­gy in the rapid­ly evolv­ing hydro­gen sec­tor. By strate­gi­cal­ly part­ner­ing with or acquir­ing spe­cial­ized inno­va­tors like Pow­er­Cell and Hydro­gen­ics, or spe­cif­ic assets like those from Bal­lard, estab­lished play­ers like Bosch, SFC Ener­gy, and Cum­mins can dras­ti­cal­ly short­en devel­op­ment cycles and accel­er­ate mar­ket entry. In a mar­ket dri­ven by the urgent need for decar­boniza­tion and enabled by tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs, lever­ag­ing exter­nal inno­va­tion becomes a key accel­er­a­tor for com­pa­nies aim­ing to lead. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-industrys-choice-the-investors-opportunity)The industry’s choice, the investor’s opportunity The path for­ward for PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers mir­rors his­tor­i­cal turn­ing points. Con­tin­u­ing with irid­i­um-heavy tech­nol­o­gy risks obso­les­cence, like Fac­it fac­ing elec­tron­ic cal­cu­la­tors. Attempt­ing slow inter­nal devel­op­ment risks miss­ing the cru­cial mar­ket win­dow, like Nokia con­fronting the smart­phone rev­o­lu­tion. The alter­na­tive – the proven path to thriv­ing – involves embrac­ing break­through exter­nal inno­va­tion. Smoltek’s PTE tech­nol­o­gy offers exact­ly that: the crit­i­cal, ver­i­fied solu­tion need­ed to over­come the irid­i­um bot­tle­neck and com­pete effec­tive­ly in the bur­geon­ing hydro­gen economy. Giv­en the dra­mat­ic cost reduc­tions ($60M down to $3M per GW) and the 20× scal­ing poten­tial unlocked by Smoltek Hydrogen’s dis­rup­tive  PTE tech­nol­o­gy, the strate­gic and eco­nom­ic log­ic for man­u­fac­tur­ers to part­ner with Smoltek Hydro­gen becomes over­whelm­ing. In this con­text, delay­ing adop­tion or pur­su­ing less effec­tive inter­nal R&D appears increas­ing­ly unten­able. We expect this clear val­ue propo­si­tion to dri­ve sig­nif­i­cant indus­tri­al engagement. The indus­tri­al log­ic out­lined here points towards sig­nif­i­cant inter­est in Smoltek’s solu­tion. For our investors, this means being part of bring­ing a vital tech­nol­o­gy to life. We are work­ing hard to build the right part­ner­ships to deliv­er PTE to the mar­ket, and we believe your back­ing is cru­cial as we aim to make a real impact on the hydro­gen econ­o­my and the wider ener­gy transition. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen partners with Impact Coatings to explore volume production potential" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-partners-with-impact-coatings-to-explore-volume-production-potential/8414/" date: 2025-04-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "Heraeus" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus.md" - name: "Heraeus Precious Metals" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus-precious-metals.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen partners with Impact Coatings to explore volume production potential This part­ner­ship com­bines Smoltek’s CNF plat­form and low-irid­i­um hydro­gen solu­tions with Impact Coat­ings’ exper­tise in PVD coat­ing sys­tems. The goal is to move from pro­to­types to scal­able, indus­tri­al production—crucial for Smoltek’s com­mer­cial expansion. > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent, Smoltek Hydro­gen: > “Grow­ing fibers in Impact Coat­ings’ PVD tools is a big step toward indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion. We’re excit­ed to move clos­er to commercialization.” The col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to prove man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty and rapid­ly estab­lish pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty, poten­tial­ly enabling full-scale elec­trode test­ing by next year and lay­ing the ground­work for a long-term partnership. > Jonas Nils­son, CEO, Impact Coat­ings: > *“We see great poten­tial in com­bin­ing Smoltek’s mate­ri­als with our coat­ing tech­nol­o­gy to meet the grow­ing needs in hydro­gen and fuel cell markets.”* **Col­lab­o­ra­tion Focus Areas:** - **PEM Elec­trolyz­ers:** Reduce irid­i­um usage, enhance effi­cien­cy and durability. - **PEM Fuel Cells:** Improve per­for­mance by low­er­ing con­tact resis­tance and corrosion. - **New Appli­ca­tions:** Devel­op advanced coat­ings based on CNF for broad­er use. **Next Steps:** - Assess inte­gra­tion of CNF tech into exist­ing tools. - Explore scal­a­bil­i­ty for vol­ume production. - Test sam­ples with exist­ing cus­tomers to val­i­date mar­ket demand. This part­ner­ship opens new mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties and strength­ens both com­pa­nies’ posi­tions in the hydro­gen space. Read the offi­cial press release: [Smoltek Hydro­gen enters into col­lab­o­ra­tion with Impact Coat­ings to eval­u­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for vol­ume pro­duc­tion](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-enters-into-collaboration-with-impact-coatings-to-evaluate-opportunities-for-volume,c4136449). Impact Coat­ings news: [Impact Coat­ings Ini­ti­ates Col­lab­o­ra­tion with Smoltek Hydrogen](https://impactcoatings.com/impact-coatings-initiates-collaboration-with-smoltek-hydrogen/) --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen sees strong interest for the PTE-technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-sees-strong-interest-for-the-pte-technology/8409/" date: 2025-04-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "Heraeus" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus.md" - name: "Heraeus Precious Metals" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus-precious-metals.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen sees strong interest for the PTE-technology “The inter­est in our PTE tech­nol­o­gy has been great, but what is tru­ly remark­able is the speed of the eval­u­a­tion process­es that we are now see­ing from sev­er­al glob­al play­ers. They real­ize that this is not just an improve­ment, but a tech­nol­o­gy that can rede­fine the play­ing field for both PEM elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen. Smoltek Hydro­gen has devel­oped a patent-pro­tect­ed nan­otech­nol­o­gy that enables the fab­ri­ca­tion of high-per­for­mance porous trans­port elec­trodes (PTEs), for elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells:  - **For PEM elec­trolyz­ers**, this enables a thir­ty-fold increase in cat­alyt­ic sur­face area, poten­tial­ly reduc­ing irid­i­um usage by up to 95 per­cent – ​​an inno­va­tion that no oth­er play­er in the mar­ket can match. This paves the way for pro­duc­ing fos­sil-free hydro­gen at com­pet­i­tive prices. - **For fuel cells**, our tech­nol­o­gy can reduce inter­nal con­tact resis­tance (ICR) and coun­ter­act elec­tro­chem­i­cal cor­ro­sion – two key fac­tors for increased per­for­mance and improved lifespan. Sev­er­al lead­ing glob­al indus­tri­al com­pa­nies are now eval­u­at­ing Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE-tech­nol­o­gy. Accord­ing to Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, their nor­mal­ly time-con­sum­ing eval­u­a­tion and devel­op­ment process­es are being accel­er­at­ed by the real­iza­tion that the first play­er to inte­grate the tech­nol­o­gy will gain sig­nif­i­cant and like­ly unas­sail­able com­pet­i­tive advan­tages. Smoltek Hydro­gen is already sell­ing PTE pro­to­types for eval­u­a­tion pur­pos­es and aims to be able to sell full-scale elec­trodes in 2026. Read the full inter­view ([“How Smoltek Hydro­gen aligns devel­op­ment with cus­tomer needs”](https://www.smoltek.com/8152)) with Elli­nor Ehrn­berg on our IR blog. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen’s Breakthrough in Green Hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogens-breakthrough-in-green-hydrogen/11167/" date: 2025-04-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/smoltek-hydrogen-media-mentions-april-2025.webp" categories: - name: "Media mentions" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/media-mentions.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen’s Breakthrough in Green Hydrogen Smoltek Hydro­gen, a sub­sidiary of Swedish nan­otech com­pa­ny Smoltek, is advanc­ing green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion with its car­bon nanos­truc­ture tech­nol­o­gy. These nanos­truc­tures act as effi­cient scaf­folds for chem­i­cal reac­tions like the Hydro­gen Evo­lu­tion Reac­tion (HER), mak­ing elec­trol­y­sis cheap­er and more effi­cient com­pared to con­ven­tion­al methods.  The com­pa­ny is also explor­ing pho­to­catal­y­sis (using sun­light to split water) and ion­ic liquid–enhanced elec­tro­catal­y­sis to fur­ther improve effi­cien­cy by over­com­ing per­for­mance issues in hydro­gen production.  - **Why it matters:** - Tra­di­tion­al hydro­gen pro­duc­tion (via steam methane reform­ing) is carbon-intensive. - Green hydro­gen, cre­at­ed by split­ting water with renew­able elec­tric­i­ty, is clean but expensive. - Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy reduces the need for cost­ly cat­a­lysts like plat­inum and oper­ates at low­er tem­per­a­tures, offer­ing a scal­able, cost-effec­tive path to green hydrogen. **Big pic­ture:** Smoltek Hydro­gen could play a piv­otal role in mak­ing green hydro­gen mainstream—potentially trans­form­ing ener­gy in the same way semi­con­duc­tors trans­formed com­put­ing. Suc­cess will depend on con­tin­ued invest­ment, pol­i­cy sup­port, and collaboration.  Smoltek Hydro­gen aims to make hydro­gen more afford­able and acces­si­ble. The com­pa­ny is pur­su­ing part­ner­ships with investors, Euro­pean cli­mate ini­tia­tives, and ener­gy com­pa­nies to scale its innovations.  * * * *Read the full arti­cle: [Smoltek Hydrogen,s Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Break­through Sheds Light on Swe­dens Green Hydro­gen Future](https://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/smoltek-hydrogens-nanotechnology-breakthrough-sheds-light-on-swedens-green-hydrogen-future/8570340/)* --- title: "How Smoltek Hydrogen aligns development with customer needs – interview with Ellinor Ehrnberg" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/how-smoltek-hydrogen-aligns-development-with-customer-needs-interview-with-ellinor-ehrnberg/8152/" date: 2025-04-14 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/smoltek-vs-big-corp.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # How Smoltek Hydrogen aligns development with customer needs – interview with Ellinor Ehrnberg When an indus­tri­al enter­prise wants to adopt the tech­nol­o­gy of a high-tech com­pa­ny, it fol­lows a struc­tured process from ini­tial eval­u­a­tion to full mar­ket inte­gra­tion. As out­lined in our pre­vi­ous arti­cle [*Nav­i­gat­ing cor­po­rate prod­uct devel­op­ment as small high-tech com­pa­ny*](https://www.smoltek.com/navigating-corporate-product-development-as-small-high-tech-company/8148/), these process­es have six major stages: 1. **Fuzzy front end:** The enter­prise com­pa­ny iden­ti­fies a spe­cif­ic prob­lem or eval­u­ates promis­ing inno­va­tions, often test­ing small­er lab sam­ples to assess the technology’s potential. 2. **Div­ing deep:** The enter­prise estab­lish­es for­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion through fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies or joint devel­op­ment projects, con­duct­ing in-depth analy­sis of tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial aspects. 3. **Forg­ing part­ner­ship:** The enter­prise selects its tech­nol­o­gy sup­pli­er and deep­ens col­lab­o­ra­tion through a sup­pli­er devel­op­ment agree­ment, secur­ing access to the new technology. 4. **Deep­ened co-cre­ation:** The enter­prise begins detailed design work, with the high-tech com­pa­ny serv­ing as a tech­ni­cal advi­sor to help adapt the tech­nol­o­gy to spe­cif­ic products. 5. **Prac­ti­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion:** The enter­prise pro­duces and tests pro­to­types to ensure func­tion­al­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and com­pli­ance, often requir­ing mul­ti­ple design iterations. 6. **Go to mar­ket:** The enter­prise shifts from devel­op­ment to reg­u­lar pro­duc­tion, grad­u­al­ly increas­ing out­put as process­es sta­bi­lize, while the high-tech com­pa­ny begins ful­fill­ing long-term sup­ply contracts. Now it’s time to take a clos­er look at how Smoltek Hydro­gen has posi­tioned itself with­in this framework. ”Our strat­e­gy is not to get ahead of our poten­tial cus­tomers, but to keep pace with where they are in their process. Some are mov­ing cau­tious­ly, oth­ers are mov­ing quick­ly,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen. ”Her­aeus, with whom we’ve already had a strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion, I think is already at stage 3 and mov­ing quick­ly to stage 4. Sev­er­al oth­ers are on the cusp of mov­ing from stage 1 to stage 2 and are ready to take that crit­i­cal next stage with us.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#iridium-a-scarce-necessity-for-green-hydrogen)Iridium – a scarce necessity for green hydrogen Smoltek Hydro­gen has devel­oped a unique tech­nol­o­gy, [*Porous Trans­port Elec­trode* (*PTE*)](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/smoltek-pte-earns-expert-recognition/7947/), which dras­ti­cal­ly reduces the need for irid­i­um in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. As we have pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten about in [*Unlock­ing the green hydro­gen econ­o­my*](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/unlocking-the-green-hydrogen-economy/8085/) and [*The last cru­sade for 0.1 mg irid­i­um*](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/the-last-crusade-for-0-1-mg-iridium/8089/), green hydro­gen is a scarce neces­si­ty, which is why PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers are des­per­ate­ly look­ing for solu­tions to reduce the need for iridium. ”Any­one who makes PEM elec­trolyz­ers knows that they need to reduce the amount of irid­i­um used per square cen­time­ter. Today it’s about 2 mg, and we need to get down to 0.1 mg. It’s not just a tech­ni­cal thing, it’s crit­i­cal for green hydro­gen to be eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable,” says Elli­nor Ehrnberg. This 95% reduc­tion in irid­i­um usage isn’t just an improve­ment – it’s poten­tial­ly dis­rup­tive to the entire hydro­gen econ­o­my. By dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing costs of PEM elec­trolyz­ers, Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy could help make clean hydro­gen (pro­duced from fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty) eco­nom­i­cal­ly com­pet­i­tive with the cheap­er gray hydro­gen cur­rent­ly pro­duced from nat­ur­al gas. This cost par­i­ty is essen­tial for accel­er­at­ing the ener­gy tran­si­tion, as eco­nom­ics – not just envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns – will ulti­mate­ly dri­ve wide­spread adop­tion of hydro­gen across all industries. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-quiet-early-stages-why-you-might-not-hear-about-all-our-ongoing-discussions)The quiet early stages – why you might not hear about all our ongoing discussions What many share­hold­ers might not real­ize is that Smoltek Hydro­gen is already work­ing with sev­er­al renowned indus­tri­al enter­pris­es world­wide who are at the ini­tial ”fuzzy front end” stage, with some hav­ing already pur­chased sam­ples from Smoltek Hydrogen. ”We’re active­ly engaged with mul­ti­ple indus­tri­al enter­pris­es glob­al­ly, but strict con­fi­den­tial­i­ty require­ments at these ear­ly stages pre­vent us from dis­clos­ing specifics,” Elli­nor explains. ”This is stan­dard indus­try prac­tice – com­pa­nies in stage one, and often even stage two, typ­i­cal­ly pro­hib­it their tech­nol­o­gy part­ners from pub­licly dis­cussing the col­lab­o­ra­tion. This silence doesn’t indi­cate inac­tiv­i­ty; quite the oppo­site – it’s a sign of seri­ous indus­try engagement.” ”Our recent­ly announced strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion with Her­aeus is a per­fect exam­ple,” Elli­nor notes. ”We’ve been work­ing with them for some time, but it’s only now, as we enter a more for­mal­ized part­ner­ship stage, that we can pub­licly share this infor­ma­tion. This announce­ment rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone, demon­strat­ing that our tech­nol­o­gy has suc­cess­ful­ly pro­gressed through the ini­tial eval­u­a­tion stages.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#from-idea-to-study-phase-moving-at-industry-pace)From idea to study phase – moving at industry pace Smoltek Hydro­gen has estab­lished dia­logue with key play­ers across the PEM val­ue chain, includ­ing both major elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers and their strate­gic sup­pli­ers. After ini­tial tech­nol­o­gy pre­sen­ta­tions, sev­er­al of these indus­try stake­hold­ers have pro­gressed to more detailed tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions and sam­ple eval­u­a­tions, posi­tion­ing them at the advanced stages of the ini­tial eval­u­a­tion phase. Accord­ing to Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, the feed­back from these inter­ac­tions has been high­ly encour­ag­ing, with clear indi­ca­tions that sev­er­al com­pa­nies are prepar­ing to take their assess­ment of Smoltek Hydrogen’s tech­nol­o­gy to the next level. ”This is a great sign. It means they see the poten­tial of our tech­nol­o­gy and are ready to go deep­er. They’ve played around with our mate­r­i­al in the lab and now they want to take the next step,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. ”And that’s where it’s real­ly impor­tant for us to show that our tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers what we promise and that we can deliv­er what they need. We start by deliv­er­ing small sam­ples, 2×2 cen­time­ters, and show that it works. Then we take it further.” And what hap­pens when they move into the tri­al phase? ”Then we deliv­er larg­er sam­ples, typ­i­cal­ly 5×5 cen­time­ters, and work close­ly with them to help them eval­u­ate the tech­nol­o­gy. It’s about iden­ti­fy­ing and man­ag­ing the tech­ni­cal risks and adapt­ing the tech­nol­o­gy to their spe­cif­ic needs,” explains Ellinor. Indus­try experts have tak­en notice of Smoltek Hydrogen’s approach. Dr. Felix Büchi recent­ly high­light­ed [the unique­ness of Smoltek Hydrogen’s solu­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-pte-technology-stands-out-expert-states-in-interview/8047/) – specif­i­cal­ly how they can pre­pare a very low amount of irid­i­um with high sur­face area on the PTL. ”When experts like Dr. Büchi val­i­date what we’re doing, and you pair that with how des­per­ate­ly the indus­try needs to solve the irid­i­um prob­lem… well, things can move pret­ty quick­ly,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg says. ”And what’s encour­ag­ing for us is that we’re not just wait­ing for some big pay­day down the road – we will gen­er­ate increas­ing rev­enue all along the way.” How so? ”Well, we are already sell­ing con­sult­ing ser­vices and pro­to­types. They need our exper­tise to see how they can incor­po­rate our tech­nol­o­gy into their prod­ucts. And we will also start sell­ing more and more of our cell mate­r­i­al, PTE,” explains Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. ”In addi­tion, sup­pli­er devel­op­ment agree­ments are an impor­tant part. We enter into agree­ments with man­u­fac­tur­ers where we are paid to help them adapt our tech­nol­o­gy to their spe­cif­ic needs and volumes.” How long does it usu­al­ly take for a PEM man­u­fac­tur­er to go through the dif­fer­ent phases? “It real­ly depends on what’s dri­ving the mar­ket. When you’ve got a solu­tion to a seri­ous prob­lem like the irid­i­um short­age, things can move much faster than usu­al. We’re see­ing incred­i­ble momen­tum in green hydro­gen right now – man­u­fac­tur­ers know they need to solve this, and they can’t wait around for­ev­er. I’d say we’re in the right place at the right time with our tech­nol­o­gy. We need to get it right, though. And we must ensure we can scale up grad­u­al­ly as mar­ket demand grows,” says Elli­nor Ehrnberg. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-timing-advantage-riding-the-energy-transition-wave)The timing advantage – riding the energy transition wave While devel­op­ment process­es fol­low estab­lished frame­works, Elli­nor empha­sizes that actu­al pro­gres­sion can accel­er­ate dra­mat­i­cal­ly when a tech­nol­o­gy address­es urgent mar­ket needs. ”The pace of devel­op­ment can vary great­ly between dif­fer­ent indus­tri­al enter­pris­es,” Elli­nor explains. ”When a tech­nol­o­gy offers a com­pelling solu­tion to a crit­i­cal mar­ket chal­lenge – as our PTE tech­nol­o­gy does for irid­i­um reduc­tion – we often see tra­di­tion­al time­lines com­press sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Com­pa­nies just can’t afford to move at a nor­mal pace when their com­peti­tors might be rac­ing to solve the same prob­lem. We’re see­ing this urgency first­hand in the green hydro­gen space.” Her­aeus exem­pli­fies this accel­er­at­ed tra­jec­to­ry. ”Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Her­aeus has pro­gressed at an impres­sive pace,” Elli­nor notes. ”Their recog­ni­tion of the strate­gic val­ue of our PTE tech­nol­o­gy, com­bined with the mar­ket pres­sures to reduce irid­i­um depen­den­cy, cre­at­ed the right con­di­tions for a swift advance­ment to a for­mal partnership.” This vari­able tim­ing works in Smoltek Hydrogen’s favor, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the glob­al focus on sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions. ”We’re for­tu­nate that our tech­nol­o­gy address­es a crit­i­cal bot­tle­neck in the green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion chain at pre­cise­ly the moment when the world is under­go­ing a nec­es­sary ener­gy tran­si­tion,” explains Elli­nor. ”This align­ment cre­ates a sense of urgency among poten­tial part­ners that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­ate the typ­i­cal devel­op­ment timeline.” The real­i­ty today is that many indus­tri­al enter­pris­es are mov­ing much faster than in pre­vi­ous decades. Com­pa­nies like Apple, NVIDIA, and even hydro­gen com­pa­nies like Pow­er­Cell have demon­strat­ed the abil­i­ty to rapid­ly devel­op and inte­grate new tech­nolo­gies when they see a clear strate­gic advantage. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#matching-production-to-market-opportunity)Matching production to market opportunity A major strength in Smoltek Hydrogen’s approach is how thought­ful­ly they’re plan­ning their pro­duc­tion growth. Rather than rush­ing to build large-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing before the mar­ket is ready, Smoltek Hydro­gen is tak­ing a more mea­sured approach that makes finan­cial sense. ”We’re being smart about how we scale up,” explains Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. ”Build­ing a huge fac­to­ry right now would tie up mon­ey we could use more effec­tive­ly else­where. Instead, we’ve devel­oped a flex­i­ble approach where we can start small­er and expand as cus­tomer demand grows. We begin in the lab, move to pilot pro­duc­tion, and then scale to indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing when we have sol­id orders. This way, we’re invest­ing at the right time and pace.” This strat­e­gy gives Smoltek Hydro­gen impor­tant advan­tages in an emerg­ing mar­ket. By stay­ing nim­ble and adjust­ing pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty as the mar­ket devel­ops, they can respond quick­ly to oppor­tu­ni­ties while man­ag­ing risks. The team has iden­ti­fied the key tech­no­log­i­cal stages to scale pro­duc­tion when need­ed, with­out over­com­mit­ting resources too ear­ly in the process. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-partner-for-the-future)A partner for the future Elli­nor Ehrn­berg empha­sizes that Smoltek Hydro­gen is not just a mate­r­i­al sup­pli­er, but a part­ner to the major PEM manufacturers: ”We want to be part of the whole jour­ney and help our cus­tomers to inte­grate our tech­nol­o­gy into their prod­ucts. It’s not just about sell­ing a mate­r­i­al, it’s about build­ing long-term rela­tion­ships and shar­ing our exper­tise. We have unique knowl­edge in this area.” This col­lab­o­ra­tive approach is essen­tial for suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ing such advanced technology. ”And we’re open to learn­ing from them too – they know their prod­ucts and process­es inside out. By work­ing togeth­er, we can find the best solu­tion. The key is show­ing that we’re a reli­able part­ner who can deliv­er what they need, when they need it. This busi­ness requires patience and per­sis­tence, but we’re in it for the long run.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#translating-strategy-into-action)Translating strategy into action How does Smoltek Hydro­gen turn this approach into tan­gi­ble results? The com­pa­ny ben­e­fits from Pres­i­dent Elli­nor Ehrn­berg’s exper­tise – with her PhD in Tech­nol­o­gy and Cor­po­rate Strat­e­gy from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy and prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence from com­pa­nies like [SKF](https://www.skf.com/group) and [Rise](https://www.ri.se/en). This back­ground has direct­ly shaped Smoltek’s mar­ket strategy. “Our devel­op­ment roadmap is care­ful­ly syn­chro­nized with where our poten­tial cus­tomers are in their own process­es,” explains Elli­nor. “We’re pre­pared to meet man­u­fac­tur­ers at what­ev­er stage they’re in – whether they’re just begin­ning to explore solu­tions to the irid­i­um prob­lem or are ready for deep­er integration.” This thought­ful align­ment means Smoltek can gen­er­ate rev­enue through­out the jour­ney – from ini­tial sam­ple sales and con­sult­ing in ear­ly stages to increas­ing­ly sub­stan­tial devel­op­ment agree­ments as rela­tion­ships mature. The Her­aeus part­ner­ship exem­pli­fies how rapid­ly pro­gres­sion can occur when tech­nol­o­gy and mar­ket needs align perfectly. “What’s espe­cial­ly promis­ing is how our com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties grow at each stage,” notes Elli­nor. “We start with mod­est rev­enue from sam­ples and con­sult­ing, but as we progress to for­mal agree­ments and joint devel­op­ment projects, the com­mer­cial rela­tion­ships become much more substantial.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#now-its-your-turn)Now it’s your turn In this arti­cle, we have explained how Smoltek Hydro­gen is match­ing the pace of the major PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, how they are scal­ing up pro­duc­tion over time, and how mul­ti­ple indus­tri­al enter­pris­es are already engaged at var­i­ous stages of devel­op­ment with Smoltek Hydro­gen. We’ve also clar­i­fied why you might not hear about all col­lab­o­ra­tions due to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty require­ments in ear­ly devel­op­ment stages, and how the recent Her­aeus announce­ment exem­pli­fies suc­cess­ful pro­gres­sion through the devel­op­ment process. In our next arti­cle, we’ll explore how tru­ly dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions like Smoltek’s PTE tech­nol­o­gy can dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate tra­di­tion­al devel­op­ment time­lines, and why this cre­ates a strate­gic deci­sion point for indus­tri­al enter­pris­es that sep­a­rates mar­ket lead­ers from those who fall behind. Now it’s your turn to share your thoughts. Leave a com­ment or ask a ques­tion in the com­ments sec­tion of our LinkedIn post on this arti­cle. We promise to answer and share as much as we can, tak­ing into account con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ments and what is allowed by laws and reg­u­la­tions for pub­lic companies. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen Recognized in Chemical Engineering" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-recognized-in-chemical-engineering/11177/" date: 2025-04-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Media mentions" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/media-mentions.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen Recognized in Chemical Engineering In the arti­cle, Smoltek Hydrogen’s nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy is high­light­ed as a solu­tion with the poten­tial to increase the cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty in elec­trolyz­ers and which at the same time uses 95% less irid­i­um with main­tained activ­i­ty – a break­through with great rel­e­vance for green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion and oth­er sus­tain­able ener­gy applications. > “The fact that Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing is notic­ing us and con­tact­ing us for an inter­view con­firms that we are address­ing a very crit­i­cal prob­lem to pro­duce fos­sil-free hydro­gen, name­ly the short­age and cost of irid­i­um. It also proves that our solu­tion is unique and sig­nif­i­cant for future ener­gy solu­tions”, says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, CEO of Smoltek Hydrogen. * * * *Read the full arti­cle: [Nanofibers dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty for ultra-low-irid­i­um electrolysis](https://www.chemengonline.com/nanofibers-dramatically-increase-catalytic-activity-for-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis/)* --- title: "Navigating big-tech corporate product development as a small high-tech company" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/navigating-corporate-product-development-as-small-high-tech-company/8148/" date: 2025-04-10 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/bild-2.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # Navigating big-tech corporate product development as a small high-tech company Indus­tri­al enter­pris­es fol­low a method­i­cal approach when inte­grat­ing exter­nal inno­va­tions into their prod­uct lines. For high-tech com­pa­ny share­hold­ers, this process can seem unrea­son­ably long and full of arbi­trary obsta­cles. How­ev­er, under­stand­ing that it’s actu­al­ly a fair­ly order­ly six-stage process can help inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies nav­i­gate these waters more effec­tive­ly and iden­ti­fy rev­enue oppor­tu­ni­ties at each stage. In this arti­cle, we take a clos­er look at how indus­tri­al enter­pris­es oper­ate and what this means for high-tech partners. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#stage-1-the-fuzzy-front-end)Stage 1: The fuzzy front end The first stage begins either with the indus­tri­al enter­prise iden­ti­fy­ing a spe­cif­ic prob­lem and active­ly seek­ing a solu­tion, or with the high-tech com­pa­ny pitch­ing an inno­va­tion that could open up new busi­ness opportunities. For the high-tech com­pa­ny, this ear­ly stage is all about build­ing trust and demon­strat­ing tech­ni­cal poten­tial. They need to clear­ly and con­cise­ly describe what their tech­nol­o­gy can do and why it is worth pur­su­ing by the indus­tri­al enterprise. Often, indus­tri­al enter­pris­es test small­er lab sam­ples to get a first indi­ca­tion of the technology’s poten­tial. This may be to under­stand how the tech­nol­o­gy works and performs. It is com­mon for indus­tri­al enter­pris­es to have sev­er­al par­al­lel eval­u­a­tions run­ning simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Many tech­nolo­gies are dropped at this stage because they do not show enough poten­tial or because they do not fit with the enterprise’s long-term strat­e­gy and goals. There­fore, the high-tech com­pa­ny must make a strong first impres­sion and present its tech­nol­o­gy in a way that cap­tures the inter­est of the indus­tri­al enter­prise and demon­strates tan­gi­ble value. This stage is often called *the fuzzy front end* because many ideas are eval­u­at­ed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and the process is rel­a­tive­ly infor­mal. While this stage can tra­di­tion­al­ly take con­sid­er­able time, the tim­ing may accel­er­ate dra­mat­i­cal­ly if the tech­nol­o­gy address­es an urgent mar­ket need or offers excep­tion­al value. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#stage-2-diving-deep)Stage 2: Diving deep Once the high-tech com­pa­ny has made a strong impres­sion and demon­strat­ed promis­ing ini­tial results, the indus­tri­al enter­prise typ­i­cal­ly moves for­ward by estab­lish­ing a for­mal col­lab­o­ra­tion. This might take the form of a fea­si­bil­i­ty study, a con­sult­ing agree­ment, or a joint devel­op­ment project. This for­mal engage­ment involves in-depth analy­sis of both tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial aspects led by the indus­tri­al enterprise. Impor­tant­ly, this stage often marks the begin­ning of both the com­mer­cial rela­tion­ship and the co-cre­ation process, with the indus­tri­al enter­prise becom­ing a pay­ing cus­tomer through these var­i­ous forms of col­lab­o­ra­tion. This co-cre­ation – where both par­ties work togeth­er to devel­op and refine the tech­nol­o­gy – begins mod­est­ly but lays the foun­da­tion for deep­er inte­gra­tion. Though typ­i­cal­ly mod­est in scale, these ear­ly rev­enues can pro­vide vital sup­port for the high-tech com­pa­ny while build­ing toward larg­er opportunities. On the tech­ni­cal side, the indus­tri­al enter­prise defines detailed per­for­mance, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and com­pat­i­bil­i­ty require­ments. They inves­ti­gate whether exist­ing pro­duc­tion lines can be used or new invest­ments are required. Risk assess­ments are per­formed for poten­tial tech­ni­cal chal­lenges, includ­ing whether the new tech­nol­o­gy is ful­ly devel­oped, scal­able, or com­pat­i­ble with exist­ing systems. At the same time, the busi­ness poten­tial is care­ful­ly ana­lyzed. The indus­tri­al enter­prise looks at expect­ed sales vol­ume, return on invest­ment, total cost of own­er­ship, and time to mar­ket. It con­ducts a detailed mar­ket and com­pe­ti­tion analy­sis and iden­ti­fies poten­tial customers. This co-cre­ation study stage in tra­di­tion­al cor­po­rate envi­ron­ments might take 12–24 months, though it may pro­ceed much faster if the indus­tri­al enter­prise sees a com­pelling mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ty or com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. Equal­ly, the process might tem­porar­i­ly slow or pause if mar­ket con­di­tions change or oth­er pri­or­i­ties emerge, before resum­ing when tim­ing is more favorable. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#stage-3-forging-partnership)Stage 3: Forging partnership Once the indus­tri­al enter­prise has cho­sen its tech­nol­o­gy sup­pli­er, the col­lab­o­ra­tion deep­ens through a *sup­pli­er devel­op­ment agree­ment*. This gives the high-tech com­pa­ny expand­ed busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties and access to the indus­tri­al enterprise’s resources and knowl­edge. At the same time, the indus­tri­al enter­prise secures access to the new tech­nol­o­gy with a part­ner who can deliv­er the required qual­i­ty and volume. This agree­ment typ­i­cal­ly defines com­mon goals for tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, with spe­cif­ic per­for­mance, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and cost require­ments. It includes mile­stones for qual­i­ty con­trol and plans for inte­grat­ing the tech­nol­o­gy into the indus­tri­al enterprise’s production. The sup­pli­er devel­op­ment agree­ment usu­al­ly includes pro­vi­sions for com­pen­sa­tion dur­ing this deep­ened co-cre­ation stage, such as con­sult­ing fees, mile­stone pay­ments, or cost-shar­ing arrange­ments. These agree­ments pro­vide the high-tech com­pa­ny with impor­tant rev­enue streams while work­ing towards full commercialization. For high-tech com­pa­nies, this stage rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant strength­en­ing of the cus­tomer rela­tion­ship, with more sub­stan­tial and pre­dictable rev­enue opportunities. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#stage-4-deepened-co-creation)Stage 4: Deepened co-creation With the sup­pli­er devel­op­ment agree­ment in place, the indus­tri­al enter­prise begins detailed design work, which typ­i­cal­ly takes 6–12 months in con­ven­tion­al set­tings, though with inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies and moti­vat­ed part­ners, this time­line can be sub­stan­tial­ly short­ened. Dur­ing this stage, exten­sive tech­ni­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion is pro­duced, from draw­ings to mate­r­i­al specifications. The high-tech com­pa­ny now assumes an impor­tant role as a paid tech­ni­cal advi­sor in this co-cre­ation process. This con­sult­ing rev­enue often becomes more sub­stan­tial, help­ing sus­tain oper­a­tions while work­ing towards full-scale production. As the indus­tri­al enter­prise pro­gress­es with design work, the tech­nol­o­gy is fine-tuned to spe­cif­ic prod­ucts and appli­ca­tions. Mate­ri­als and process­es are reviewed to ensure sup­ply chains are ready for future volumes. Con­tracts are updat­ed to clar­i­fy respon­si­bil­i­ties, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights, cost struc­tures, and time­lines. Suc­cess­ful projects fea­ture close inter­de­part­men­tal col­lab­o­ra­tion at the indus­tri­al enter­prise, involv­ing mar­ket­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, pur­chas­ing, and R&D to ensure the design is fea­si­ble, meets all require­ments, and can be man­u­fac­tured cost-effectively. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#stage-5-practical-verification)Stage 5: Practical verification When the indus­tri­al enter­prise approves the design, the most resource-inten­sive phase begins. This stage for estab­lished indus­tries with con­ven­tion­al tech­nolo­gies can take 12–36 months, though mar­ket urgency and tech­no­log­i­cal readi­ness can com­press this time­line con­sid­er­ably. The indus­tri­al enter­prise pro­duces pro­to­types that under­go rig­or­ous test­ing to ensure func­tion­al­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty, and com­pli­ance. Sev­er­al types of pro­to­types are used: - *Design pro­to­types* that val­i­date the engi­neer­ing design solutions. - *Func­tion­al pro­to­types* which test indi­vid­ual functions. - *Sys­tem pro­to­types* which val­i­date the per­for­mance of the entire product. - *Pre-pro­duc­tion pro­to­types* that ver­i­fy the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. Test­ing pro­gress­es from the com­po­nent lev­el to com­plete sys­tem pro­to­types, often requir­ing mul­ti­ple design iter­a­tions to resolve issues and opti­mize the system. The high-tech company’s role dur­ing this phase is cru­cial, as they must demon­strate that their tech­nol­o­gy works as intend­ed under all con­di­tions. This often involves accel­er­at­ed life test­ing, envi­ron­men­tal test­ing, and com­pli­ance test­ing to ISO standards. In par­al­lel, the indus­tri­al enter­prise devel­ops and val­i­dates the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. Sup­pli­ers begin deliv­er­ing pre-pro­duc­tion parts in increas­ing quan­ti­ties, and pilot runs train oper­a­tors and sta­bi­lize the process for full-scale production. For the high-tech com­pa­ny, this phase typ­i­cal­ly involves increas­ing­ly sub­stan­tial com­mer­cial agree­ments, as the rela­tion­ship moves from devel­op­ment toward pro­duc­tion. These agree­ments can pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue even before full com­mer­cial launch. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#stage-6-go-to-market)Stage 6: Go to market After suc­cess­ful test­ing, the project enters the deploy­ment phase. The indus­tri­al enter­prise shifts respon­si­bil­i­ty from the devel­op­ment team to the reg­u­lar line orga­ni­za­tion for ongo­ing pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and sup­port. Pro­duc­tion often starts cau­tious­ly and grad­u­al­ly increas­es as process­es stabilize. For the high-tech com­pa­ny, this phase means the begin­ning of long-term sup­ply con­tracts and sta­ble, sub­stan­tial rev­enue streams. A suc­cess­ful launch with one indus­tri­al enter­prise can open many doors, mak­ing it eas­i­er to attract new cus­tomers and expand into new mar­ket seg­ments. This is when the high-tech com­pa­ny begins to reap the full rewards of its inno­va­tion and persistence. The rela­tion­ship often con­tin­ues evolv­ing, with the indus­tri­al enter­prise incor­po­rat­ing the tech­nol­o­gy into addi­tion­al prod­ucts or appli­ca­tions, cre­at­ing fur­ther growth oppor­tu­ni­ties for both parties. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#managing-a-portfolio-of-opportunities)Managing a portfolio of opportunities The process from first con­tact to fin­ished prod­uct in con­ven­tion­al indus­tri­al set­tings can take sev­er­al years, espe­cial­ly in indus­tries with high safe­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty require­ments. How­ev­er, with the right tech­nol­o­gy and part­ner align­ment, these time­lines can be sig­nif­i­cant­ly accel­er­at­ed. It’s impor­tant to under­stand that high-tech com­pa­nies are typ­i­cal­ly engaged in mul­ti­ple such process­es simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with dif­fer­ent indus­tri­al enter­pris­es, each at its own stage of development. These par­al­lel rela­tion­ships exist at var­i­ous stages of matu­ri­ty, cre­at­ing a port­fo­lio of oppor­tu­ni­ties that devel­op at dif­fer­ent paces. Suc­cess with one indus­tri­al enter­prise often cre­ates pos­i­tive momen­tum, accel­er­at­ing dis­cus­sions with oth­ers as the tech­nol­o­gy proves its val­ue in real-world applications. This port­fo­lio approach cre­ates cor­re­spond­ing rev­enue poten­tial increas­ing at each stage. While ear­ly-stage engage­ments might involve mod­est con­sult­ing fees, lat­er stages can deliv­er sub­stan­tial pro­duc­tion contracts. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#success-factors-beyond-technology)Success factors beyond technology It’s cru­cial for high-tech com­pa­nies to have suf­fi­cient finan­cial resources to bridge the devel­op­ment peri­od and the abil­i­ty to adapt to each indus­tri­al enterprise’s process­es. Build­ing trust by deliv­er­ing on promis­es is essential. Tech­ni­cal excel­lence is nec­es­sary but not suf­fi­cient. Inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies must also demon­strate they are reli­able part­ners who can han­dle the demands of each devel­op­ment phase and com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly with indus­tri­al enter­pris­es. The key is being strate­gic, patient, and per­sis­tent while rec­og­niz­ing that tim­ing can vary sig­nif­i­cant­ly based on mar­ket con­di­tions and enter­prise priorities. In our next arti­cle, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg shares how Smoltek Hydro­gen is adapt­ing its devel­op­ment sched­ule to keep pace with where the key poten­tial buy­ers of Smoltek Hydro­gen’s tech­nol­o­gy are in their prod­uct devel­op­ment. Then we’ll explore how tru­ly dis­rup­tive tech­nolo­gies can dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate these tra­di­tion­al time­lines, cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for for­ward-think­ing com­pa­nies to gain a deci­sive mar­ket advantage. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen enables more cost-effective green hydrogen production" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-enables-more-cost-effective-green-hydrogen-production/8385/" date: 2025-04-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ellinor-2024-06-webb.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "Heraeus" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus.md" - name: "Heraeus Precious Metals" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus-precious-metals.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen enables more cost-effective green hydrogen production Smoltek’s Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE) tech­nol­o­gy increas­es avail­able sur­face area 30-fold — while using up to 95% less iridium. The design of Smoltek Hydro­gen’s PTE for PEMWE (PEM elec­trolyz­ers) involves a unique approach where we have devel­oped an enhanced sur­face area that facil­i­tates us to deposit ultra-low lev­els of Irid­i­um cat­a­lyst struc­tures. The designed elec­trodes improve the irid­i­um uti­liza­tion ratio dur­ing water elec­trol­y­sis, which will even­tu­al­ly enhance the elec­trolyz­er per­for­mance and durability. Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, a well-reput­ed mag­a­zine, has noticed our solu­tion and writ­ten an arti­cle about us. Read more: [Nanofibers dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty for ultra-low-irid­i­um elec­trol­y­sis](https://www.chemengonline.com/nanofibers-dramatically-increase-catalytic-activity-for-ultra-low-iridium-electrolysis/?printmode=1). --- title: "Smoltek nears pilot production of CNF-MIM capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-nears-pilot-production-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/8364/" date: 2025-03-25 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2023-03-smoltek-and-itri-01.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "from lab to fab" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/from-lab-to-fab.md" - name: "mass production" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/mass-production.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "pilot plant" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pilot-plant.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek nears pilot production of CNF-MIM capacitors In ear­ly March, Smoltek Semi met with ITRI man­age­ment to final­ize the tech­ni­cal details for the estab­lish­ment of a pilot pro­duc­tion line for Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. The frame­work includes sev­er­al time-bound project blocks, where each step is care­ful­ly planned and eval­u­at­ed to ensure a sta­ble and effi­cient devel­op­ment process. In par­al­lel, the devel­op­ment of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues, where each pro­to­type gen­er­a­tion – cur­rent­ly CNF-MIM Gen-One – is test­ed and improved in mul­ti­ple iter­a­tions to opti­mize performance.  **About ITRI** Taiwan’s Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute (ITRI) is at the fore­front of indus­tri­al­iza­tion of nov­el semi­con­duc­tor devices and com­po­nents and has played a piv­otal role in intro­duc­ing new tech­nolo­gies to the market. * * * *Peo­ple pic­tured in the top pho­to: Qi Li and Chin Jung Kou from Smoltek togeth­er with ITRI.* --- title: "Smoltek and Taiwanese Skytech in demo planning" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-and-taiwanese-skytech-in-demo-planning/8361/" date: 2025-03-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2023-03-smoltek-and-skytech-01.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek and Taiwanese Skytech in demo planning Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) is a key pro­cess­ing step in con­vert­ing the excep­tion­al sur­face to vol­ume ratio offered by car­bon nanofibers to a high capac­i­tance den­si­ty CNF-MIM capac­i­tor. And Skytech is a glob­al provider of state-of-the-art ALD tools, offer­ing excep­tion­al film uni­for­mi­ty, thick­ness con­trol, and mate­r­i­al prop­er­ties that are vital for Smoltek’s CNF-MIM technology. Togeth­er with Skytech, Smoltek Semi is now for plan­ning of test­ing dum­my runs for ALD depo­si­tion of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. These tests are very impor­tant to run to opti­mize the Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) method as well as pre- and post-treat­ments of Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers (CNFs). * * * *Peo­ple pic­tured in the top pho­to: Qi Li and Chin­Jung Kuo from Smoltek togeth­er with Skytech.* --- title: "Capacitors’ capacity for minimizing CO₂ footprint – a small story" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/capacitors-capacity-for-minimizing-co%e2%82%82-footprint-a-small-story/8128/" date: 2025-02-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/grok-solar-power-city-summer.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "advanced chips" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-chips.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "sustainability" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainability.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Capacitors’ capacity for minimizing CO₂ footprint – a small story Capac­i­tors are small, extreme­ly small, ener­gy stor­age com­po­nents. They are small enough to fit around  1,000 of them inside your mobile phone. Their pur­pose is to make the func­tions and fea­tures in mod­ern elec­tron­ic devices work with­out any hic­cups. They are need­ed for pow­er fil­ter­ing, buffer­ing, feed­back com­pen­sa­tion and sta­bi­liz­ing oper­a­tion require­ments of var­i­ous elec­tron­ic circuits. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#miniaturization-drives-technological-advancement)Miniaturization drives technological advancement Inte­gra­tion with 5G and 6G tech­nol­o­gy, grow­ing AI per­for­mance, and all oth­er devel­op­ments in micro­elec­tron­ics are caus­ing the need for these small capac­i­tors to increase in num­ber. In all kinds of devices. And the need for minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors is get­ting even big­ger as the ener­gy tran­si­tion to cut CO2 emis­sion, for a bet­ter social envi­ron­ment, continues. But do the tiny capac­i­tors real­ly have the capac­i­ty to be part of this? Well, it cer­tain­ly seems so just as it takes a drop of water to cre­ate an ocean, or as they say, r the more, the merrier. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#from-tiny-components-to-global-impact)From tiny components to global impact Can capac­i­tors reduce ener­gy con­sump­tion and min­i­mize car­bon foot­prints for soci­ety in general? Absolute­ly. By imple­ment­ing capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy in var­i­ous sec­tors, soci­ety can achieve sig­nif­i­cant ener­gy sav­ings and reduced car­bon foot­prints, con­tribut­ing to a more sus­tain­able and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly future. The envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits of using capac­i­tors in ener­gy-effi­cient sys­tems are sig­nif­i­cant and wide-rang­ing. From ener­gy con­ser­va­tion and renew­able ener­gy inte­gra­tion to volt­age reg­u­la­tion, ener­gy recov­ery, car­bon foot­print reduc­tion, waste reduc­tion, and over­all sys­tem effi­cien­cy, capac­i­tors play a cru­cial role in pro­mot­ing a sus­tain­able ener­gy landscape. > As a Smoltek investor, you’re a part of build­ing it. By embrac­ing the poten­tial of capac­i­tors and inte­grat­ing them into ener­gy-effi­cient sys­tems, they can con­tribute to a green­er and more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly future. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#five-ways-capacitors-contribute-to-sustainability)Five ways capacitors contribute to sustainability Capac­i­tors can reduce ener­gy con­sump­tion and min­i­mize car­bon foot­print in sev­er­al ways: 1. **Effi­cient Ener­gy Stor­age:** They store and release ener­gy quick­ly, reduc­ing waste and improv­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy in elec­tri­cal grids and electronics. 2. **Improved Pow­er Sup­ply:** By sta­bi­liz­ing volt­age fluc­tu­a­tions in elec­tri­cal grids and bat­tery-pow­ered sys­tems, capac­i­tors can reduce ener­gy losses. 3. **Ener­gy-Effi­cient Trans­porta­tion:** Used in hybrid and elec­tric vehi­cles to recov­er brak­ing ener­gy and improve bat­tery life. 4. **Renew­able Ener­gy:** Capac­i­tors help smooth out inter­mit­ten­cy in solar and wind pow­er sys­tems, increas­ing their reli­a­bil­i­ty and utilization. **Reduced Elec­tron­ics Con­sump­tion:** Use in ener­gy-effi­cient LED lights and pow­er sup­plies reduces elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion in homes and industries. ![The role of capacitors in modern smartphones](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/grok-capacitors-in-smartphones-01.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#revolutionary-cnf-mim-technology)Revolutionary CNF-MIM technology One type of all minia­tur­ized capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies is called *CNF-MIM*, or *Car­bon Nano Fiber-Met­al Insu­la­tor Met­al*. It is short for a car­bon fiber-based capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, built atom by atom, that has the advan­tage of com­bin­ing a very high capac­i­tance den­si­ty (good for the capac­i­tor’s per­for­mance) and an extreme­ly small form factor. This tech­nol­o­gy also has the advan­tage of being built on top of the sub­strate, by adding mate­r­i­al for achiev­ing high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, instead of dig­ging deep trench­es in the sub­strate for the same pur­pose, mak­ing the capac­i­tor either too thick or very brittle. The poten­tial of CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy has been high­light­ed in [an inter­view with Dr. Philip Less­ner](https://www.smoltek.com/yageo-highlights-unique-advantages-of-smolteks-technology/8008/). His assess­ment acknowl­edged the ground­break­ing capa­bil­i­ties of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. This expert val­i­da­tion under­scores the industry’s grow­ing inter­est in addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing and the rev­o­lu­tion­ary poten­tial of CNF-MIM technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-future-of-electronics-and-sustainability)The future of electronics and sustainability And as the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try con­tin­ues its pur­suit of minia­tur­iza­tion and enhanced per­for­mance, the demand for high-per­form­ing capac­i­tors will only inten­si­fy. CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy not only meets these cur­rent chal­lenges, but also pro­vides a clear path­way for future advance­ments. It’s not just a tem­po­rary solu­tion but a long-term answer to one of the most press­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the elec­tron­ics industry. CNF-MIM isn’t just about bet­ter capac­i­tors; it’s about the future of elec­tron­ics.  As a Smoltek investor, you’re a part of build­ing it.Want to learn more about the extreme­ly small and ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tor? [Go here!](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/) --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen Partners with Heraeus to Boost Iridium Efficiency in PEM Electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-partners-with-heraeus-to-boost-iridium-efficiency-in-pem-electrolyzers/8170/" date: 2025-02-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "Heraeus" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus.md" - name: "Heraeus Precious Metals" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heraeus-precious-metals.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "iridium efficiency" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/iridium-efficiency.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen Partners with Heraeus to Boost Iridium Efficiency in PEM Electrolyzers Smoltek Hydro­gen, spe­cial­iz­ing in inno­v­a­tive solu­tions based on car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy, and Her­aeus Pre­cious Met­als, a glob­al leader in pre­cious met­al solu­tions, have signed a term sheet on a strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion on advanced irid­i­um-based cat­a­lyst solu­tions for pro­ton exchange mem­brane (PEM) elec­trolyz­ers.   This col­lab­o­ra­tion marks a sig­nif­i­cant step toward devel­op­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­er tech­nol­o­gy, sup­port­ing the glob­al ener­gy tran­si­tion with scal­able and sus­tain­able solutions. **Boost­ing the func­tion­al effi­cien­cy of PTEs for next-gen PEMWEs** > By com­bin­ing our nanos­truc­ture tech­nol­o­gy with Her­aeus’ exper­tise in advanced cat­a­lyst for­mu­la­tions, we aim to fur­ther push the lim­its of irid­i­um effi­cien­cy in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, paving the way for cost-effec­tive green hydro­gen production. > > *Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen* The coop­er­a­tion part­ners will com­bine their knowl­edge to advance the func­tion­al of porous trans­port elec­trodes (PTEs), rep­re­sent­ing the next gen­er­a­tion elec­trodes for PEM electrolyzers. > Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Smoltek Hydro­gen allows us to com­bine their inno­va­tion speed with our indus­tri­al expe­ri­ence and scale. Togeth­er, we aim to achieve a sig­nif­i­cant leap in cat­a­lyst effi­cien­cy and pro­vide solu­tions that meet the needs of a grow­ing hydro­gen market. > > *Philipp Wal­ter, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Busi­ness Line Hydro­gen Sys­tems, Her­aeus Pre­cious Metals* ![Smoltek's PTE With NanoFibers.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/pte-with-fibers-illustration.webp) Smoltek’s Nanos­truc­tured Low Irid­i­um-Load PTE **Strong syn­er­gies** The part­ner­ship reflects the strong syn­er­gies between Her­aeus’ glob­al indus­tri­al exper­tise and Smoltek’s inno­v­a­tive solu­tions based on car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy. It also high­lights the increas­ing impor­tance of reduc­ing irid­i­um depen­den­cy in the hydro­gen indus­try, as glob­al demand for PEM elec­trolyz­ers con­tin­ues to rise.. > Her­aeus’ unique low-irid­i­um cat­a­lyst solu­tions have made them known as the tech­nol­o­gy leader by every­one in the PEM elec­trol­y­sis busi­ness. Plac­ing this on our nanofibers, which also are designed for ultra-low irid­i­um con­tent, should be a break­through cre­at­ing echoes in the whole industry. > > *Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen* Read the [offi­cial press release of this news](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-enters-into-strategic-collaboration-with-heraeus-to-redefine-iridium-efficiency-in-,c4103035)[.](https://news.cision.com/se/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-hydrogen-och-heraeus-inleder-strategiskt-samarbete-for-att-producera-mer-vatgas-per-gram-iri,c4103024) --- title: "Smoltek has been awarded another patent for the CNF-MIM technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-awarded-another-patent-for-the-cnf-mim-technology/8155/" date: 2025-02-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/patent-94-discrete-cnf-mim-india-2.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has been awarded another patent for the CNF-MIM technology Smoltek’s new­ly approved patent in India is the sixth for the Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly, dis­clos­ing our dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy that uses car­bon nanofibers to cre­ate minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors with very high capacity. > *This patent fur­ther strength­ens our posi­tion in advanced capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy as the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try moves toward ultra-thin capac­i­tors for tighter inte­gra­tion with elec­tron­ic com­po­nents with large pow­er con­sump­tion footprint.* > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The Dis­crete CNF-MIM patents dis­close an ultra-thin capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that could achieve extreme­ly high capac­i­tance den­si­ties thanks to unpar­al­leled sur­face den­si­ty pro­vid­ed by car­bon nanofibers. Such a tech­nol­o­gy enables advanced inte­gra­tion method­olo­gies bring­ing the capac­i­tors in the pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work as close as pos­si­ble to the proces­sors, which is cru­cial in areas like Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI), Inter­net of Things (IoT), wear­able devices, and high-per­for­mance computing. ![Discrete CNF-MIM patent US20220013305a1](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/us20220013305a1.webp) Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 94 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE could be a game changer for green hydrogen production" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogens-pte-could-be-a-game-changer-for-green-hydrogen-production/11180/" date: 2025-01-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/smoltek-hydrogn-what.webp" categories: - name: "Media mentions" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/media-mentions.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "porous transport electrode" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/porous-transport-electrode.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE could be a game changer for green hydrogen production Smoltek Hydro­gen’s break­through in reduc­ing irid­i­um usage in PEM elec­trolyz­ers is a mon­u­men­tal step for­ward for the hydro­gen indus­try. This inno­va­tion address­es a crit­i­cal bar­ri­er to large-scale hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, posi­tion­ing Smoltek as a leader in the field, states Parsers Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Insights.  **Tech­no­log­i­cal back­ground:** The inno­va­tion stems from Smoltek’s nanofiber-based Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE) archi­tec­ture, which expands cat­alyt­ic sur­face area by 30×, allow­ing near­ly all irid­i­um atoms to active­ly par­tic­i­pate in the reac­tion, enabling very low loading.  * * * *Read the full arti­cle:* [Smoltek’s Break­through in Hydro­gen Pro­duc­tion: A Game Chang­er for the Industry](https://parsers.vc/news/250122-smoltek-s-breakthrough-in-hydrogen/) --- title: "Smoltek has been awarded another patent for improving capacitor density" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-awarded-another-patent-for-improving-capacitor-density/8113/" date: 2025-01-21 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pat-no-93-illustration-3.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has been awarded another patent for improving capacitor density The Mul­ti­lay­er Cap patent fam­i­ly details an inven­tion for a lay­ered ener­gy stor­age device, specif­i­cal­ly a capac­i­tor, built using a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) configuration. This is the sec­ond grant­ed patent in this fam­i­ly and the inno­va­tion dis­clos­es a CNF (car­bon nanofiber) based mul­ti­lay­er MIM struc­ture in which elec­trodes and dielectrics are deposit­ed one after anoth­er. This is a tech­nique that has poten­tial to great­ly increase the capac­i­tance den­si­ty and hence is con­sid­ered impor­tant for Smoltek busi­ness and technology. > Capac­i­tance den­si­ty is a key per­for­mance indi­ca­tor of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. In this patent fam­i­ly, we intro­duce an inno­v­a­tive mul­ti-lay­er struc­ture that can dou­ble or triple the capac­i­tance density. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The Mul­ti­lay­er Cap patent appli­ca­tion includes two inde­pen­dent claims: A device claim, that describes the stacked mul­ti­lay­er capac­i­tor struc­ture hav­ing alter­nat­ing con­duc­tor-insu­la­tor lay­ers. And a method claim, describ­ing the fab­ri­ca­tion of such device with con­for­mal coat­ing on the CNFs. ![Pat No 93 Illustration](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/pat-no-93-illustration.webp) Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 93 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek’s low-iridium PTE reach target of 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-low-iridium-pte-reach-target-of-0-1-mg-iridium-cm2/8105/" date: 2025-01-16 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek’s low-iridium PTE reach target of 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2 Smoltek has devel­oped a porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) that reduces the amount of irid­i­um cat­a­lysts in PEM elec­trolyz­ers to a min­i­mal 0.1 mg/​cm2, thus reach­ing the lev­el that is con­sid­ered to make large-scale pro­duc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­ers profitable. **0.1 mg irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter – a tech­no­log­i­cal breakthrough** > We are the only ones to pro­duce hydro­gen with only 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2 with­out com­pro­mis­ing cell per­for­mance. We have thus solved one of the hydro­gen indus­try’s biggest tech­ni­cal chal­lenges – the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of irid­i­um, which has so far been an obsta­cle to large-scale pro­duc­tion of PEM electrolyzers. > > *Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen* In addi­tion to the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of the scarce pre­cious met­al (glob­al sup­ply only 9 tons/​year), the high costs of irid­i­um have also been a source of lim­it­ed invest­ment will­ing­ness for PEM electrolyzers. **250-hour dura­bil­i­ty shows same result as 1,000-hour test 2024** In a recent dura­bil­i­ty test over 250 hours of con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion (at 2 A/​cm2), Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE pro­duced hydro­gen with a cat­a­lyst load­ing of only 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2 – with­out any degra­da­tion of the nanos­truc­ture of the elec­trolyz­er cell. The test results demon­strate that the company’s anode elec­trode tech­nol­o­gy is durable and effi­cient, while reduc­ing irid­i­um usage by 95 per­cent com­pared to con­ven­tion­al technology. > This test showed the same results as the [1,000-hour dura­bil­i­ty test](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-successfully-completed-a-long-term-electrolyzer-cell-test/7065/ "Smoltek Hydrogen has successfully completed a long-term electrolyzer cell test") we car­ried out in April 2024, but now with half the amount of irid­i­um. When we saw that the cell per­for­mance was equiv­a­lent at both 0.1 mg and 0.2 mg irid­i­um, we chose to dis­con­tin­ue the test and focus devel­op­ment on oth­er parts of the PTE tech­nol­o­gy for the next longer dura­bil­i­ty test. > > *Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D at Smoltek Hydrogen* **Smoltek’s PTE is mak­ing a mark in the hydro­gen indus­try** Smoltek Hydrogen’s nanos­truc­ture for PTE has been devel­oped in record time. The first pro­to­types with 0.5 mg iridium/​cm2 began seri­ous test­ing in 2023. The results showed that fur­ther research into how Smoltek’s nanos­truc­tures can be con­fig­ured to sur­vive in the harsh elec­tro­chem­i­cal envi­ron­ment of an elec­trolyz­er cell could make it pos­si­ble to reach down to 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2. High irid­i­um usage has long been a major tech­ni­cal chal­lenge for the rapid­ly grow­ing green hydro­gen indus­try pro­duced from inter­mit­tent ener­gy sources such as solar and wind pow­er, as today’s con­ven­tion­al PEM elec­trolyz­ers use around 2.0 mg iridium/​cm2. The results from last year’s reli­a­bil­i­ty test with 0.2 mg iridium/​cm2 made a big impres­sion in the hydro­gen indus­try, and the com­pa­ny received inquiries from sev­er­al poten­tial cus­tomers who expressed inter­est in con­duct­ing their own tests of the technology. > Our tech­nol­o­gy is expect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the costs of pro­duc­ing PEM cells. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the will­ing­ness to invest in PEM elec­trolyz­ers has been lim­it­ed by high costs for, among oth­er things, irid­i­um, but now we have proven that we have a solu­tion to this chal­lenge and are well pre­pared for the major growth that is now being scaled up globally. > > *Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen* Read the [offi­cial press release of this news](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-produces-hydrogen-with-only-0-1-mg-of-iridium-per-square-centimeter---a-breakthrough-technol,c4092284). --- title: "The last crusade for 0.1 mg iridium" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/the-last-crusade-for-0-1-mg-iridium/8089/" date: 2025-01-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the-last-crusade-for-01-mg-iridium.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # The last crusade for 0.1 mg iridium Two mil­ligrams. That’s all it takes for con­ven­tion­al PEM elec­trolyz­ers to con­vert water into hydro­gen gas. Two mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter of electrolyzer’s mem­brane, that is. That doesn’t sound like much. But it costs more than is eco­nom­i­cal­ly jus­ti­fi­able, and it’s more than is avail­able if the promis­es of politi­cians and self-pro­claimed experts about green hydro­gen are to be ful­filled. This is why researchers are pulling out their last gray hairs in pure frus­tra­tion as they fever­ish­ly try to reduce the irid­i­um require­ment by 95% – to 0.1 mg/​cm². Achiev­ing this goal is the holy grail of the hydro­gen indus­try. You could read about it in our arti­cle [*Unlock­ing the green hydro­gen econ­o­my*](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/unlocking-the-green-hydrogen-economy/8085).  But how is it going? We’re going to find out. But first, a quick primer on how an elec­trolyz­er works. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#proton-exchange-membrane-pem)Proton exchange membrane (PEM) PEM elec­trolyz­ers are so named because they have a *pro­ton exchange mem­brane* (*PEM*) at the cen­ter of each elec­trol­y­sis cell. As the name implies, the mem­brane allows pro­tons to pass through. As you may remem­ber from high school, a free pro­ton is noth­ing more than a hydro­gen ion. Hydro­gen is made up of a pro­ton and an elec­tron. Remove the elec­tron and you get a hydro­gen ion, which is a pro­ton. The mem­brane allows these to pass freely from one side to the oth­er while block­ing the elec­trons. This is the key to how PEM elec­trolyz­ers work. On one side of the mem­brane is an elec­trode that is con­nect­ed to the pos­i­tive ter­mi­nal of a pow­er source. This side is called the *anode*. On the oth­er side of the mem­brane is anoth­er elec­trode con­nect­ed to the neg­a­tive ter­mi­nal of the same pow­er source. This side is called the *cath­ode*. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#porous-transport-layer-ptl)Porous transport layer (PTL) Both the anode and cath­ode are made of a porous, elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive material. They must be elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive to allow the pow­er source and the elec­trolyz­er to form an elec­tri­cal cir­cuit through which cur­rent can flow. They must also be porous to allow water to flow past them and the hydro­gen and oxy­gen gas formed to escape. Both are referred to as *gas dif­fu­sion lay­er* (*GDL*) or *porous trans­port lay­er* (*PTL*). We pre­fer the lat­ter name, since they not only allow gas to dif­fuse, but also water to flow. On the cath­ode side, where hydro­gen is formed when hydro­gen ions com­bine with elec­trons from the pow­er source to form hydro­gen gas (H₂), a lay­er made of car­bon fibers serves as the PTL. On the anode side, where oxy­gen is formed, a pla­tinized tita­ni­um sin­tered lay­er is used. Car­bon can­not be used because it would imme­di­ate­ly react with the oxy­gen to form car­bon diox­ide. And we don’t want car­bon­at­ed water! Tita­ni­um is more resis­tant to the aggres­sive envi­ron­ment, and the plat­inum pro­tects it and pro­vides bet­ter elec­tri­cal conductivity. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolysis-cell)Electrolysis cell The mem­brane is placed between the two trans­port lay­ers. When cur­rent is applied across the two elec­trodes, water flow­ing past the anode is split into hydro­gen ions and oxy­gen. The oxy­gen escapes through the PTL of the anode, while the hydro­gen ions, which are pro­tons, migrate through the mem­brane to the cath­ode side, where they com­bine with elec­trons (cur­rent is free elec­trons) to form hydro­gen gas, which escapes through the PTL of the cathode. To dis­trib­ute water and elec­tric­i­ty and to evac­u­ate oxy­gen and hydro­gen gas, a *bipo­lar plate* (*BPL*) with chan­nels for water and gas trans­port and elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions is mount­ed direct­ly on the out­side of each PTL. Togeth­er, the mem­brane, both PTLs and both BPLs form an *elec­trol­y­sis cell*. Two cells can be con­nect­ed in series by using one bipo­lar plate for both. It serves as the anode side for one and the cath­ode side for the oth­er. That’s why it’s called bipo­lar; it’s the pos­i­tive ter­mi­nal for one side and the neg­a­tive ter­mi­nal for the oth­er. In this way, sev­er­al elec­trolyz­er cells can be con­nect­ed in series to form an *elec­trolyz­er stack*. An elec­trolyz­er plant typ­i­cal­ly con­sists of sev­er­al elec­trolyz­er stacks. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#iridium-to-the-rescue)Iridium to the rescue Is that all? No. We need a dash of irid­i­um as well. With­out the nobel met­al, the reac­tion is unbear­ably slow. Only small amounts of hydro­gen and oxy­gen gas are produced. To speed up the process, the water mol­e­cules need irid­i­um, or more specif­i­cal­ly irid­i­um oxide, to ”hold on to” as they split. The mere pres­ence of this pre­cious met­al speeds up the process con­sid­er­ably. It doesn’t con­sume itself, it’s only a cat­a­lyst for the reaction. Plat­inum is used on the cath­ode side for the same reason. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#triple-phase-boundary)Triple phase boundary For each irid­i­um atom to per­form its mag­ic trick, it must be in con­tact with the anode, the water, and the mem­brane. All at the same time. This is called hav­ing a *triple phase bound­ary* or *three phase bound­ary*. And achiev­ing this is one of the biggest chal­lenges in design­ing elec­trode struc­tures for PEM electrolyzers. The con­ven­tion­al solu­tion is to mix irid­i­um oxide with a sol­vent to form a slur­ry, which is then used to ”paint” the anode side of the membrane. The irid­i­um atoms on the out­er­most sur­face of the paint lay­er are active as cat­a­lysts. But many more irid­i­um atoms are inac­tive; they don’t get a triple phase bound­ary because they are inside the paint lay­er. They are pure waste of the extreme­ly rare and expen­sive metal. But you can’t paint too thin. The paint will crack and form islands of irid­i­um atoms that don’t have elec­tri­cal con­tact. The lay­er of ”irid­i­um paint” must be 5–10 microns thick to work, and then it typ­i­cal­ly requires 2 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter of membrane. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-big-challenge-for-the-hydrogen-industry)The big challenge for the hydrogen industry But, as those of you who have read our arti­cle [*Unlock­ing the green hydro­gen econ­o­my*](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/unlocking-the-green-hydrogen-economy/8085) know, 2 mg/​cm2 is not sus­tain­able either eco­nom­i­cal­ly or in terms of resources. A sus­tain­able lev­el is 0.1 mg/​cm2 – a 95 % reduc­tion from today’s lev­el. Get­ting there is the big chal­lenge for the hydro­gen industry. A chal­lenge that Smoltek has tak­en on. But before we take a clos­er look at our solu­tion, let’s exam­ine oth­er avenues that have been explored. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#composite-anode)Composite anode The com­pos­ite anode tech­nique is basi­cal­ly the same idea as the one already used. How­ev­er, most of the irid­i­um is replaced with plat­inum black – a fine pow­der of plat­inum. It doesn’t act as a cat­a­lyst, but as a con­duc­tor between the islands of few irid­i­um atoms on the surface. This method has shown the abil­i­ty to reduce irid­i­um use by up to 80 %, but the fun­da­men­tal struc­ture makes it dif­fi­cult to go below 0.5 mg/​cm² with­out los­ing per­for­mance. In addi­tion, the increased use of oth­er pre­cious met­als increas­es the over­all cost, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to achieve an eco­nom­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able solution. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#core-shell-structures)Core-shell structures Core-shell struc­tures are based on cre­at­ing nanopar­ti­cles with a core of a cheap­er mate­r­i­al, such as ruthe­ni­um or nick­el, and a thin shell of irid­i­um oxide. This design allows the amount of irid­i­um to be dras­ti­cal­ly reduced, because only the shell needs to be made of the expen­sive metal. A triple phase bound­ary is cre­at­ed because the irid­i­um oxide in the shell is in direct con­tact with both the elec­trolyte and the elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive core mate­r­i­al. The most promis­ing attempts have achieved an 85% reduc­tion in irid­i­um use. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, core-shell struc­tures have proven dif­fi­cult to man­u­fac­ture on an indus­tri­al scale. The process is com­plex and requires care­ful con­trol of the syn­the­sis to ensure uni­form dis­tri­b­u­tion of the shell. In addi­tion, there are sta­bil­i­ty issues where the core mate­r­i­al can leak out over time in the acidic envi­ron­ment. This means that despite promis­ing results in the lab, the tech­nol­o­gy is unlike­ly to reach the 0.1 mg/​cm² goal in com­mer­cial production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#manganese-iridium-composites)Manganese-iridium composites Man­ganese-irid­i­um com­pos­ites are some­what like core-shell struc­tures, but now man­ganese oxide is used as the core, and there is no shell of irid­i­um, but indi­vid­ual atoms scat­tered over the entire sur­face, max­i­miz­ing the uti­liza­tion of each irid­i­um atom while tak­ing advan­tage of the sta­bil­i­ty of man­ganese oxide in acidic environments. A triple phase bound­ary is cre­at­ed because the irid­i­um atoms are per­fect­ly exposed on the man­ganese oxide sur­face, pro­vid­ing direct con­tact with both the elec­trolyte and the con­duc­tive substrate. Although the tech­nol­o­gy has shown impres­sive results with up to 95% reduc­tion in irid­i­um con­sump­tion in lab­o­ra­to­ry set­tings, there are sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges to indus­tri­al imple­men­ta­tion. The com­plex syn­the­sis process is dif­fi­cult to scale up, and there are ques­tions about the long-term sta­bil­i­ty of these atom­i­cal­ly dis­persed cat­a­lysts under real­is­tic oper­at­ing conditions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nanostructured-thin-films)Nanostructured thin films Nanos­truc­tured Thin Films (NSTF) use a tech­nique in which irid­i­um oxide is deposit­ed in extreme­ly thin lay­ers on crys­talline organ­ic whiskers. These whiskers, made of a spe­cial organ­ic pig­ment, cre­ate sub­mi­cron sup­port struc­tures that allow for a very effi­cient cat­a­lyst arrange­ment in which almost all of the irid­i­um atoms can par­tic­i­pate in the reaction. The triple phase bound­ary is opti­mized by the large avail­able sur­face area of the whisker struc­tures and the direct con­tact between cat­a­lyst, elec­trolyte and con­duc­tive sub­strate, while the crys­talline nature of the whiskers pro­vides excep­tion­al cor­ro­sion resistance. While NSTF tech­nol­o­gy is ele­gant in the­o­ry, its prac­ti­cal imple­men­ta­tion has proven prob­lem­at­ic. The man­u­fac­tur­ing process is del­i­cate and dif­fi­cult to scale up. In addi­tion, the films have proven to be sen­si­tive to mechan­i­cal stress and can delam­i­nate dur­ing oper­a­tion. This means that despite its poten­tial, the tech­nol­o­gy prob­a­bly won’t be able to deliv­er sta­ble per­for­mance at 0.1 mg/​cm² on an indus­tri­al scale. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nanoprinting-technology)Nanoprinting technology Nanoprint­ing uses an advanced print­ing process to cre­ate extreme­ly small (2 nm) irid­i­um par­ti­cles that are print­ed direct­ly onto the mem­brane sur­face. The tech­nol­o­gy allows for opti­mal irid­i­um uti­liza­tion by ensur­ing that each par­ti­cle is avail­able for catal­y­sis while main­tain­ing direct con­tact with the pro­ton-con­duct­ing membrane. The triple phase bound­ary is opti­mized by the pre­cise place­ment of the par­ti­cles on the mem­brane and their min­i­mal size, ensur­ing each par­ti­cle has both elec­tri­cal con­tact and access to water. While the tech­nol­o­gy has shown promis­ing results with a fac­tor of 10 reduc­tion in irid­i­um usage, there are still chal­lenges with scal­a­bil­i­ty and cost. The advanced equip­ment and pre­cise process para­me­ters make it dif­fi­cult to achieve cost-effec­tive mass pro­duc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­ers at 0.1 mg/​cm². ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-solution)Smoltek’s solution Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy uses ver­ti­cal­ly ori­ent­ed car­bon nanofibers coat­ed with an ultra-thin lay­er of plat­inum on which irid­i­um atoms are placed. This cre­ates a unique struc­ture where each nanofiber acts as a ”stick” to which the cat­a­lyst can attach. The triple phase bound­ary is opti­mized because the irid­i­um is on the sur­face of the elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive nanofibers, which are per­fect­ly inte­grat­ed into the membrane. This approach has already demon­strat­ed sta­ble oper­a­tion with as lit­tle as 0.2 mg/​cm² of irid­i­um and shows great poten­tial to reach the tar­get of 0.1 mg/​cm². The sim­ple but ele­gant solu­tion is also well suit­ed for indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion. The nanofibers can be pro­duced using proven CVD tech­nol­o­gy, and the sub­se­quent met­al coat­ing is a well-known process. Smoltek’s suc­cess­ful 1,000 hour test shows that the tech­nol­o­gy is ready for scale-up to indus­tri­al production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-winning-technology-emerges)The winning technology emerges Look­ing at the dif­fer­ent approach­es to reduc­ing irid­i­um con­tent in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, a clear pat­tern emerges. While sev­er­al tech­nolo­gies show promise in lab­o­ra­to­ry set­tings, most face sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles in scal­ing up to indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion. The key to suc­cess lies not just in achiev­ing the 0.1 mg/​cm² tar­get, but in doing so with a tech­nol­o­gy that can be reli­ably man­u­fac­tured at scale. Smoltek’s solu­tion rep­re­sents one promis­ing path for­ward. Our approach using car­bon nanofibers has already demon­strat­ed sta­ble oper­a­tion at 0.2 mg/​cm² in demand­ing 1,000-hour tests. By bas­ing our inno­va­tion on estab­lished man­u­fac­tur­ing meth­ods like PECVD, we’ve pri­or­i­tized indus­tri­al scal­a­bil­i­ty from the start – because a break­through tech­nol­o­gy only mat­ters if it can reach the market. And now, after two decades of research and devel­op­ment, this cru­sade for the holy grail of green hydro­gen is draw­ing to a close. The 0.1 mg/​cm² mile­stone is with­in reach. --- title: "Unlocking the green hydrogen economy" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/unlocking-the-green-hydrogen-economy/8085/" date: 2025-01-15 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/unlocking-green-hydrogen-economy.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "greentech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greentech.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogeneconomy" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogeneconomy.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Unlocking the green hydrogen economy Green hydro­gen is a promis­ing solu­tion for decar­boniz­ing indus­tri­al process­es, but high pro­duc­tion costs are hold­ing back devel­op­ment. A key bot­tle­neck is the reliance on the pre­cious met­al irid­i­um in the elec­trol­y­sis. To make the tech­nol­o­gy eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable, irid­i­um use must be reduced to 0.1 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter – a tech­ni­cal chal­lenge that could deter­mine the future of hydro­gen as an ener­gy carrier. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrogen-is-vital-to-industry)**Hydrogen is vital to industry** Hydro­gen is not only the sim­plest and most abun­dant ele­ment in the uni­verse, it is also a fun­da­men­tal part of our indus­tri­al econ­o­my. Glob­al demand is approx­i­mate­ly 95 mil­lion tons per year, with indus­tri­al process­es account­ing for more than 99 % of consumption. In the petro­chem­i­cal indus­try, hydro­gen is essen­tial for desul­fu­r­iza­tion and hydro­c­rack­ing in oil refin­ing. The chem­i­cal indus­try relies on hydro­gen to pro­duce ammo­nia for fer­til­iz­er – a process that lit­er­al­ly feeds half the world’s pop­u­la­tion. Methanol pro­duc­tion, anoth­er major hydro­gen con­sumer, pro­vides indus­try with chem­i­cal build­ing blocks for count­less every­day products. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#low-cost-but-high-price)**Low cost but high price** Less than 1 % of all hydro­gen is pro­duced by elec­trol­y­sis using elec­tric­i­ty from renew­able sources or nuclear pow­er. This low fig­ure is due to the fact that hydro­gen pro­duced in this way is 2–5 times more expen­sive than hydro­gen pro­duced from fos­sil fuels. As a result, 96 % of all hydro­gen is pro­duced direct­ly or indi­rect­ly from nat­ur­al gas, oil and coal, at low eco­nom­ic cost and a sky-high price for the cli­mate. For every kilo­gram of hydro­gen pro­duced today, up to ten kilo­grams of car­bon diox­ide are released direct­ly into the atmosphere. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the cli­mate cost pales in com­par­i­son to the pro­duc­tion price. If the indus­try is to switch to green hydro­gen – hydro­gen pro­duced by elec­trol­y­sis of water using elec­tric­i­ty from renew­able sources – the cost must come down to the same low price as its dirt­i­er cousins: gray, brown and black hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-needs-and-environmental-impacts)**Future needs and environmental impacts** Hydro­gen is one of the key means to achieve Net Zero Emis­sions (NZE). In addi­tion to being a raw mate­r­i­al for indus­try, as it is today, hydro­gen will per­form two func­tions that are essen­tial for reduc­ing CO2 emissions: - Hydro­gen is one of the few solu­tions to reduce emis­sions in sec­tors where direct elec­tri­fi­ca­tion is dif­fi­cult or impos­si­ble (steel, cement, chem­i­cals, long-dis­tance trans­port, ship­ping and aviation). - Hydro­gen can store ener­gy from renew­able sources for sea­son­al stor­age, con­tribute to grid sta­bil­i­ty and be trans­port­ed between regions. In this way, hydro­gen can con­tribute 10 % of the emis­sions reduc­tions need­ed to meet the tar­get of no more than a 1.5 °C increase in glob­al warm­ing. But this will require much more hydro­gen than today – and it will have to be low-emis­sion hydro­gen – hydro­gen pro­duced by elec­trol­y­sis with green elec­tric­i­ty, from bio­mass, or from fos­sil fuels where car­bon diox­ide is cap­tured and stored. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#huge-market-potential-with-obstacles)**Huge market potential with obstacles** In an NZE sce­nario for 2050, the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency (IEA) has cal­cu­lat­ed that today’s hydro­gen pro­duc­tion will have to dou­ble by 2030 and increase six­fold by 2050, with 98 % being low-emis­sion hydro­gen. The IEA expects that 76 % of all hydro­gen, or 327 out of 430 mega­tons, will be pro­duced by electrolyzers. There is lit­tle doubt that the mar­ket for elec­trolyz­ers could explode in the com­ing years. But… This assumes that hydro­gen pro­duced in an elec­trolyz­er becomes com­pet­i­tive with hydro­gen pro­duced from fos­sil fuels. The price of green hydro­gen must there­fore be reduced by 50 to 80 %. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-achilles-heel-of-electrolyzers)**The Achilles heel of electrolyzers** So what makes hydro­gen made from cheap water and elec­tric­i­ty more expen­sive than hydro­gen made from expen­sive nat­ur­al gas, oil and coal? The root cause is the cost of build­ing a PEM elec­trolyz­er. More pre­cise­ly, one cru­cial mate­r­i­al dri­ves this cost: iridium. This pre­cious met­al is essen­tial for split­ting water (H2O) into hydro­gen (H2) and oxy­gen (O2). It is used on the oxy­gen-pro­duc­ing side of the mem­brane that sep­a­rates the oxy­gen and hydro­gen pro­duc­tion sides. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#climate-transition-hampered-by-expensive-metal)**Climate transition hampered by expensive metal** Irid­i­um is one of the rarest ele­ments in the earth’s crust. 90 % comes from South Africa and Zim­bab­we, with the remain­ing pro­duc­tion com­ing from Rus­sia and North Amer­i­ca. It is so rare that it is not eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable to mine irid­i­um specif­i­cal­ly. Instead, it is extract­ed as a by-prod­uct of plat­inum and nick­el mining. The glob­al sup­ply of irid­i­um is and will remain very lim­it­ed – only 7–8 tons are pro­duced annu­al­ly.[1](https://www.smoltek.com#87a919f9-25db-48e7-a2e0-3b2431724baa) This makes it one of the most expen­sive met­als in the world, 2–3 times more expen­sive than gold. It doesn’t take much irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter of mem­brane to pow­er the process – just 2 mil­ligrams. Yet the met­al accounts for 20–25 % of the cost of the plant. And the prof­it from large-scale oper­a­tion is neg­li­gi­ble because the mem­brane sur­face area increas­es in pro­por­tion to the num­ber of megawatts the plant must handle. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-holy-grail-of-the-hydrogen-industry)**The holy grail of the hydrogen industry** Irid­i­um is a must. Irid­i­um is expen­sive. And the price is not going down – in fact, it is going up as demand increas­es. So what is the solution? Use less iridium! Tiny 2 mil­ligrams may not sound like much. But it’s a huge amount com­pared to what’s need­ed to pow­er the process. In the­o­ry, an atom-thin lay­er of irid­i­um is enough to make hydro­gen. But much more is used. This is due to mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing challenges. But if green hydro­gen is to be com­pet­i­tive with dirty hydro­gen, the amount of irid­i­um used must be sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced. There are already elec­trolyz­ers that use half the amount, and in the lab they have man­aged to halve it again. But that is not enough. To be com­pet­i­tive, the amount of irid­i­um must be reduced by 95 per­cent – to 0.1 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter. This is the holy grail of the hydro­gen industry. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-math-behind-the-goal)**The math behind the goal** When you break down the num­bers, it becomes clear why 0.1 mg/​cm² is the holy grail. At today’s depo­si­tion rates of 1–2 mg/​cm², one gigawatt of elec­trolyz­er capac­i­ty requires about 400 kg of irid­i­um – a stag­ger­ing 5 % of the world’s annu­al pro­duc­tion. At an irid­i­um price of about 150,000 USD per kilo­gram,[2](https://www.smoltek.com#7906a44c-7e97-48a1-830e-e8d2326939db) the cat­a­lyst cost alone for such a plant is 60 mil­lion USD. A reduc­tion to 0.1 mg/​cm² would reduce this cost to 6 mil­lion USD – a dra­mat­ic dif­fer­ence that fun­da­men­tal­ly changes the cal­cu­lus for large-scale hydro­gen projects. From a sup­ply chain per­spec­tive, 0.1 mg/​cm² is even more crit­i­cal. With today’s tech­nol­o­gy at 1–2 mg/​cm², the use of elec­trolyz­ers would quick­ly con­sume more irid­i­um than is avail­able, and prices would sky­rock­et. At 0.1 mg/​cm², the equa­tion is very dif­fer­ent. Less than 30 kg of irid­i­um would be required to build one gigawatt of elec­trolyz­er capac­i­ty. Annu­al irid­i­um pro­duc­tion, along with recy­cling of spent cat­a­lysts, would be more than enough to meet the 2050 tar­gets – while meet­ing the needs of oth­er crit­i­cal industries. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-technological-revolution-within-reach)**A technological revolution within reach** For over twen­ty years, we have devel­oped a unique capa­bil­i­ty to pre­cise­ly grow elec­tri­cal­ly con­nect­ed car­bon nanofibers. Our busi­ness idea is to use this capa­bil­i­ty to solve com­plex mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing chal­lenges in whol­ly owned sub­sidiaries. When we rec­og­nized the hydro­gen industry’s chal­lenge to reduce irid­i­um usage to 0.1 mg/​cm², it was nat­ur­al to cre­ate Smoltek Hydro­gen to find the Holy Grail. Now we are very close. --- title: "Deep Trench Capacitors (DTC) is a dead end – CNF-MIM is the way forward" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/deep-trench-capacitors-dtc-is-a-dead-end-cnf-mim-is-the-way-forward/8078/" date: 2025-01-09 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/scientist-seated-in-the-cab-of-a-miniature-excavator-on-a-silicon-chip.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "deep trench capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deep-trench-capacitors.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Deep Trench Capacitors (DTC) is a dead end – CNF-MIM is the way forward Think about the smart­phone in your pock­et. It’s a mar­vel of engi­neer­ing, packed with incred­i­ble com­put­ing pow­er, all thanks to a myr­i­ad of tiny com­po­nents. Among these unsung heroes are capac­i­tors, which store and release elec­tri­cal ener­gy to keep every­thing run­ning smooth­ly. But the indus­try is nev­er sat­is­fied, always want­i­ng more capac­i­tance in less space. This has led to a race to find new capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies. For a while, the deep trench capac­i­tor (DTC) tech­nol­o­gy looked promis­ing. But now they are approach­ing the lim­its of what physics will allow, and the indus­try is still not sat­is­fied. For­tu­nate­ly, a new con­tender has emerged: car­bon nanofiber met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tors. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors don’t have the inher­ent lim­i­ta­tions of DTC, but instead point the way for­ward to even more capac­i­tance in even less volume. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#subtractive-vs-additive-two-ways-of-creating)**Subtractive vs. additive: two ways of creating** To under­stand why DTC tech­nol­o­gy faces inher­ent lim­i­ta­tions while CNF-MIM rep­re­sents the future, let’s pic­ture two dis­tinct ways of cre­at­ing. DTC is like carv­ing a sculp­ture from a block of mar­ble – it’s a *sub­trac­tive* process. You start with the mate­r­i­al and remove what you don’t need. In con­trast, CNF-MIM is like sculpt­ing with clay – an *addi­tive* process. Here, you build up a struc­ture lay­er by lay­er, adding mate­r­i­al pre­cise­ly where needed. The DTC jour­ney starts with a sil­i­con wafer. From that sur­face, pre­cise process­es cre­ate deep trench­es, like minia­ture wells in the ground. These trench­es are then care­ful­ly filled with dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als to form a capac­i­tor. While this approach has pushed the bound­aries of what’s pos­si­ble, it’s run­ning into phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers. It’s like a sculp­tor try­ing to carve an impos­si­bly intri­cate design from an ever-small­er block of marble. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-physical-limits-of-dtc)**The physical limits of DTC** The crux of the prob­lem with DTC lies in the physics of its creation. To increase capac­i­tance den­si­ty, that cru­cial mea­sure of how much elec­tri­cal charge can be stored in a giv­en space, man­u­fac­tur­ers aim to cre­ate deep­er, nar­row­er, and more numer­ous trench­es. Capac­i­tance is direct­ly pro­por­tion­al to the sur­face area, so deep­er trench­es cre­ate more wall area, increas­ing capac­i­tance. More trench­es increase the over­all area. Addi­tion­al­ly, capac­i­tance is inverse­ly pro­por­tion­al to the dis­tance between the walls. There­fore, nar­row­er trench­es bring the walls clos­er, increas­ing capacitance. How­ev­er, there’s a prac­ti­cal lim­it to how deep and nar­row these trench­es can be. Uni­form coat­ing of mate­ri­als becomes hard­er and the risk of short cir­cuits or unac­cept­able leak­age cur­rent increases. As these trench­es reach their phys­i­cal lim­its, the abil­i­ty to improve DTC per­for­mance rapid­ly decreas­es. Returns dimin­ish with each attempt to make the trench­es more aggres­sive. Imag­ine try­ing to paint the inside of a straw with a brush, and at the same time mak­ing that straw thin­ner and longer. It quick­ly becomes impos­si­ble. Also, the struc­ture becomes more frag­ile with deep­er and more numer­ous trenches. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf-mim-building-the-future-layer-by-layer)**CNF-MIM: Building the future, layer by layer** Now let’s look at the Smoltek CNF-MIM process. It is a rad­i­cal depar­ture from the sub­trac­tive meth­ods used in tech­niques such as DTC. Instead of dig­ging trench­es, CNF-MIM is man­u­fac­tured by putting incred­i­bly thin car­bon nanofibers ver­ti­cal­ly on the sub­strate. Think of it as a for­est of micro­scop­ic trees. These fibers, which are 10,000 to 15,000 times thin­ner than a human hair, are metic­u­lous­ly coat­ed, each with a thin lay­er of met­al, fol­lowed by a thin lay­er of insu­lat­ing mate­r­i­al, and then anoth­er lay­er of met­al. This cre­ates a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capac­i­tor at the nanoscale. These lay­ers can also be repeat­ed for mul­ti­lay­er capac­i­tor structures. By mak­ing the nanofibers long, a large sur­face area is obtained with­in a small foot­print. By cre­at­ing a dense for­est of fibers, this area is mul­ti­plied many times over. In this way, very high capac­i­tance can be achieved with­out increas­ing the volume. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-transformative-advantage)**A transformative advantage** The advan­tage is trans­for­ma­tive. Where DTCs strug­gle with depth and width ratios in their trench­es, CNF-MIM effort­less­ly achieves much high­er aspect ratios because its struc­tures are added rather than sub­tract­ed. It’s like the dif­fer­ence between dig­ging a ditch and build­ing a sky­scraper. This foun­da­tion­al dif­fer­ence means CNF-MIM capac­i­tors can poten­tial­ly achieve a vast­ly greater capac­i­tance den­si­ty than is phys­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble with DTC technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-future-of-capacitors-is-here)**The future of capacitors is here** As we look to the future of elec­tron­ics, the lim­i­ta­tions of DTC tech­nol­o­gy become increas­ing­ly appar­ent. The indus­try needs a solu­tion that can scale beyond cur­rent phys­i­cal con­straints. CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides just that. Its addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing approach unlocks pos­si­bil­i­ties that are sim­ply unat­tain­able with sub­trac­tive methods. The poten­tial of CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy was high­light­ed in an [inter­view with Dr. Philip Less­ner](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/yageo-highlights-unique-advantages-of-smolteks-technology/8008/). His assess­ment acknowl­edged the ground­break­ing capa­bil­i­ties of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. This expert val­i­da­tion under­scores the indus­try’s grow­ing inter­est in addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing and the rev­o­lu­tion­ary poten­tial of CNF-MIM technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-clear-path-forward-for-smoltek)**A clear path forward for Smoltek** For Smoltek share­hold­ers and investors, the impli­ca­tions of this shift are clear. DTC tech­nol­o­gy, while an impres­sive feat of engi­neer­ing, rep­re­sents a dead end in capac­i­tor devel­op­ment. The future belongs to inno­v­a­tive solu­tions like CNF-MIM that tran­scend cur­rent phys­i­cal limitations. As the elec­tron­ics indus­try con­tin­ues its relent­less pur­suit of minia­tur­iza­tion and enhanced per­for­mance, the demand for high­er-per­form­ing capac­i­tors will only inten­si­fy. CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy not only meets these cur­rent chal­lenges but also pro­vides a clear path­way for future advance­ments. It’s not just a tem­po­rary solu­tion but a long-term answer to one of the most press­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the elec­tron­ics industry. CNF-MIM isn’t just about bet­ter capac­i­tors; it’s about the future of elec­tron­ics. As a Smoltek investor, you’re a part of build­ing it. --- title: "A German journey into the hydrogen future" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/a-german-journey-into-the-hydrogen-future/8067/" date: 2024-12-20 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/satirical-lighthearted-caricature-of-female-president-holding-flags-of-sweden-and-germany.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # A German journey into the hydrogen future Elli­nor Ehrn­berg is a hard woman to pin down. As the Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen, she is con­stant­ly on the move, shut­tling between work­shops, meet­ings, and lab vis­its. But after sev­er­al attempts, I final­ly man­aged to sit down with her for an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion about her recent three-day vis­it to Ger­many and what it means for Smoltek’s future. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#exploring-the-hydrogen-heartland)Exploring the hydrogen heartland Ehrnberg’s trip, which took place between Novem­ber 11th and 13th, was part of a Scan­di­na­vian del­e­ga­tion orga­nized by the Ger­man Cham­bers of Com­merce in Swe­den and Den­mark. The pur­pose was to explore busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties and con­nect with key play­ers in Germany’s rapid­ly expand­ing hydro­gen sector. Over three days, the del­e­ga­tion toured major hydro­gen facil­i­ties in the Cen­tral Ger­man Chem­i­cal Tri­an­gle, Lusa­tia, and North Rhine-West­phalia. They met with lead­ing experts, sup­pli­ers, and tech­nol­o­gy providers, gain­ing a first­hand look at the ground­break­ing projects underway. “The scale and speed of what is hap­pen­ing in Ger­many right now is tru­ly remark­able,” Ehrn­berg said with pal­pa­ble enthu­si­asm. “There is a clear con­sen­sus across the coun­try: Ger­many is going all in on hydro­gen, with mas­sive invest­ments to make the vision a reality.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-nation-transformed)A nation transformed Ehrn­berg explained that Germany’s whole­heart­ed embrace of hydro­gen is the cul­mi­na­tion of a series of ener­gy shocks over the past decade. The 2011 Fukushi­ma dis­as­ter prompt­ed the coun­try to begin phas­ing out nuclear pow­er. More recent­ly, Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine and the sab­o­tage of the Nord Stream pipelines has dras­ti­cal­ly reduced nat­ur­al gas supplies. “You can draw a straight line from Fukushi­ma to the war in Ukraine to where Ger­many is today,” she said. “They have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly elim­i­nat­ed options that were no longer viable and have res­olute­ly com­mit­ted to hydro­gen as the path forward.” This trans­for­ma­tion was on full dis­play dur­ing Ehrnberg’s vis­it. The del­e­ga­tion toured major hydro­gen facil­i­ties in the Cen­tral Ger­man Chem­i­cal Tri­an­gle, Lusa­tia, and North Rhine-West­phalia. They met with lead­ing experts, sup­pli­ers, and tech­nol­o­gy providers. “At every stop, we heard the same refrain,” Ehrn­berg recount­ed. “Ger­many sees hydro­gen as the key to its ener­gy future. And they are ded­i­cat­ing immense resources to real­ize this poten­tial, not some­day, but right now.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-compelling-opportunity)A compelling opportunity This presents a tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty for Smoltek, which has devel­oped ground­break­ing elec­trode tech­nol­o­gy for PEM-elec­trolyz­ers. Ehrnberg’s meet­ings allowed her to show­case Smoltek’s solu­tions to a high­ly engaged audience. “With a few excep­tions, the response was over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive,” she said. “You could see the wheels turn­ing as peo­ple grasped the poten­tial of what we’ve created.” The excep­tions she referred to were some engi­neers direct­ly involved in elec­trolyz­er devel­op­ment, who exhib­it­ed a bit of “not invent­ed here syn­drome” – a reluc­tance to embrace ideas or tech­nolo­gies that orig­i­nate out­side their own orga­ni­za­tion. But among the busi­ness lead­ers, investors, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers Ehrn­berg met with, the enthu­si­asm was uniform. “I came back with a stack of busi­ness cards and a very full fol­low-up list,” she said with a smile. “The inter­est and urgency were obvious.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-road-ahead)The road ahead For Ehrn­berg, the vis­it was a pow­er­ful val­i­da­tion of Smoltek’s strat­e­gy and a clear call to action. To build on the momen­tum, she is cur­rent­ly explor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of increas­ing Smoltek’s pres­ence in Germany. “We absolute­ly must have boots on the ground, giv­en how fast this mar­ket is mov­ing,” she insist­ed. “This is an impor­tant moment, and we are deter­mined to act quick­ly to make the most of it.” As our con­ver­sa­tion wound down, I sensed Ehrnberg’s eager­ness to return to work. The trip had made a deep impres­sion, but it was also clear that it was just the begin­ning for her. “Ger­many has made its choice. Hydro­gen is the future,” she said as we part­ed. “And Smoltek is going to be a key part of that future. Just watch.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#share-your-thoughts)Share your thoughts Curi­ous about the future of hydro­gen in Ger­many and Smoltek’s role in this trans­for­ma­tion? Vis­it Smoltek’s [IR page on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/smoltek-investor-relations/) and join the dis­cus­sion. In the post link­ing to this arti­cle, you can ask Elli­nor Ehrn­berg your ques­tions about Germany’s hydro­gen ambi­tions and how Smoltek plans to contribute. --- title: "Smoltek’s zirconia based dielectric stack passes preliminary 1,000-hour reliability test" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-zirconia-based-dielectric-stack-passes-preliminary-1000-hour-reliability-test/8029/" date: 2024-12-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/anders-l-wirebonded-stv-pp-caps.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitance-density.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek’s zirconia based dielectric stack passes preliminary 1,000-hour reliability test In Sep­tem­ber, Smoltek Semi start­ed test­ing its new­ly devel­oped zir­co­nia based dielec­tric stack for reli­a­bil­i­ty. The eval­u­a­tion has been car­ried out by Smoltek’s part­ner, Yageo, on spe­cial­ly designed test capac­i­tors incor­po­rat­ing the new stack**\***. We have now received the results after the 1,000-hour mark, which show zero fail­ures and only very minor changes in key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors of the capac­i­tor, such as capac­i­tance val­ue and leak­age cur­rent. These results are very encour­ag­ing and increase our con­fi­dence that the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors fab­ri­cat­ed using the same dielec­tric stack will also pass the reli­a­bil­i­ty test. > *DC life test is an impor­tant com­po­nent of the full reli­a­bil­i­ty test com­mon­ly imple­ment­ed on capac­i­tors.* > > Anders Lund­gren, Project Man­ag­er at Smoltek Semi. ***\*** The capac­i­tors were sub­ject­ed to a DC life test tar­get­ing 1,000 hours dur­ing which they were biased at 2.0V DC and were exposed to 85°C.* ![Close-up of wire bonded test capacitors on the PCB](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/wirebonded-stv-pp-caps-close-up-01.webp) Close-up of wire bond­ed test capac­i­tors on the PCB. --- title: "Smoltek and Taiwanese Skytech discuss future collaboration" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-and-taiwanese-skytech-discuss-future-collaboration/8037/" date: 2024-12-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-12-skytech-visit-2.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "atomic layer deposition" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/atomic-layer-deposition.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek and Taiwanese Skytech discuss future collaboration Atom­ic Lay­er Depo­si­tion (ALD) is a key pro­cess­ing step in con­vert­ing the excep­tion­al sur­face to vol­ume ratio offered by car­bon nanofibers to a high capac­i­tance den­si­ty CNF-MIM capacitor. > *Skytech pro­duces some of the best-in-class ALD tools that offer extreme uni­for­mi­ty and film qual­i­ty over 3D struc­tures. These qual­i­ties are vital for Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy where high aspect ratio nanofibers must be con­for­mal­ly coat­ed with a thin dielec­tric film.* > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek Dur­ing the busi­ness trip to Tai­wan, Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni sat with Skytech CEO, George Yi, to dis­cuss future col­lab­o­ra­tions and how to inte­grate Skytech’s ALD clus­ter tools in CNF-MIM capac­i­tor fab­ri­ca­tion process flow. **About Skytech** Skytech is a Tai­wanese com­pa­ny, based in Hsinchu, that pro­duces state-of-the-art ALD tools, offer­ing excep­tion­al film uni­for­mi­ty, thick­ness con­trol, and mate­r­i­al properties. * * * *Peo­ple pic­tured in the top pho­to: Farzan Gha­vani­ni from Smoltek togeth­er with George Li and co-work­er from Skytech.* --- title: "Smoltek’s PTE technology stands out expert states in interview" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-pte-technology-stands-out-expert-states-in-interview/8047/" date: 2024-12-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/felix-buchi-and-ellinor-ehrnberg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek’s PTE technology stands out expert states in interview Dr. Büchi, who has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in PEM elec­trol­y­sis at the pres­ti­gious Paul Scher­rer Insti­tut, empha­sizes that Smoltek’s approach rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal break­through in elec­trode design. “The unique­ness of the approach is not to use nanopar­ti­cles but to use a nanosur­face,” Büchi explains. “This Smoltek irid­i­um nanosur­face is based on a con­duct­ing sub­strate so in prin­ci­ple all the irid­i­um can be well accessed.” Unlike con­ven­tion­al meth­ods that rely on irid­i­um nanopar­ti­cles, Smoltek has devel­oped a unique way to mul­ti­ply the cat­alyt­ic sur­face area by grow­ing car­bon nanofibers direct­ly on the *porous trans­port lay­er* (*PTL*), enabling effi­cient cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion with min­i­mal irid­i­um loading. ### The technology behind Smoltek’s breakthrough At the heart of Smoltek’s inno­va­tion is a unique method to max­i­mize the cat­alyt­ic sur­face area with­out increas­ing the electrode’s phys­i­cal foot­print. By grow­ing car­bon nanofibers on the elec­trode sur­face and coat­ing them with plat­inum, Smoltek cre­ates a vast­ly expand­ed and cor­ro­sion pro­tect­ed, elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive sur­face area. Irid­i­um atoms are then pre­cise­ly deposit­ed on this enhanced sur­face as con­nect­ed nanopar­ti­cles, cre­at­ing many sites for the elec­tro­chem­i­cal reac­tion that splits water into oxy­gen and hydro­gen ions. This approach stands in stark con­trast to con­ven­tion­al meth­ods, which rely on coat­ing the mem­brane with a cat­a­lyst ink con­tain­ing irid­i­um nanopar­ti­cles that need a cer­tain thick­ness to form a con­nect­ed cat­a­lyst lay­er struc­ture – a process that requires up to 20 times more of the pre­cious metal. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#achieving-same-performance-with-90-less-iridium)Achieving same performance with 90% less iridium Büchi’s assess­ment con­firms that Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers lead­ing indus­try stan­dard per­for­mance while using only 0.1–0.2 mg/​cm² of irid­i­um, com­pared to the 1–2 mg/​cm² typ­i­cal­ly required. This rep­re­sents a reduc­tion of up to 95 % in irid­i­um usage – a crit­i­cal advan­tage giv­en that irid­i­um is much more expen­sive than gold and has extreme­ly lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty with only 5–7 tons mined annu­al­ly worldwide. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-unique-solution-in-high-demand)A unique solution in high demand “The main asset of the Smoltek solu­tion – and this is unique – is the abil­i­ty to pre­pare a low amount of irid­i­um onto the PTL because you are able to pre­pare a high sur­face area on the PTL,” Büchi explains. He con­firms that irid­i­um remains the only known sta­ble cat­a­lyst for PEM elec­trol­y­sis, mak­ing tech­nolo­gies that reduce irid­i­um usage high­ly valu­able for elec­trolyz­er manufacturers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#technical-advantages-of-smolteks-approach)Technical advantages of Smoltek’s approach Büchi high­lights how Smoltek’s solu­tion dif­fers fun­da­men­tal­ly from con­ven­tion­al approach­es. While oth­ers strug­gle with par­ti­cle-based meth­ods where cat­a­lyst islands can become elec­tron­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed, Smoltek’s con­duc­tive base lay­er ensures that ”all of your cat­a­lyst remains on the sur­face, none of it dis­ap­pears in the bulk of the tita­ni­um PTL.” This effi­cient cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion is key to achiev­ing high per­for­mance with min­i­mal iridium. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#clear-path-forward-for-optimization)Clear path forward for optimization The assess­ment also iden­ti­fied oppor­tu­ni­ties for fur­ther opti­miza­tion. Ini­tial dura­bil­i­ty tests showed some per­for­mance decline dur­ing the first 10 hours of oper­a­tion, which Büchi attrib­ut­es to pres­sure from evolv­ing oxy­gen poten­tial­ly caus­ing delam­i­na­tion between the elec­trode and membrane. How­ev­er, he sug­gests there are sev­er­al engi­neer­ing solu­tions to address this. One approach would be to make the cat­a­lyst lay­er more porous, allow­ing gas to escape more eas­i­ly. Anoth­er would be to intro­duce what is called a micro­p­orous lay­er with small­er grains, reduc­ing pres­sure buildup between the grain and mem­brane. Both are rel­a­tive­ly straight­for­ward mod­i­fi­ca­tions com­pared to the fun­da­men­tal tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment already achieved. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#potential-for-even-greater-iridium-reduction)Potential for even greater iridium reduction Look­ing ahead, Büchi sees promis­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for push­ing the bound­aries of irid­i­um reduc­tion even fur­ther. His assess­ment indi­cates that Smoltek’s sur­face-based approach could poten­tial­ly achieve even low­er irid­i­um load­ing while main­tain­ing per­for­mance lev­els. This poten­tial for con­tin­ued opti­miza­tion under­scores the fun­da­men­tal advan­tages of Smoltek’s inno­v­a­tive elec­trode design. With cur­rent results already show­ing a 90 % reduc­tion in irid­i­um usage, any addi­tion­al improve­ments would fur­ther strength­en Smoltek’s posi­tion at the fore­front of PEM elec­trolyz­er tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment. The proven sur­face-based approach cre­ates an ide­al foun­da­tion for ongo­ing refine­ment and enhance­ment, sug­gest­ing that today’s impres­sive results may be just the beginning. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#market-ready-for-implementation)Market ready for implementation For elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, reduc­ing irid­i­um usage rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ty to low­er costs and address sup­ply con­straints. Büchi con­firms that Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy match­es indus­try stan­dards for per­for­mance while dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing pre­cious met­al require­ments, mak­ing it an attrac­tive solu­tion for com­mer­cial implementation. Want to learn more about how Smoltek’s unique tech­nol­o­gy can rev­o­lu­tion­ize PEM elec­trol­y­sis? Watch the com­plete inter­view with Felix Büchi, where he pro­vides detailed insights into the technology’s advan­tages and mar­ket potential. --- title: "Smoltek’s PTE technology stands out" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-pte-technology-stands-out/8051/" date: 2024-12-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-12-smolteks-pte-technology-stands-out-new.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek’s PTE technology stands out In an exclu­sive inter­view with Smoltek Hydrogen’s Pres­i­dent, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Felix Büchi shares insights about the technology’s dis­tinc­tive advan­tages and mar­ket potential. --- title: "Smoltek are in discussions about packaging requirements for CNF-MIM capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-are-in-discussions-about-packaging-requirements-for-cnf-mim-capacitors/8031/" date: 2024-12-16 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-12-tong-hsing-visit.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "CMOS-standard" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cmos-standard.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek are in discussions about packaging requirements for CNF-MIM capacitors > No semi­con­duc­tor com­po­nent is com­plete with­out prop­er pack­ag­ing, and our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are no exception. > > Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. Last week, Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni met with Heinz Ru, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Tong Hsing Elec­tron­ics, in Tai­wan to con­tin­ue their dis­cus­sions. The meet­ing focused on Smoltek’s CNF-MIM roadmap, includ­ing pack­ag­ing spec­i­fi­ca­tions for next gen­er­a­tions of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the suc­cess­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion between the two com­pa­nies that start­ed ear­li­er this year, where they worked togeth­er on Smoltek’s Gen Zero capacitors. **About Tong Hsing** Tong Hsing Elec­tron­ic indus­tries, based in Tai­wan, is a lead­ing glob­al provider in advanced micro­elec­tron­ic pack­ag­ing ser­vices. The com­pa­ny spe­cial­izes in ceram­ic sub­strates, hybrid micro­elec­tron­ics, and advanced pack­ag­ing solu­tions, sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies across mul­ti­ple industries. * * * *Peo­ple pic­tured in top pho­to: Farzan Gha­vani­ni and Tai­wan-based Chin Jung Kou from Smoltek togeth­er with Heinz Ru of Tong Hsing and colleagues.* --- title: "Smoltek is getting ready for pilot production of CNF-MIM capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-getting-ready-for-pilot-production-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/8020/" date: 2024-12-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-12-smoltek-at-itri-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "from lab to fab" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/from-lab-to-fab.md" - name: "mass production" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/mass-production.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "pilot plant" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pilot-plant.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek is getting ready for pilot production of CNF-MIM capacitors This week Smoltek’s CTO Dr. Farzan Gha­vani­ni is on site in Tai­wan for dis­cus­sions on how to pro­ceed with the project with ITRI’s direc­tor of Smart Sens­ing and Sys­tems Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter, Dr. Arthur Lin.  Smoltek Semi and ITRI have been work­ing close­ly for over a year to stream­line the CNF-MIM front-end-of-line (FEOL) process­es for mass pro­duc­tion of Smoltek’s capac­i­tors. In the next phase of the col­lab­o­ra­tion, the two orga­ni­za­tions will focus on accel­er­at­ing the tran­si­tion from devel­op­ment to vol­ume pro­duc­tion through the imple­men­ta­tion of a pilot line. > As we are get­ting clos­er to intro­duc­ing our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy to the mar­ket, we have inten­si­fied our efforts in set­ting up a pilot man­u­fac­tur­ing line close to our customers > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. **About ITRI** Taiwan’s Indus­tri­al Tech­nol­o­gy Research Insti­tute (ITRI) is at the fore­front of indus­tri­al­iza­tion of nov­el semi­con­duc­tor devices and com­po­nents and has played a piv­otal role in intro­duc­ing new tech­nolo­gies to the market. * * * *Peo­ple pic­tured in the top pho­to: Farzan Gha­vani­ni and Chin Jung Kou from Smoltek togeth­er with Dr. Arthur Lin and his co-work­ers at ITRI.* --- title: "The future for the capacitor industry (part 2)" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/the-future-for-the-capacitor-industry-part-2/8015/" date: 2024-12-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/yageo-highlights-unique-advantages-of-smolteks-technology-topaz-enhance-24x-faceai.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "ultra-thin capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ultra-thin-capacitors.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # The future for the capacitor industry (part 2) --- title: "Why Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech could revolutionize ultra-thin capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/yageo-highlights-unique-advantages-of-smolteks-technology/8008/" date: 2024-12-10 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/yageo-highlights-unique-advantages-of-smolteks-technology-topaz-enhance-24x-faceai.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Why Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech could revolutionize ultra-thin capacitors Philip Less­ner, CTO of the YAGEO Group – one of the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­ers of pas­sive com­po­nents – has been close­ly fol­low­ing both the mar­ket and the devel­op­ment of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy over the past six months. In this wide-rang­ing inter­view, which fol­lows on from [his pre­vi­ous inter­view in June](https://www.smoltek.com/the-future-for-the-capacitor-industry/7567/), Dr. Less­ner shares his obser­va­tions on recent progress and thoughts on future potential. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#new-dielectric-stack-shows-stable-performance)New dielectric stack shows stable performance When asked about Smoltek’s devel­op­ment over the past year, Less­ner imme­di­ate­ly points to two sig­nif­i­cant advances. The first is the switch to a [new dielec­tric stack](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/why-increased-capacitance-density-matter/7906/) that has increased the dielec­tric con­stant by more than 1.5 times. It’s worth not­ing that this new stack, devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with an aca­d­e­m­ic lab in Korea, is now show­ing what Less­ner describes as “very sta­ble per­for­mance under heat and volt­age” in YAGEO’s own elec­tri­cal test labs. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#improved-nanofiber-growth-points-to-higher-capacitance)Improved nanofiber growth points to higher capacitance The sec­ond break­through that draws Less­ner’s atten­tion is more visu­al. After exam­in­ing scan­ning elec­tron micro­scope pho­tos of our lat­est nanofiber growth results, he specif­i­cal­ly prais­es the team’s achieve­ment in grow­ing long, ver­ti­cal car­bon nanofibers that main­tain their direc­tion with­out tan­gling – a cru­cial advance­ment that he describes as “very impressive.” This abil­i­ty to grow taller, well-aligned nanofibers is key to achiev­ing high­er capac­i­tance. Accord­ing to Less­ner, increas­ing the height from about 4 microns to 10 microns is one of the crit­i­cal steps in Smoltek’s devel­op­ment plan. The goal is to match the indus­try bench­mark of 1.5 micro­farads per square mil­lime­ter, cur­rent­ly achieved by TSMC, the world’s lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­er of ultra-thin capacitors. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-fundamental-advantage-in-how-we-build)A fundamental advantage in how we build One of the most inter­est­ing parts of the inter­view comes when Less­ner explains what he sees as a fun­da­men­tal advan­tage in Smoltek’s man­u­fac­tur­ing approach. While our com­peti­tors like TSMC, Mura­ta and Sam­sung use what he calls a “sub­trac­tive technology”—they need to etch trench­es in the substrate—Smoltek does the oppo­site. Our “addi­tive tech­nol­o­gy,” as Less­ner explains it, builds up the struc­ture by adding mate­r­i­al exact­ly where need­ed. Why does this mat­ter? Because accord­ing to Less­ner, it results in a more mechan­i­cal­ly sta­ble substrate. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-proof-technology)Future-proof technology When dis­cussing future pos­si­bil­i­ties, Less­ner points to anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage that sets Smoltek apart: our abil­i­ty to grow car­bon nanofibers on var­i­ous sub­strates, not just silicon. This might not seem rev­o­lu­tion­ary until you con­sid­er, as Less­ner points out, that major play­ers like Intel are active­ly pur­su­ing glass inter­pos­er sub­strates. The fact that our tech­nol­o­gy could poten­tial­ly work with mate­ri­als like glass or alu­minum opens up excit­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties for future applications. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#development-timeline-towards-commercial-product)Development timeline towards commercial product For those fol­low­ing our progress toward com­mer­cial­iza­tion, Less­ner out­lines what he expects to see ahead. Based on his dis­cus­sions with our CTO, he hopes to see a first prod­uct in ear­ly 2025, achiev­ing about one-third of the mar­ket-lead­ing per­for­mance lev­els pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned. By late 2025 or ear­ly 2026, he believes the tech­nol­o­gy could match these per­for­mance levels. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#growing-market-opportunities)Growing market opportunities While mobile phones cur­rent­ly dri­ve the mar­ket for ultra-thin capac­i­tors, Less­ner sees AI data cen­ters as the next major growth opportunity. His expla­na­tion of the pow­er require­ments for next-gen­er­a­tion AI proces­sors, par­tic­u­lar­ly GPUs, is eye-open­ing: they may need up to 1000 watts at one volt or less—meaning peak cur­rents of 1000 amps. This is where Smoltek’s ultra-thin capac­i­tors could shine, enabling ver­ti­cal pow­er deliv­ery sys­tems placed direct­ly under the processor—significantly reduc­ing pow­er loss and improv­ing efficiency. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strong-competition-but-unique-position)Strong competition but unique position Less­ner acknowl­edges the strong com­pe­ti­tion from indus­try giants like TSMC, Mura­ta and Sam­sung, not­ing that they are “fierce com­peti­tors” and “absolute giants” in the elec­tron­ics industry. How­ev­er, he empha­sizes what makes Smoltek dif­fer­ent: “You have a unique tech­nol­o­gy that’s dif­fer­ent from the tech­nol­o­gy that they’ve invest­ed in,” he notes. Even more encour­ag­ing is his belief that our tech­nol­o­gy “has the poten­tial to exceed the per­for­mance of the incum­bent tech­nol­o­gy once it’s ful­ly developed.” I invite you to watch the full inter­view above, where Less­ner shares more detailed insights about our tech­nol­o­gy and mar­ket posi­tion. His analy­sis pro­vides a valu­able per­spec­tive on both our cur­rent posi­tion and future poten­tial in the ultra-thin capac­i­tor market. --- title: "9 questions for Smoltek’s CEO" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/9-questions-for-smolteks-ceo/7976/" date: 2024-11-12 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/haka-persson-ceo-smoltek-october-2024.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # 9 questions for Smoltek’s CEO It’s no secret that I lurk on [the Dis­cord serv­er for all who fol­low or own shares in Smoltek](https://discord.com/channels/776451393854767155/). The oth­er day, I saw that Emma200 had a valid point about the bid­ding process announced in a [press release dat­ed May 22, 2024](https://mb.cision.com/Main/16786/3985940/2813930.pdf): > It has been about 4.5 months so far, but no updates have been com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the mar­ket regard­ing the progress of the bid­ding process… Although Smol wrote that the updates would be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the mar­ket to the extent possible… Emma200 is right. It is time for share­hold­ers and oth­er stake­hold­ers to get an update on the bid­ding process and how the com­pa­ny is doing. So, I moved from thought to action: Read what has been dis­cussed on the Dis­cord serv­er late­ly. For­mu­lat­ed nine ques­tions. Made an appoint­ment with Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek, and fired off the questions. Here are his answers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-long-will-the-companys-funds-last)How long will the company’s funds last? *Smoltek’s share­hold­ers are con­cerned about the company’s liq­uid­i­ty and want to know how long the funds can cov­er cur­rent costs. They want a clear assess­ment of the run­way based on the cur­rent burn rate and avail­able funds.* We expect the funds to last into the first quar­ter of next year. In the past, we have cap­i­tal­ized the com­pa­ny through fre­quent new share issues, but it is not sus­tain­able to con­tin­ue in this way. We need to find a more long-term financ­ing strat­e­gy. This is high on my and the Board’s agenda. We look at it from two per­spec­tives: the short-term need to meet our devel­op­ment goals and the long-term need for a sus­tain­able fund­ing mod­el. We are active­ly work­ing to secure both short-term and long-term fund­ing that will allow us to real­ize the enor­mous poten­tial we see ahead of us. It’s also a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment that our tech­no­log­i­cal progress makes us more attrac­tive to poten­tial part­ners and investors. It is, there­fore, vital that we con­tin­ue to build con­fi­dence in our tech­nol­o­gy, as the fur­ther we progress in our devel­op­ment plan, the more attrac­tive we become to the cap­i­tal markets. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-is-the-current-burn-rate)What is the current burn rate? *Giv­en the staff reduc­tions and busi­ness changes imple­ment­ed over the past year, Smoltek’s cur­rent cost lev­els need to be clar­i­fied. What is the cur­rent burn rate?* Our cur­rent burn rate is around SEK 3.4 mil­lion per month. This is a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion from pre­vi­ous lev­els, where two years ago we were at around SEK 4.8 mil­lion per month. This has been achieved through head­count reduc­tions and oth­er effi­cien­cies that have helped us reduce costs with­out jeop­ar­diz­ing our ongo­ing projects. We now have a small­er but extreme­ly com­pe­tent work­force. This is the min­i­mum nec­es­sary to exe­cute our cur­rent strategy. As a pub­lic com­pa­ny, we also have some fixed costs relat­ed to com­pli­ance and report­ing, which are non-negotiable. How­ev­er, we con­tin­u­al­ly seek ways to opti­mize our spend­ing to ensure that every kro­na is used to its best. This gives us a more sus­tain­able finan­cial foot­ing for the quar­ters ahead as we con­tin­ue to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize our technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#plans-for-additional-funding)Plans for additional funding? *Share­hold­ers are con­cerned about fur­ther dilu­tion of their hold­ings and want to know if Smoltek plans to raise new cap­i­tal and how this will affect the com­pa­ny and its share price.* We are con­stant­ly explor­ing var­i­ous financ­ing options to ensure the con­tin­ued growth and suc­cess of the com­pa­ny. One option is to raise cap­i­tal through the mar­ket by issu­ing new shares. Anoth­er may be to bring in a larg­er investor or indus­tri­al part­ner who can con­tribute both cap­i­tal and strate­gic value. We aim to bring in part­ners who add more than just cap­i­tal; we want strate­gic investors who can help accel­er­ate our path to mar­ket and strength­en our posi­tion­ing in key segments. We are work­ing hard to find financ­ing solu­tions that bal­ance short-term cap­i­tal needs with long-term val­ue cre­ation. Our aim is to cre­ate con­di­tions that will allow Smoltek to ful­ly real­ize the poten­tial of our tech­nol­o­gy, which can lead to sig­nif­i­cant increas­es in val­ue for our shareholders. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#status-of-ongoing-projects)Status of ongoing projects? *Share­hold­ers are nat­u­ral­ly inter­est­ed in the progress of our key devel­op­ment projects. How is the devel­op­ment of elec­trolyz­er mate­ri­als and CNF-MIM capac­i­tors pro­gress­ing? Are there any con­crete break­throughs or mile­stones that can be achieved soon?* On the semi­con­duc­tor side (Smoltek Semi), we have already achieved sev­er­al tech­ni­cal mile­stones in opti­miz­ing CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing improve­ments in capac­i­tance den­si­ty and elec­tri­cal per­for­mance. These achieve­ments have strength­ened our posi­tion as we con­tin­ue to exe­cute on the plan we estab­lished with Yageo. Our cur­rent focus is on achiev­ing full elec­tri­cal reli­a­bil­i­ty for key para­me­ters to meet strin­gent require­ments for pro­duc­ti­za­tion. This is a crit­i­cal step that will open more doors to play­ers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try as we move towards com­mer­cial­iz­ing our tech­nol­o­gy with partners. We have made sig­nif­i­cant progress on the hydro­gen side (Smoltek Hydro­gen). We have now demon­strat­ed that we can make our prod­uct cor­ro­sion-resis­tant and coat irid­i­um at mar­ket-lead­ing low levels. Exter­nal eval­u­a­tion by a well-known author­i­ty in the hydro­gen indus­try has con­firmed that our tech­nol­o­gy is excit­ing and address­es a sig­nif­i­cant bot­tle­neck for elec­trolyz­er sys­tems. This assess­ment strength­ens our con­fi­dence as we con­tin­ue to approach new part­ners in both the elec­trolyz­er and fuel cell segments. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#potential-partners-and-customers)Potential partners and customers? *There is great inter­est among share­hold­ers in under­stand­ing which poten­tial cus­tomers or part­ners Smoltek is talk­ing to. Can you give an indi­ca­tion of the types of com­pa­nies you are in con­tact with?* For com­pet­i­tive and non-dis­clo­sure rea­sons, we can­not name spe­cif­ic com­pa­nies, but I can give you an overview of the types of play­ers we are talk­ing to. On the semi­con­duc­tor side, we are pur­su­ing sev­er­al par­al­lel tracks. While we con­tin­ue our dis­cus­sions with Yageo, one of the world’s largest pas­sive com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers, we are also in dia­log with oth­er lead­ing play­ers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. These inter­ac­tions give us valu­able insight into mar­ket needs and strength­en our rela­tion­ships with some of the world’s largest tech­nol­o­gy companies. On the hydro­gen side, we work with a wide range of play­ers. These include large indus­tri­al com­pa­nies that man­u­fac­ture elec­trolyz­ers, niche play­ers that devel­op mod­u­lar solu­tions, and com­pa­nies in the fuel cell seg­ment. We are also in con­tact with sup­pli­ers of crit­i­cal com­po­nents such as mem­branes and cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als. Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Spark­Nano, which has received invest­ment from Air Liq­uide Ven­ture Cap­i­tal, is a great exam­ple of how we are strate­gi­cal­ly part­ner­ing with key play­ers in the ecosystem. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strategy-on-technology-and-ip)Strategy on technology and IP? *There has been spec­u­la­tion about Smoltek poten­tial­ly sell­ing parts or all of its tech­nol­o­gy and IP to strength­en liq­uid­i­ty. What is the company’s view on divest­ing its tech­nol­o­gy or intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty assets?* Our approach to tech­nol­o­gy and IP is care­ful­ly con­sid­ered and long-term. We are open to strate­gic part­ner­ships and licens­ing agree­ments, but out­right sales of our core tech­nol­o­gy or intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty assets are not in line with our strat­e­gy at this time. Rather than focus­ing sole­ly on divest­ing assets or entire sub­sidiaries, as announced in the [22 May press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-initiates-bidding-process-for-the-potential-sale-of-assets-or-entire-subsidiaries-within-the,c3985940), we are focus­ing on form­ing strate­gic part­ner­ships – whether finan­cial or indus­tri­al – that will allow us to con­tin­ue to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize our busi­ness­es. Through licens­ing agree­ments or equi­ty part­ner­ships, we can lever­age exter­nal exper­tise while main­tain­ing con­trol over the direc­tion of our tech­nol­o­gy. The goal of our cur­rent process is to ensure a fair val­u­a­tion of our sub­sidiaries based on their poten­tial, both short and long term, as out­lined in our busi­ness cas­es. Our plan is not to give up our busi­ness­es, IP, know-how or peo­ple, but rather to unlock their full value. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#improving-communication-and-transparency)Improving communication and transparency? *The com­pa­ny has been crit­i­cized for lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. How does Smoltek plan to improve trans­paren­cy and pro­vide reg­u­lar updates on progress and any obstacles?* We under­stand that reg­u­lar and trans­par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion is essen­tial to main­tain­ing share­hold­er trust. We are also plan­ning a Cap­i­tal Mar­kets Day to pro­vide deep­er insight into our strat­e­gy and future plans. In addi­tion, we are refin­ing our IR com­mu­ni­ca­tions to bet­ter reach exist­ing and poten­tial investors, includ­ing insti­tu­tion­al play­ers. Our goal is to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ca­tions frame­work that keeps all stake­hold­ers informed with­out com­pro­mis­ing busi­ness con­fi­den­tial­i­ty or ongo­ing negotiations. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#concluding-thoughts)Concluding thoughts *Giv­en the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties Smoltek faces, how do you see the company’s future, and what do you want to com­mu­ni­cate to shareholders?* The invest­ment cli­mate has changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the past few years. The cap­i­tal mar­kets are now heav­i­ly focused on “*de-risk­ing*,” which means that finan­cial insti­tu­tions are increas­ing­ly look­ing to avoid risks, rather than active­ly man­age them. Glob­al events such as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, ris­ing inter­est rates, geopo­lit­i­cal uncer­tain­ty, and the cool­ing of the tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor are dri­ving this shift. As a result, investors are demand­ing clear­er evi­dence of the path to mar­ket for ear­ly-stage tech­nolo­gies. We are address­ing this need by pur­su­ing strate­gic part­ner­ships to demon­strate our path to com­mer­cial­iza­tion, while focus­ing on investors who can rec­og­nize the strength of our strate­gic direction. This has raised the bar for Smoltek. Investors today want to see con­crete proof that our tech­nol­o­gy works and has a clear route to com­mer­cial­iza­tion before they com­mit cap­i­tal. They demand a short­er “*time-to-rev­enue*,” mean­ing we need to show that we can get from devel­op­ment to mar­ket faster than ever before. This makes the role of indus­tri­al part­ners who val­i­date our tech­nol­o­gy absolute­ly cru­cial. A cred­i­ble endorse­ment from a large play­er in the indus­try demon­strates our solution’s via­bil­i­ty. It sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­ers the per­ceived risk for finan­cial investors. This val­i­da­tion opens the door to the fund­ing need­ed to take our projects to the next level. Despite the chal­lenges, I am con­fi­dent in our strat­e­gy. The finan­cial land­scape is more demand­ing now, forc­ing us to focus and sharp­en our approach. Our cur­rent dis­cus­sions with some of the world’s lead­ing com­pa­nies, both in the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen sec­tors, show that there is strong inter­est in our tech­nol­o­gy. This inter­est con­firms that we are on the right track and that our solu­tions address real and press­ing indus­try problems. To our share­hold­ers, I want to empha­size that our focus is on build­ing long-term val­ue for the com­pa­ny. Our goal remains to posi­tion Smoltek as a leader in its field and to ensure that each share­hold­er ben­e­fits from the growth and suc­cess we are work­ing towards. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#over-to-you)Over to you Those were my nine ques­tions and Håkan’s answers. What’s your take? Do you feel more informed and share the same opti­mism as Håkan and the rest of the com­pa­ny? Or is there a ques­tion you think should have been asked? Share your thoughts and con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion in the com­ments sec­tion of the LinkedIn post for this article. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen in meetings with the German hydrogen industry" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-in-meetings-with-the-german-hydrogen-industry/7980/" date: 2024-11-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen in meetings with the German hydrogen industry > This is an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to net­work with the Ger­man hydro­gen indus­try and talk about Smoltek Hydro­gen’s low irid­i­um porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) for PEM elec­trolyz­ers. I am real­ly look­ing for­ward to this oppor­tu­ni­ty that Ger­man hydro­gen inter­ests have invit­ed us to. > > *Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen* Between 11 and 13 Novem­ber 2024, Smoltek Hydro­gen is part of a Scan­di­na­vian del­e­ga­tion to gain insights into Ger­man busi­ness mod­els along the val­ue chain in the ener­gy tran­si­tion, with a focus on green hydrogen. Dur­ing a three-day tour, fund­ed by the Ger­man Cham­ber of Com­merce, Smoltek Hydro­gen will have a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, meet key peo­ple in the Ger­man hydro­gen indus­try and talk to lead­ing experts. The Scan­di­na­vian del­e­ga­tion will vis­it the Cen­tral Ger­man chem­i­cal tri­an­gle and its major play­ers, high­light research projects for elec­trol­y­sis and stack pro­duc­tion in Lusa­tia and North Rhine-West­phalia and sub­se­quent­ly con­nect with Ger­man sup­pli­ers and tech­nol­o­gy providers. **Sta­tus of Ger­man Hydro­gen pro­duc­tion** In the Ruhr area and in the Cen­tral Ger­man chem­i­cal tri­an­gle, large hydro­gen pipelines have already exist­ed for decades and are used by indus­try. The cor­re­spond­ing know-how is there­fore avail­able. The hydro­gen pipeline in the Ruhr area is the longest ded­i­cat­ed hydro­gen pipeline in Ger­many and stretch­es 240 km. In the Cen­tral Ger­man chem­i­cal tri­an­gle (around Bit­ter­feld, Schkopau and Leu­na), 3.6 bil­lion m³ of hydro­gen are being used and trans­port­ed in a pipelines net­work with a com­bined length of 150 km. Based on that and the ongo­ing phase out of coal pow­er, the hydro­gen pipelines are now part of the plans to cre­ate mod­el regions for a green hydro­gen econ­o­my – from pro­duc­tion to stor­age and trans­port right through to use in var­i­ous sectors. --- title: "Leading automotive manufacturer order electrodes to be used in fuel cells" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/leading-automotive-manufacturer-order-electrodes-to-be-used-in-fuel-cells/7973/" date: 2024-11-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Leading automotive manufacturer order electrodes to be used in fuel cells > This is the sec­ond vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­er to show inter­est in our tech­nol­o­gy and order cus­tom-made pro­to­types accord­ing to their spe­cif­ic needs. If the project turns out well, we will like­ly be trust­ed to deliv­er more and larg­er prototypes. > > *Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen* Smoltek Hydro­gen has devel­oped a porous trans­port elec­trode for the anode in PEM elec­trolyz­ers that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the amount of irid­i­um in an elec­trolyt­ic cell, which has res­onat­ed around the world. With changes in the basic con­fig­u­ra­tion, the tech­nol­o­gy of the elec­trode can be mod­i­fied so that it can also be used for fuel cell applications.  Ear­li­er this year, a world-lead­ing vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­er ordered a cus­tom-made pro­to­type from Smoltek Hydro­gen for eval­u­a­tion. Now anoth­er major play­er in the auto­mo­tive indus­try has placed an order for spe­cial­ly man­u­fac­tured pro­to­types to test in small fuel cells. In this type of eval­u­a­tion project, the tech­nol­o­gy is first test­ed in small cen­time­ter-sized cells. In the next step, the tech­nol­o­gy is scaled up to a for­mat of 5×5 cm, which is com­mon for eval­u­at­ing the dura­bil­i­ty of the elec­trode through long-term tests. > We offer com­plete­ly unique solu­tions for both elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells, which means we have high hopes of start­ing more and big­ger projects with this customer. > > Elli­nor Ehrnberg --- title: "Smoltek’s groundbreaking technology for green hydrogen earns expert recognition" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-groundbreaking-technology-for-green-hydrogen-earns-expert-recognition/7969/" date: 2024-11-07 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ellinor-2024-06-webb.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek’s groundbreaking technology for green hydrogen earns expert recognition In the report, Dr Felix N. Büchi – Group Leader of the Elec­tro­chem­istry Lab­o­ra­to­ry at the Paul Scher­rer Insti­tute – con­firms that the elec­trode exhib­it state-of-the-art per­for­mance while using sig­nif­i­cant­ly less of the rare pre­cious met­al irid­i­um, which could lead to more cost-effec­tive pro­duc­tion of green hydrogen. > Smoltek’s elec­trodes are a very inter­est­ing devel­op­ment for the pro­duc­tion of low irid­i­um load­ing elec­trodes for PEM electrolyzers. > > Dr Felix N. Büchi, writes in the report In a PEM elec­trol­yser, there is a thin mem­brane between the two elec­trodes. On the side where the oxy­gen is devel­oped (anode side) it is required to use irid­i­um as a cat­a­lyst. Irid­i­um is a rare and very expen­sive pre­cious met­al, and the price is expect­ed to rise to 700,000 euros per kg towards the end of this decade. With con­ven­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy, up to 2.0 mg of irid­i­um per cm² is used today, which in 2030 cor­re­sponds to a cost of 35 mil­lion euros for a 100 MW elec­trolyz­er with a 2,500 m² mem­brane. Lead­ing com­peti­tors have man­aged to reduce the use to 0.5 mg per cm², which would entail a cost of close to 9 mil­lion euros for a 100 MW elec­trolyz­er at an irid­i­um price of 700,000 euros per kg. How­ev­er, Smoltek has already reached down to 0.2 mg of irid­i­um per cm² with per­for­mance that Dr. Büchi describes as “match­es the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy” and is aim­ing for 0.1 mg per cm². This would reduce the cost of a 100 MW elec­trolyz­er to below 2 mil­lion euros. > Doc­tor Büchi’s pos­i­tive eval­u­a­tion con­firms that our tech­nol­o­gy can dras­ti­cal­ly reduce the use of irid­i­um in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. With a rapid­ly ris­ing irid­i­um price, our tech­nol­o­gy will be a key to cost-effec­tive pro­duc­tion of green hydrogen > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen --- title: "Smoltek’s interim report for Q3 2024" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-interim-report-for-q3/7962/" date: 2024-11-06 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/hp-2022-1-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" --- # Smoltek’s interim report for Q3 2024 **Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek com­ments on the peri­od (excerpt):** *”We are cur­rent­ly in an active phase of dia­logues with poten­tial stake­hold­ers as part of the ten­der process we start­ed for the sum­mer. Our focus is on seek­ing strate­gic part­ners who can con­tribute both cap­i­tal and indus­tri­al exper­tise, which will accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of our tech­nolo­gies. These talks are intense, and we are opti­mistic about their development.* *This process is well sup­port­ed by the deci­sive tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs achieved in both our busi­ness areas, with sig­nif­i­cant progress in both the semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen areas. This progress strength­ens our posi­tion in dis­cus­sions with poten­tial partners.* *Through this type of col­lab­o­ra­tion, we retain con­trol over tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment while gain­ing access to part­ners’ resources and exper­tise. In the semi­con­duc­tor area, we are con­tin­u­ing the dia­logue with Yageo and oth­er lead­ing play­ers, while on the hydro­gen side we are hold­ing dis­cus­sions with major elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er indus­tri­al players.”* Read the full report on our [Investor pages](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/); [Swedish](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/sv/) [Eng­lish](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/en/) --- title: "Smoltek’s groundbreaking PTE technology earns expert recognition" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-pte-earns-expert-recognition/7947/" date: 2024-11-04 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/smoltek-pte-earns-expert-recognition.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "pte" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/pte.md" --- # Smoltek’s groundbreaking PTE technology earns expert recognition Smoltek has tak­en a strate­gic step by invit­ing Dr. Felix N. Büchi, an inde­pen­dent expert in pro­ton exchange mem­brane (PEM) tech­nolo­gies, to review Smoltek Hydrogen’s *Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE)* tech­nol­o­gy. In his eval­u­a­tion, Dr. Büchi rec­og­nizes that ”Smoltek elec­trodes are a very inter­est­ing devel­op­ment for the pro­duc­tion of low irid­i­um load­ing elec­trodes for PEM elec­trolyz­ers.” His com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis pro­vides valu­able insights for fur­ther devel­op­ment. Let’s delve into the details of this excit­ing eval­u­a­tion and what it means for Smoltek’s future. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#who-is-dr-felix-n-buchi)Who is Dr. Felix N. Büchi? ![Buechi](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/buechi.webp) You might be won­der­ing who Dr. Felix N. Büchi is and why his opin­ion car­ries such weight. As a promi­nent Swiss sci­en­tist spe­cial­iz­ing in elec­tro­chem­i­cal ener­gy con­ver­sion and stor­age, Dr. Büchi is at the fore­front of fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy and elec­trolyz­er development. As Group Head at the Elec­tro­chem­istry Lab­o­ra­to­ry at Switzerland’s pres­ti­gious Paul Scher­rer Insti­tute (PSI), Dr. Büchi focus­es on advanc­ing PEM fuel cells and PEM elec­trolyz­ers. His exper­tise is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant in char­ac­ter­iz­ing and eval­u­at­ing porous mate­ri­als for these appli­ca­tions. His pio­neer­ing work with X‑ray imag­ing under operan­do con­di­tions has rev­o­lu­tion­ized the under­stand­ing of PEM devices’ mass trans­port and two-phase flow, lead­ing to approx­i­mate­ly 50 ded­i­cat­ed papers since 2009. With a Ph.D. in Fun­da­men­tal Elec­tro­chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bern and expe­ri­ence from respect­ed insti­tu­tions like Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty, Dr. Büchi is rec­og­nized glob­al­ly for his exper­tise in poly­mer elec­trolytes and elec­tro­chem­i­cal systems. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-buchi-report)The Büchi Report Dr. Büchi’s assign­ment was to eval­u­ate Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE tech­nol­o­gy. The result­ing doc­u­ment, ”The Büchi Report,” pro­vides an in-depth analy­sis of the technology’s per­for­mance and areas for fur­ther optimization. While the full report con­tains con­fi­den­tial busi­ness infor­ma­tion, we’re excit­ed to share key high­lights with you. These insights demon­strate how Smoltek’s inno­va­tion address­es a crit­i­cal chal­lenge in the PEM elec­trolyz­er indus­try –  the press­ing issue of irid­i­um scarci­ty that threat­ens to con­strain the industry’s growth. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-iridium-challenge)The iridium challenge The num­bers tell a strong  sto­ry: The green hydro­gen indus­try will need 30 tons of irid­i­um annu­al­ly by 2030, while glob­al pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty is lim­it­ed to 9 tons annu­al­ly. With cur­rent irid­i­um prices around 150,000 EUR per kilo­gram, and mar­ket ana­lysts pro­ject­ing prices to reach 700,000 EUR per kilo­gram by 2030 due to the sup­ply-demand gap, reduc­ing irid­i­um usage becomes cru­cial for com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty. With our tech­nol­o­gy, irid­i­um con­sump­tion is reduced by 95% com­pared to cur­rent levels. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#understanding-pem-electrolyzers)Understanding PEM electrolyzers The reduc­tion of irid­i­um load is pos­si­ble  because of our fun­da­men­tal rethink­ing of elec­trode design. To under­stand our approach, let’s look at the basic struc­ture of a PEM electrolyzer. It has two elec­trodes sep­a­rat­ed by a thin pro­ton exchange mem­brane (PEM). At one elec­trode, called the *anode*, the sur­face of the tita­ni­um porous trans­port lay­er (PTL) pressed against the mem­brane must be coat­ed with irid­i­um. This extreme­ly rare and expen­sive met­al acts as a cat­a­lyst to make the reac­tion hap­pen. This is where Smoltek’s break­through inno­va­tion comes in. Our approach revolves around the inno­v­a­tive use of car­bon nanofibers (CNF): We grow these CNFs direct­ly on the tita­ni­um sur­face that faces the mem­brane, cre­at­ing a struc­ture that mul­ti­plies the sur­face area by 10–30 times. This great­ly enlarged sur­face area means we can spread out and uti­lize the irid­i­um cat­a­lyst much more effi­cient­ly – achiev­ing the same per­for­mance with much less of the pre­cious metal. We call the com­plete assem­bly – a tita­ni­um PTL with irid­i­um coat­ed CNFs on the mem­brane-fac­ing sur­face – a *Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE)*. This inte­grat­ed approach rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal shift from tra­di­tion­al elec­trode design, com­bin­ing struc­tur­al sup­port, increased sur­face area, and cat­a­lyst func­tion­al­i­ty in a sin­gle com­po­nent. The tech­nol­o­gy is strong­ly pro­tect­ed by patents cov­er­ing key aspects of the design and man­u­fac­tur­ing process.. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-innovative-solution)Smoltek’s innovative solution The effec­tive­ness of this approach has been proven in exten­sive test­ing. By apply­ing irid­i­um to our CNF-enhanced PTL using a pro­pri­etary process, we’ve achieved remark­able results in reduc­ing irid­i­um loading. Dr. Büchi eval­u­at­ed our elec­trodes with 0.2 mg/​cm2 of irid­i­um, which already rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion from the up to 2 mg/​cm2 used in tra­di­tion­al electrodes. Build­ing on these promis­ing results, our devel­op­ment work con­tin­ues toward our tar­get of  0.1 mg/​cm2, which would mark a break­through in irid­i­um uti­liza­tion efficiency. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#optimizing-for-durability)Optimizing for durability The car­bon nanofibers in Smoltek’s design require pro­tec­tion against the harsh, high­ly oxi­diz­ing envi­ron­ment at the anode. To pre­vent degra­da­tion, we apply a pro­tec­tive lay­er of plat­inum. Dr. Büchi con­firms that this pro­tec­tive lay­er is rel­e­vant for our approach. Ensur­ing long-term dura­bil­i­ty remains a top pri­or­i­ty. We’re com­mit­ted to exten­sive test­ing under real-world oper­at­ing con­di­tions to ver­i­fy that our efforts nev­er com­pro­mise the reli­a­bil­i­ty and per­for­mance of our electrodes. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#technical-advantages)Technical advantages Dr. Büchi’s analy­sis high­lights sev­er­al key strengths of our approach: The exam­ined irid­i­um load­ing (0.2 mg/​cm2) demon­strates sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic poten­tial, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing iridium’s high cost and lim­it­ed availability. The CNF-enhanced sur­face area, which is 10–30 times larg­er than the orig­i­nal PTL mem­brane-fac­ing sur­face, enables more effi­cient cat­a­lyst uti­liza­tion – a key fac­tor in achiev­ing high per­for­mance with reduced mate­r­i­al use. Ini­tial test­ing con­firms remark­able ini­tial results, achiev­ing 2.5 A/​cm² at 2V at 80 °C – a per­for­mance that, in his words, ”match­es the state of the art.” This shows that our unique approach to elec­trode design can deliv­er indus­try-com­pet­i­tive per­for­mance while using sig­nif­i­cant­ly less iridium. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dr-buchis-assessment)Dr. Büchi’s assessment In his over­all assess­ment Dr Büchi con­cludes: “Smoltek’s elec­trodes are a very inter­est­ing devel­op­ment for the pro­duc­tion of low irid­i­um load­ing elec­trodes for PEM elec­trolyz­ers.” Accord­ing to Dr. Büchi, the tech­nol­o­gy makes it pos­si­ble to cre­ate anodes with a great­ly enlarged sur­face area while using min­i­mal amounts of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst, all inte­grat­ed direct­ly onto the porous trans­port layer. His eval­u­a­tion includ­ed both exam­in­ing the elec­trode by itself (“ex-situ char­ac­ter­i­za­tion”) and test­ing it under real oper­at­ing conditions. He notes that “the ex-situ char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the elec­trodes shows that the aspired goals with high sur­face and low homo­ge­neous spe­cif­ic irid­i­um load­ing can be realized.”  While these ini­tial eval­u­a­tions are promis­ing, the most com­pelling results come from real-world test­ing. Dr. Büchi exam­ined the elec­trode’s per­for­mance when inte­grat­ed into a com­plete elec­trolyz­er cell, where it worked togeth­er with a mem­brane and cath­ode to pro­duce hydro­gen under actu­al oper­at­ing conditions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#performance-insights)Performance insights Ear­li­er this year, Smoltek achieved a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone by suc­cess­ful­ly oper­at­ing a PEM elec­trolyz­er cell for 1,000 hours using only 0.2 mg/​cm2 of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst. Dr. Büchi’s thor­ough analy­sis of this dura­bil­i­ty test has now pro­vid­ed valu­able insights into both the tech­nol­o­gy’s capa­bil­i­ties and its path forward. In his assess­ment, he notes: “The char­ac­ter­i­za­tion in PEM elec­trol­y­sis cells shows that the Smoltek elec­trodes give a very good per­for­mance at begin of life. Though, at the time, a deac­ti­va­tion occurs in the first 10 hours of oper­a­tion.  There are hypothe­ses on the mech­a­nism, but none is proven.” Let’s break this down: The ini­tial per­for­mance was excel­lent – exact­ly what we were look­ing for. How­ev­er, dur­ing the first 10 hours of oper­a­tion, we observed a decrease in per­for­mance. While the elec­trode con­tin­ued to pro­duce the desired hydro­gen out­put through­out the remain­ing 990 hours, it required slight­ly more elec­tri­cal pow­er than optimal. The cause of this per­for­mance drop had puz­zled our team until Dr. Büchi’s eval­u­a­tion. His insights pro­vid­ed a like­ly expla­na­tion for the reduced mem­brane con­tact area and, more impor­tant­ly, offered clear path­ways for improve­ment. Based on his rec­om­men­da­tions, we’re imple­ment­ing sev­er­al enhance­ments for our next dura­bil­i­ty test: - Strength­en­ing the bond between fibers and membrane - Mod­i­fy­ing the elec­trode configuration - Upgrad­ing to more sophis­ti­cat­ed test equipment With these improve­ments in place, we’re con­fi­dent in our path for­ward. Our goal remains clear: demon­strat­ing that our PTE tech­nol­o­gy can match indus­try-stan­dard per­for­mance while using sig­nif­i­cant­ly less iridium. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-does-this-mean-for-smolteks-future)What does this mean for Smoltek’s future? Dr. Büchi’s report rein­forces our con­fi­dence in the fun­da­men­tal approach of our PTE tech­nol­o­gy. His inde­pen­dent assess­ment con­firms that our inno­v­a­tive method for reduc­ing irid­i­um load­ing while main­tain­ing high per­for­mance address­es a crit­i­cal indus­try chal­lenge. The report also pro­vides valu­able guid­ance for our con­tin­ued devel­op­ment work. The path to com­mer­cial­iza­tion in deep tech often requires care­ful atten­tion to detail and sys­tem­at­ic eval­u­a­tion. Each mile­stone we achieve – includ­ing this thor­ough exter­nal review – brings us clos­er to our goal of enabling more effi­cient and sus­tain­able hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. We’re par­tic­u­lar­ly encour­aged by Dr. Büchi’s con­fir­ma­tion that our approach to reduc­ing irid­i­um usage shows promise, as this address­es one of the most sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers to scal­ing up green hydro­gen production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#your-thoughts-matter)Your thoughts matter As share­hold­ers and stake­hold­ers in Smoltek’s jour­ney, your per­spec­tive is invaluable: - How do you see this review impact­ing Smoltek’s posi­tion in the green hydro­gen market? - What aspects of Dr. Büchi’s report do you find most encouraging? - How can we bet­ter com­mu­ni­cate our progress and mile­stones as we work towards commercialization? Join the dis­cus­sion in the com­ments sec­tion of our LinkedIn post about this arti­cle. Your insights help shape our com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy and rein­force the val­ue of patience in devel­op­ing trans­for­ma­tive tech­nolo­gies. Togeth­er, we’re build­ing a foun­da­tion for a more sus­tain­able future. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen receives order for a pre-study of electrochemical devices" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-receives-order-for-a-pre-study-of-electrochemical-devices/7942/" date: 2024-10-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen receives order for a pre-study of electrochemical devices The buy­er of the fea­si­bil­i­ty study, an elec­tron­ic device man­u­fac­tur­er, will eval­u­ate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using Smoltek’s solu­tions and exten­sive exper­tise in nan­otech­nol­o­gy for a spe­cif­ic elec­tro­chem­i­cal application. As part of the fea­si­bil­i­ty study, Smoltek Hydro­gen will ana­lyze the main tech­ni­cal prin­ci­ples of the com­mer­cial­ly avail­able solu­tions on the mar­ket. This could poten­tial­ly pave the way for fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tion and future busi­ness potential. > Thanks to our close access to advanced equip­ment at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, we can car­ry out the fea­si­bil­i­ty study quick­ly and effi­cient­ly. We will inves­ti­gate whether our nanos­truc­tured elec­trode, orig­i­nal­ly devel­oped for hydro­gen appli­ca­tions, can be adapt­ed for this appli­ca­tion. If this is the case, we see a very inter­est­ing busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty for com­mer­cial use. > > *Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D Smoltek Hydrogen* --- title: "Smoltek accelerates the device prototyping process" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-accelerates-the-device-prototyping-process/7938/" date: 2024-10-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FG-intervju-2022-07-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitance-density.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # Smoltek accelerates the device prototyping process The new zap­ping method cuts the time to man­u­fac­ture test capac­i­tors from near­ly a month to just one week. The faster man­u­fac­tur­ing process enables Smoltek’s researchers to con­duct more exper­i­ments that accel­er­ate major tech­nol­o­gy advances – mak­ing the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy more attrac­tive to poten­tial buyers. > ***By cut­ting the devel­op­ment time so dra­mat­i­cal­ly, we can iter­ate faster and focus more on opti­miz­ing per­for­mance. This effi­cien­cy allows us to explore new con­fig­u­ra­tions and achieve break­throughs much soon­er, which strength­ens our posi­tion when engag­ing with poten­tial buy­ers.*** > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The new method, called zap­ping, is exclu­sive­ly used dur­ing the devel­op­ment phase to expe­dite test­ing. It enables researchers to quick­ly eval­u­ate new con­fig­u­ra­tions and mate­ri­als using sim­pli­fied test capac­i­tors, sav­ing valu­able time and resources. > Zap­ping is a clear advan­tage for us and our share­hold­ers. Faster devel­op­ment cycles mean short­er time to mar­ket for break­throughs, like tripling capac­i­tance den­si­ty and halv­ing leak­age current. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni **Zap­ping, explained:** The zap­ping method involves briefly apply­ing a high volt­age across spe­cif­ic con­tact points on a test capac­i­tor, cre­at­ing a con­trolled break­down in the insu­lat­ing lay­er. This tech­nique elim­i­nates the need for mul­ti­ple com­plex etch­ing steps, sig­nif­i­cant­ly stream­lin­ing the test­ing process.  For a more detailed expla­na­tion of the zap­ping method and its impact on Smoltek’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, [please vis­it the com­pa­ny’s IR blog](https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts/). --- title: "New method accelerates CNF-MIM development" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/zapping-accelerates-cnf-mim-development/7917/" date: 2024-10-11 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/zapping.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # New method accelerates CNF-MIM development While seek­ing buy­ers for our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, we con­tin­ue to refine our offer­ings. Recent­ly, we’ve made sig­nif­i­cant progress by tripling the capac­i­tance den­si­ty of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors while halv­ing the leak­age cur­rent with a new [dielec­tric stack](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/why-increased-capacitance-density-matter/7906/). To put this in per­spec­tive for non-experts, increased capac­i­tance den­si­ty means a greater abil­i­ty to store ener­gy in the form of elec­tric charge with­in the same vol­ume. Sim­i­lar­ly, reduced leak­age cur­rent means that the loss of stored ener­gy is reduced, mak­ing our capac­i­tors more efficient. Such advance­ments boost the appeal of our tech­nol­o­gy to poten­tial buy­ers. How­ev­er, break­throughs require exten­sive exper­i­men­ta­tion. To min­i­mize time-to-mar­ket, we need rapid exper­i­ment set­up capa­bil­i­ties. Man­u­fac­tur­ing full CNF-MIM capac­i­tors is time-con­sum­ing and cost­ly. For quick­er turn­around, we use par­al­lel plate capac­i­tors – sim­pler and cheap­er to pro­duce. Now, Smoltek Semi researchers have fur­ther accel­er­at­ed and econ­o­mized this process. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#parallel-plate-capacitors-as-proxies)Parallel plate capacitors as proxies A par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor is the sim­plest form of capac­i­tor: two met­al plates sep­a­rat­ed by an insu­la­tor. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors share this basic struc­ture, but add car­bon nanofibers to increase the met­al sur­face area many times over. Both types con­sist of par­al­lel met­al sur­faces sep­a­rat­ed by a dielec­tric stack of uni­form thickness. We man­u­fac­ture par­al­lel plate capac­i­tors using the same meth­ods and mate­ri­als as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, includ­ing cre­at­ing them on a sil­i­con wafer sub­strate. The only dif­fer­ence is that we omit the car­bon nanofiber steps for par­al­lel plate capac­i­tors. This sim­i­lar­i­ty in pro­duc­tion meth­ods, minus the nanofibers, makes par­al­lel plate capac­i­tors excel­lent sub­sti­tutes for test­ing CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, as they mim­ic CNF-MIM capac­i­tors while being sim­pler and quick­er to produce. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#simplifying-electrode-access)Simplifying electrode access Con­nect­ing a capac­i­tor requires access to both met­al plates, each of which is called an *elec­trode* in this con­text. The top elec­trode is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble, but the bot­tom elec­trode pos­es chal­lenges. It’s cov­ered by the top elec­trode and the dielec­tric stack, and can’t be accessed from below due to the substrate. Pre­vi­ous­ly, cre­at­ing an elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion to the bot­tom elec­trode required sev­er­al com­plex steps. Now, Smoltek Semi researchers use a method we call ”zap­ping” that sig­nif­i­cant­ly sim­pli­fies this process. While not a nov­el tech­nique in itself, it’s new for us to apply it in this con­text. The zap­ping method involves apply­ing a brief, high volt­age across spe­cif­ic con­tact points on a test capac­i­tor, cre­at­ing a con­trolled break­down in the insu­lat­ing lay­er. This tech­nique elim­i­nates the need for mul­ti­ple com­plex etch­ing steps, sig­nif­i­cant­ly stream­lin­ing the test­ing process. For those unfa­mil­iar with elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing, imag­ine try­ing to con­nect a wire to the bot­tom of a stack of sand­wich­es with­out dis­turb­ing the top lay­ers. The old method was like care­ful­ly cut­ting through each lay­er to reach the bot­tom. The new zap­ping method is more like using a focused beam of ener­gy to instant­ly melt a tiny, pre­cise hole through the lay­ers. This approach is much faster and caus­es min­i­mal dis­rup­tion to the over­all struc­ture, as it affects only a very small, con­trolled area. It’s worth not­ing that zap­ping is a devel­op­ment tool that sim­pli­fies CNF-MIM capac­i­tor char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. It’s not intend­ed for actu­al capac­i­tor production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-zapping-matters)Why zapping matters Zap­ping reduces sev­er­al fab­ri­ca­tion steps for test capac­i­tors, short­en­ing iter­a­tion time from a month to a week. This accel­er­a­tion allows more fre­quent test­ing of new con­fig­u­ra­tions, speed­ing up research and opti­miza­tion. It enables rapid eval­u­a­tion of mate­ri­als and design para­me­ters, focus­ing efforts on crit­i­cal com­po­nents like the dielec­tric stack with­out lengthy pro­duc­tion cycles. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#business-impact)Business impact Zap­ping enhances Smoltek’s posi­tion by mak­ing devel­op­ment more cost-effi­cient and rapid. It reduces R&D expens­es, allow­ing more exper­i­ments and tech­nol­o­gy refine­ment with­out over­spend­ing. This accel­er­at­ed pace enables quick­er deliv­ery of pre­lim­i­nary results to poten­tial part­ners, main­tain­ing their engage­ment and interest. In nego­ti­a­tions, demon­strat­ing high-per­form­ing, cost-effec­tive tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment makes Smoltek a more attrac­tive part­ner. While zap­ping isn’t used in final pro­duc­tion, the abil­i­ty to iter­ate quick­ly ensures a reli­able, scal­able end prod­uct – key con­sid­er­a­tions for poten­tial cus­tomers seek­ing eas­i­ly inte­grat­ed solutions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#investor-perspective)Investor perspective For share­hold­ers, zap­ping trans­lates into a clear advan­tage: faster devel­op­ment cycles mean a short­er time-to-mar­ket for break­throughs, such as tripling the capac­i­tance den­si­ty and halv­ing the leak­age cur­rent, mak­ing CNF-MIM capac­i­tors even more attrac­tive to buyers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#accelerating-smart-development)Accelerating smart development Zap­ping sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces devel­op­ment time and costs, enabling faster iter­a­tion and main­tain­ing our com­mer­cial­iza­tion tra­jec­to­ry. It’s a prag­mat­ic approach that bol­sters our mar­ket posi­tion and enhances our appeal to poten­tial buyers. --- title: "Smoltek has been granted a new patent within hydrogen technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-granted-a-new-patent-within-hydrogen-technology/7928/" date: 2024-10-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen-news.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" --- # Smoltek has been granted a new patent within hydrogen technology This is the sixth grant­ed patent pro­tect­ing our inno­va­tions in hydro­gen solu­tions and it brings our IP port­fo­lio to a total of 92 grant­ed patents. > **This spe­cif­ic inno­va­tion regards cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion of the anode in water elec­trol­y­sis, with non-noble met­al oxides. The inno­va­tion also improves dura­bil­i­ty and effi­cien­cy for anode elec­trodes with low irid­i­um loading.** > > *Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D at Smoltek Hydroge*n Most of the hydro­gen pro­duced today is from fos­sil hydro­car­bons with huge emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide to the atmos­phere. How­ev­er, hydro­gen pro­duc­tion through elec­trol­y­sis of water can be made 100% fos­sil-free and avoid­ing those emis­sions. A main obsta­cle though is the use of expen­sive pre­cious met­als, like irid­i­um, as cat­a­lysts in the process of the pro­ton exchange mem­brane (PEM) water electrolyzers. Cur­rent PEM elec­trolyz­ers face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges due to the cor­ro­sive con­di­tions with­in the elec­trol­y­sis cell. The com­bi­na­tion of an acidic envi­ron­ment and high elec­tri­cal poten­tial neces­si­tates the use of high­ly chem­i­cal­ly sta­ble mate­ri­als, such as irid­i­um and platinum. By using car­bon nanos­truc­tures as cat­a­lyst sup­port for the anode elec­trode Smoltek Hydro­gen has showed that a reduc­tion of irid­i­um load­ing of 95% in the PEM elec­trolyz­ers is pos­si­ble. For the pro­tec­tion of the nanos­truc­ture a plat­inum coat­ing is deposit­ed. With the new­ly grant­ed patent, Smoltek Hydro­gen presents a chem­i­cal­ly sta­ble inno­va­tion that coat the nanos­truc­ture with non-noble met­al oxides, reduc­ing the use of expen­sive plat­inum thus fur­ther reduc­ing the cost for the anode. More­over, the inno­va­tion also improves the dura­bil­i­ty and effi­cien­cy of the cell mak­ing the solu­tion even more attrac­tive to elec­trolyz­er manufacturers. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 92 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Electrolyzer Oxide Coating" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/electrolyzer-oxide-coating-2/7925/" date: 2024-10-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/smoltek-patent-92-website-image.webp" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Electrolyzer Oxide Coating The Inno­va­tion: A trans­port lay­er arrange­ment for the anode of a pro­ton exchange mem­brane water elec­trolyz­er, where the trans­port lay­er arrange­ment com­pris­es a porous lay­er and a plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures. Each elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­ture is attached ti a first sur­face of the porous lay­er at one end of the elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­ture. The plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures is cov­ered by a coat­ing com­pris­ing a first lay­er, which in turn com­pris­es a non-noble met­al oxide. [Link to patent/​patent file](https://tc.prv.se/spd/p/pdf/uEUk7hfoZvTWS3oljenFlQ/SE546319.C2.pdf?token=03AFcWeA5loVP3wGF1XN2BywfIdoIE3xIZJgVqOU4pVmYhBifrpXNALt2rty_DRXatECKqwQ0fcRw4w13TuUhx0ZKsQ7yyTRscyo-s4qcfCo5-_ZhFfHOq1EKrX2IeuJn2bcFNexVfqPBqus0GUfZ8kdyoRgJi00wte3K1RV2F7ma_y_QivvaQ-DHsGdlA9dyVDaXqBsrhjkcKgf1fBcUyUu-BibxviiE34TXs8Bt4kle57Okty_5i58obVPMOXP1ulo2IJxb_c4WUte-aLJCDlu5ydbcjMYMNLb22Mh-eTFRPKDW_r91p3DhVmnlootoG2IYd7xzTrQGRyT8CKhk0mOvrpurlgUqWEIBoKD0sq6rWpecd4L6sUBmU0YoKfdXc0QYyJ154V5HCozydJ4SmyuT-d8uamnRzYiQ8DSo3pOGPj1-FMX_QBMbLtCcnBcKXw5CzhCwoMSppo4c0ZT0PXojEv1DurDoK5PJpiYcQOUMV9Pgh9Op7N4OwdKRM0lL3KDG9V7jgwMvDPPeD6aAcGv2x5ZxpOSAXbatrvXDHn_iq2z_jEx721pAcrIr0p1SnEonRzq5c_n3b0BEKgzsaDmvAQX6Nh1ok10wBjaQMuXzr9ySobrKdCZ6cvzK4ebBneod3PYn9AzUc_LYcRb9mS2K8MFO7e9rO81vS3758DXMAqDxNcbxMw9HXAERA5Xaq3wWM_Lp5e5Lwb9-Uy0GLT7hYtHrzxtHysm0R91liq1x51fncQvC8PkzVieb8d4HkJgW_Xfso-2UJROBkMWdNzAFkq5q-GPdxWFNkx7jUzgZb7fr6koIK4VLCAaefPoDtqj6yi32fRv5WL_kfdt5FTjx-LT4GLPAprMyvl7yO_zk9E5NQI4vXZSY) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Swe­den | [SE 546 319 C2](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=KDBD749uXGZ7eM42P9NdVA&p2=9KJ7dD1Eap0&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=2) | --- title: "Why increased capacitance density matter" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/why-increased-capacitance-density-matter/7906/" date: 2024-10-01 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/happy-scientist.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitance-density.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" --- # Why increased capacitance density matter In a [press release](https://mb.cision.com/Main/16786/4043532/3024871.pdf), we announced that Smoltek Semi has devel­oped a new dielec­tric stack that increas­es capac­i­tance den­si­ty by 230 per­cent and reduces leak­age cur­rent by 50 per­cent. But what the heck is a dielec­tric stack? And how does it ben­e­fit you as a share­hold­er and investor? ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf-mim-capacitors-are-needed)CNF-MIM capacitors are needed [Car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/technology/carbon-nanotechnology/) are the core of what we do. We use them to tack­le com­plex mate­r­i­al chal­lenges across var­i­ous indus­tries, such as cre­at­ing ultra-thin capac­i­tors with suf­fi­cient capacitance. Capac­i­tors are essen­tial for [sta­bi­liz­ing the pow­er fluc­tu­a­tions](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/why-capacitors/6214/) caused when tran­sis­tors inside an appli­ca­tion proces­sor switch between ones and zeros bil­lions of times per sec­ond. They quick­ly absorb excess ener­gy and release stored ener­gy when need­ed. The catch is that these capac­i­tors must be placed very close to the tran­sis­tors to be effective—ideally, right under the chip itself. This requires capac­i­tors small enough to fit between the sol­der balls on the under­side of the chip. These capac­i­tors need to be thin­ner than the diam­e­ter of the sol­der balls yet still pro­vide enough capac­i­tance to han­dle the task. Smoltek Semi address­es this chal­lenge with its CNF-MIM capacitors. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#three-things-that-increase-capacitance)Three things that increase capacitance Fun­da­men­tal­ly, a capac­i­tor con­sists of two met­al plates with an insu­lat­ing mate­r­i­al between them. Its abil­i­ty to store ener­gy, *capac­i­tance*, is pri­mar­i­ly deter­mined by three factors: - The area of the met­al plates’ sur­face. The larg­er the area, the high­er the capacitance. - The dis­tance between the met­al plates. The short­er the dis­tance, the high­er the capacitance. - The abil­i­ty of the insu­la­tion mate­r­i­al to store ener­gy. The high­er this abil­i­ty (expressed as the *dielec­tric con­stant*, κ), the high­er the capacitance. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are just met­al-insu­la­tion-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tors where we cre­ate a large area in a small vol­ume using car­bon nanofibers (CNF). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf-as-area-multiplier)CNF as area multiplier Grow­ing car­bon nanofibers on a sur­face increas­es the sur­face area tens of thou­sands of times. To under­stand why this is so, con­sid­er a car­bon nanofiber as a ver­ti­cal­ly stand­ing cylin­der of height *h* and radius *r*. The cylinder’s man­tle sur­face is 2*πrh*, and its base sur­face is *πr*2. So you could say that the car­bon nanofiber takes up a sur­face of *πr*2 but cre­ates a new sur­face of 2*πrh*. Since *h* is much larg­er than *r*, the new sur­face is also much larg­er, more pre­cise­ly 2*πrh* /​ *πr*2 = 2*h*/​*r*. A car­bon nanofiber with *r* = 20 nm and *h* = 20 µm thus increas­es the area by a whop­ping fac­tor of 1,000. It is this capac­i­ty, as an area mul­ti­pli­er, that car­bon nanofiber is used in Smoltelk’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor. They mul­ti­ply the sur­face area, which we then cov­er lay­er by lay­er with met­al, insu­la­tion, and more metal. Sim­ply put, we start with a sub­strate on which we grow a for­est of car­bon nanofibers. Each car­bon nanofiber is then coat­ed in met­al. Next, we add a lay­er of insu­la­tion over the met­al-coat­ed nanofibers. Final­ly, we place anoth­er met­al lay­er on top of the insu­la­tion. This cre­ates a large met­al-insu­la­tion-met­al sur­face area rel­a­tive to its small volume. Because a capacitor’s abil­i­ty to store ener­gy is pro­por­tion­al to its sur­face area, the capac­i­tance per unit vol­ume of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors is extreme­ly high. This allowed Smoltek to show­case a lab pro­to­type of the [world’s thinnest capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-technology-enabling-the-worlds-thinnest-capacitor/7714/) already in 2021. ![Crossection Of Cnf Mim Capacitor By Smoltek](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/crossection-of-cnf-mim-capacitor-by-smoltek-1200x675.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#meaning-of-the-press-release)Meaning of the press release Hafni­um oxide was used as insu­la­tion in the first batch­es of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. Hafni­um oxide is a mate­r­i­al with high dielec­tric con­stant *κ*. What the [press release](https://mb.cision.com/Main/16786/4043532/3024871.pdf) says is that Smoltek Semi’s researchers have devel­oped a brand new insu­la­tion that alone increas­es capac­i­tance den­si­ty by 230 per­cent com­pared to hafni­um oxide. On the same sur­face area as before, we can now get more than three times the capac­i­tance. This means that Smoltek puts fur­ther dis­tance between itself and its competitors. More­over, as icing on the cake, Smoltek’s engi­neers have reduced the inevitable leak­age cur­rent by 50 percent. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#dielectric-stack)Dielectric stack The new insu­la­tion con­sists of lay­er upon lay­er of two mate­ri­als. One mate­r­i­al has a very high dielec­tric con­stant κ, which means it can store a lot of ener­gy. The oth­er mate­r­i­al is a very good elec­tri­cal insu­la­tor, which means it acts as a bar­ri­er to leak­age current. We call the new mate­r­i­al a *dielec­tric stack*, because it is a stack of lay­ers of the two mate­ri­als, and it has a high dielec­tric con­stant κ. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#yageo-is-testing)Yageo is testing To bet­ter under­stand the prop­er­ties of the new dielec­tric stack, we began by using it in the sim­plest type of capac­i­tors: par­al­lel plate capac­i­tors. As the name sug­gests, these con­sist of two par­al­lel met­al plates with the dielec­tric stack between them. This design lets us study the dielec­tric stack’s char­ac­ter­is­tics with­out inter­fer­ence from oth­er factors. We have man­u­fac­tured these capac­i­tors and sent them to Yageo for reli­a­bil­i­ty test­ing and fur­ther char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. Mean­while, we’ve already moved on to the next phase: inte­grat­ing the new dielec­tric stack into CNF-MIM capacitors. As Yageo car­ries out its test­ing and the first CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are pro­duced using the new dielec­tric stack, Smoltek’s CTO, Farzan Gha­vani­ni, reviews the ini­tial results with sat­is­fac­tion and enthu­si­asm. With a 230 per­cent increase in capac­i­tance, a 50 per­cent reduc­tion in leak­age cur­rent, and a flaw­less 100 per­cent fab­ri­ca­tion yield, he is gen­uine­ly thrilled by this breakthrough. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-does-this-mean-to-you)What does this mean to you? So, what does this mean for you as a share­hold­er and investor? This means that Smoltek is not just keep­ing up in a com­pet­i­tive indus­try but also active­ly pulling ahead. With a 230 per­cent increase in capac­i­tance and a 50 per­cent reduc­tion in leak­age cur­rent, Smoltek has set a new bench­mark in per­for­mance. This break­through strength­ens our mar­ket posi­tion and makes our tech­nol­o­gy even more attrac­tive to major play­ers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. It’s not just a tech­ni­cal achievement—it’s a com­mer­cial advan­tage that could lead to new part­ner­ships and a faster path to mar­ket adoption. --- title: "New dielectric stack for CNF-MIM capacitors boost capacitance density by 230%" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-dielectric-stack-for-cnf-mim-capacitors-boost-capacitance-density-by-230/7898/" date: 2024-09-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FG-intervju-2022-07-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitance-density.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/news.md" - name: "semi news" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semi-news.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" --- # New dielectric stack for CNF-MIM capacitors boost capacitance density by 230% The first phase of this project has now con­clud­ed suc­cess­ful­ly, demon­strat­ing sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments over the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion of dielec­tric stacks. The new stack, based on zir­co­ni­um oxide, will be inte­grat­ed into future gen­er­a­tions of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. The pri­or stack, made from hafni­um oxide, was uti­lized in the [Gen Zero capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/gen-one-next-generation-of-smolteks-carbon-nanofiber-capacitors/7445/). > ***The new­ly devel­oped dielec­tric stack is a blend of two oxides: a high‑k oxide to boost capac­i­tance den­si­ty, and an oxide that serves as a bar­ri­er against charge move­ment, thus min­i­miz­ing cur­rent leakage.*** > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. Dur­ing the first phase, Smoltek Semi focused on par­al­lel plate capac­i­tors, deposit­ing the dielec­tric stack on flat sur­faces between two par­al­lel elec­trodes. Per­for­mance mea­sure­ments were car­ried out at the wafer lev­el and after the devices were trans­ferred and mount­ed onto PCBs. The results revealed an extra­or­di­nary 230% improve­ment in capac­i­tance den­si­ty com­pared to the Gen Zero dielec­tric stack, while anoth­er crit­i­cal per­for­mance met­ric, leak­age cur­rent, showed a 50% reduction. > The results have been out­stand­ing, both in terms of per­for­mance met­rics and repro­ducibil­i­ty. I’m par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ed about the excep­tion­al repro­ducibil­i­ty achieved dur­ing the first phase, where we reached a fab­ri­ca­tion yield of 100%. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni The devices mount­ed on PCBs have now been sent to Yageo who is sup­port­ing Smoltek with reli­a­bil­i­ty test­ing and fur­ther characterization. --- title: "Smoltek and cutting-edge research in nanotechnology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-and-cutting-edge-research-in-nanotechnology/7873/" date: 2024-09-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-09-11-xin-h2lab-01.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "Xin Wen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/xin-wen.md" --- # Smoltek and cutting-edge research in nanotechnology Smoltek con­ducts advanced applied indus­tri­al research, where researchers use strict­ly sci­en­tif­ic meth­ods and prin­ci­ples. Most of the time, the researchers start from car­bon nanofibers to then inves­ti­gate which oth­er met­als, dielectrics etc. can be coat­ed on the nanofibers (in sev­er­al lay­ers) in order to achieve the desired properties. Just over a third of all employ­ees at Smoltek are doc­tors – or PhDs as they usu­al­ly say. PhD is an aca­d­e­m­ic research title, and our doc­tors have been award­ed in the fol­low­ing areas: Tech­nol­o­gy and busi­ness strat­e­gy, The­o­ret­i­cal Sol­id-State physics, Micro­elec­tron­ics and Nanoscience, Chem­istry, Mate­ri­als Sci­ence, and Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience. Smoltek are enter­ing new appli­ca­tions, based on car­bon nanofibers, that no one has tried before. This means that there are also no estab­lished the­o­ries or oth­er research results to start from. This also means that Smoltek’s researchers main­ly work hypoth­e­sis-dri­ven, i.e. they must inves­ti­gate how dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als, gas­es, process­es, tools, etc., should work or which nanos­truc­tures should be produced. **Advanced hypothe­ses and mate­r­i­al selec­tion** It can some­times take sev­er­al months of work to arrive at the best way to coat a cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al (for exam­ple, irid­i­um) on the car­bon nanofibers. Dur­ing the work, the researchers try to deter­mine, among oth­er things, whether the irid­i­um should be crys­talline or amor­phous. Should the car­bon nanofibers be attached and grown on a smooth or rough sur­face? Should it be metal­lic or made up of var­i­ous oxides? Will it be bet­ter if you mix in some oth­er tran­si­tion met­al in the sub­strate? If so, which one? And so on…. In these exper­i­ments, count­less com­bi­na­tions are test­ed where results are mea­sured and com­pared, and the researchers begin to under­stand causal rela­tion­ships (what affects what?). In the exam­ple above, with irid­i­um, exist­ing research was stud­ied by Dr. Xin Wen, who before her time at Smoltek did her dis­ser­ta­tion on cat­alyt­ic nanopar­ti­cles at Chalmers. Ini­tial­ly, she stud­ied sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions to increase knowl­edge of how irid­i­um could con­ceiv­ably be deposit­ed on a car­bon nanofibers in an elec­trolyz­er anode. Hypothe­ses were then set up, i.e. Dr Xin Wen made var­i­ous assump­tions about how irid­i­um should work togeth­er with car­bon nanofibers, and then a series of exper­i­ments were per­formed to see if the hypothe­ses were cor­rect, as well as to arrive at the best configuration. This is a high­ly sim­pli­fied descrip­tion, as there are usu­al­ly many para­me­ters that affect the out­come; for exam­ple, how much hydro­gen is pro­duced with a cer­tain amount of elec­tric pow­er in an electrolyzer? Most of the time, this work means that a large num­ber of exper­i­ments must be car­ried out, where, for exam­ple, the length, thick­ness and den­si­ty of the nanofibers on the sub­strate (should they be placed sparse­ly or dense­ly, in which pat­tern?) etc. are var­ied. The next step is to con­trol the tem­per­a­ture of the process cham­ber, gas flow (which gas­es inter­act best?) where pres­sure and geom­e­try are to be var­ied. But before plac­ing the mate­r­i­al sam­ple (pro­to­type) in the process cham­ber, you also need to test dif­fer­ent pre­treat­ment meth­ods, and which met­als are most suit­able to start grow­ing fibers on.  This work is car­ried out by Smoltek’s researchers at Chalmers’ clean­room lab­o­ra­to­ry for nan­otech­nol­o­gy, called MC2. It takes place part­ly in Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary PECVD tool, part­ly in Chalmers tools. PECVD stands for Plas­ma Enhanced Chem­i­cal Vapor Depo­si­tion and involves con­trol­ling gas­es in a cham­ber with the help of a plas­ma and elec­tric fields, so that the gas mol­e­cules react in a spe­cif­ic way, which starts a process so that the nanofibers (placed on cat­a­lysts, in pre­de­ter­mined pat­terns) start to “grow” in the direc­tion of the elec­tric field from the substrate. At Chalmers, but also at oth­er uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tutes, scan­ning elec­tron micro­scopes and oth­er advanced equip­ment are then used to inves­ti­gate the mor­phol­o­gy of fiber growth and lat­er how the nanopar­ti­cles of irid­i­um have attached to the fibers, or to mea­sure effi­cien­cy, loss­es, etc. Based on this, the researchers try to under­stand how they can improve on the next material. In this way, Smoltek researchers man­u­fac­ture extreme­ly small struc­tures, where the basis is car­bon nanofiber sur­faces, which is then func­tion­ing as an elec­trode, or a sen­sor, or an elec­tro­cat­a­lyst by using dif­fer­ent nan­otech­nolo­gies to deposit var­i­ous lay­ers on top of the car­bon nanofiber. In order to do this, rel­e­vant post­grad­u­ate train­ing is required, as well as an estab­lished net­work with­in the cur­rent research in the field. Many of Smoltek’s col­lab­o­ra­tions are car­ried out with the researchers’ for­mer col­leagues, who are usu­al­ly pro­fes­sors, or oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tions with research groups at var­i­ous universities. ![Efcf 2023 Smoltek Presentation Xinwen](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/efcf-2023-smoltek-presentation-xinwen-1200x675.webp) Xin Wen presents Smoltek Hydro­gen’s advance­ments for the porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) for PEMWE’s. **Research con­fer­ences, peer review and pub­li­ca­tions** Smoltek’s researchers active­ly par­tic­i­pate at var­i­ous sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ences, where a mix of aca­d­e­m­ic and pri­vate­ly fund­ed research is pre­sent­ed and dis­cussed. To be able to present their lat­est results at these con­fer­ences, the con­tri­bu­tion must first be approved by dif­fer­ent com­mit­tees, con­sist­ing of promi­nent researchers in the respec­tive fields. These assess whether the exper­i­ments can be repeat­ed, they study the pub­li­ca­tion’s ref­er­ences to, among oth­er things, under­stand that the results con­sti­tute new and rel­e­vant knowl­edge, and they review that the study is of suf­fi­cient­ly high qual­i­ty for reli­able con­clu­sions to be drawn. Smoltek’s researchers write sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions part­ly to get a stamp of approval that the research is of the right qual­i­ty, part­ly to show mer­it when Smoltek applies for research grants. This is also what Smoltek empha­sizes to make it clear that the com­pa­ny con­ducts high­ly qual­i­fied research, which by def­i­n­i­tion means that Smoltek cre­ates new knowledge. Smoltek’s research is reviewed and pub­lished in sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals after a so-called peer review process, which con­firms its aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­ty. For instance, [this exam­ple](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/MA2023-02422082mtgabs). This is a stan­dard in the research world and con­firms that what Smoltek presents is new knowl­edge. In order to have the research pub­lished, it must be unique and con­tribute to the research front. The same cri­te­ria apply to the com­pa­ny’s patent appli­ca­tions – Smoltek can only obtain a patent if the appli­ca­tion devel­ops new inno­va­tions and has a qual­i­fied inven­tive step. Smoltek reg­u­lar­ly par­tic­i­pates in sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ences, such as the [Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Soci­ety (ECS)](https://www.electrochem.org/mission/), where the com­pa­ny’s research results are pre­sent­ed to a sci­en­tif­ic audi­ence. These con­fer­ences also place high demands on the qual­i­ty of the research. In sum­ma­ry, Smoltek con­ducts qual­i­fied research, which is shown through the com­pa­ny’s research grants, col­lab­o­ra­tions with uni­ver­si­ties and indus­try, as well as par­tic­i­pa­tion in sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ences and pub­li­ca­tions in sci­en­tif­ic journals. > Join us and become a super­star in nanotechnology! **Would you like to work with advanced research at Smoltek?** Do you like:  - For­mu­late research questions - Make a hypothesis - Data col­lec­tion - Data analy­sis - Draw con­clu­sions - Pub­lish in a sci­en­tif­ic context Wel­come to send in a [spon­ta­neous appli­ca­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/about/career/). --- title: "The wizard of Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/wizard-of-smoltek/7848/" date: 2024-09-11 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/the-wizard-of-smoltek.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "cnf" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" --- # The wizard of Smoltek Smoltek has made a major break­through: suc­cess­ful­ly grow­ing car­bon nanofibers (CNF) on an A4-sized area. This achieve­ment, detailed in our lat­est [news](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-achieves-milestone-with-a4-sized-cnf-growth/7826/) and [press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-achieves-major-hydrogen-business-breakthrough-with-a4-sized-carbon-nanofiber-growth,c4032517), under­scores the sig­nif­i­cant val­ue of Smoltek’s intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal. As a share­hold­er or investor, it’s cru­cial to under­stand this val­ue and how we pro­tect it. This arti­cle explores what we have achieved, our strat­e­gy for mon­e­tiz­ing it, the impor­tance of our peo­ple, and how we are com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing the intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal they represent. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#revolution-in-cnf-production)Revolution in CNF production Almost two decades ago, Dr. Shafiq Kabir, founder of Smoltek, bought a used plas­ma-enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (PECVD) reac­tor cham­ber from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy. It was need­ed for grow­ing car­bon nanofibers. The reac­tor cham­ber was the company’s first, affec­tion­ate­ly known inter­nal­ly as “David.” Among the nerdier share­hold­ers and investors, it’s known as the 6‑inch machine because it was used to grow car­bon nanofibers on 6‑inch sil­i­con wafers. It still can, but now “David” has been rebuilt to grow car­bon nanofibers on a tita­ni­um sub­strate slight­ly larg­er than an A4 sheet (21×29.7 cm). “With recent mod­i­fi­ca­tions, ‘David’ can now pro­duce cell mate­ri­als up to A4 size, a stan­dard for indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen. “This allows us to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­duce up to 150 pro­to­types of 2×2 cm, or 24 pro­to­types of 5×5 cm, or a sin­gle pro­to­type at A4 size.” With a fur­ther mod­i­fi­ca­tion planned, Smoltek will be able to pro­duce up to 2,000 square meters of cell mate­r­i­al per year. ![Ptl Cnf](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ptl-cnf-1200x800.webp) *Scan­ning elec­tron micro­scope image of car­bon nanofiber (CNF) grown on a porous trans­port lay­er (PTL) at 1,000× magnification.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#demand-is-already-knocking)Demand is already knocking Why would Smoltek pro­duce 2,000 m² of cell mate­r­i­al per year? There are no cus­tomers, after all. Quite the opposite! “In fact, cus­tomers are already knock­ing on our door,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, says. “While they may not order large quan­ti­ties of cell mate­r­i­al on day one, they rely on our cell mate­r­i­al and exper­tise to devel­op their products.” The devel­op­ment process, which typ­i­cal­ly spans 2–5 years, begins with pro­to­types that require cell mate­ri­als in sizes of 2×2 cm and 5×5 cm. From there, they move to A4-sized cell mate­r­i­al for build­ing entire stacks, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to sub­stan­tial orders for full-scale production. At each stage—from ini­tial pro­to­types to stacks and pre-series production—Smoltek gen­er­ates rev­enue by sup­ply­ing both the essen­tial cell mate­ri­als and the R&D ser­vices that enable cus­tomers’ devel­op­ment efforts. By the time these cus­tomers are ready for mass pro­duc­tion, a vol­ume fac­to­ry will be capa­ble of pro­duc­ing up to 200,000 m² of cell mate­r­i­al per year, includ­ing sizes larg­er than 1 m². > *One part­ner com­pa­ny exclaimed in amaze­ment: ‘Is it true?!’* > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-genius-behind-the-breakthrough)The genius behind the breakthrough To achieve A4-sized cell mate­r­i­al pro­duc­tion, Shafiq Kabir and oth­ers at Smoltek Hydro­gen redesigned “David.” Among oth­er things, the reac­tor cham­ber was giv­en a larg­er top elec­trode and a larg­er heat­ing plate. It sounds sim­ple. But it is any­thing but. “Shafiq is a wiz­ard,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. “No one out­side Smoltek thought it pos­si­ble to grow car­bon nanofibers on a sur­face as large as A4. But with his unique exper­tise and sys­tem­at­ic approach, Shafiq took on this seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble task and proved the naysay­ers wrong.” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg continues: “Since we pub­lished the news of our break­through, the result has attract­ed much atten­tion from researchers and col­leagues world­wide. One part­ner com­pa­ny exclaimed in amaze­ment: ‘Is it true?!’ They were stunned by the result. It shows that Smoltek has a unique posi­tion in the market.” ![Smoltek 2024 09 02 A4 Cnf Growth Web](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/smoltek-2024-09-02-a4-cnf-growth-web-1200x675.webp) *Dr. Shafiq Kabir in Smoltek’s lab hold­ing the world’s first sam­ple of ver­ti­cal­ly grown car­bon nanofibers (CNF) on an A4-sized porous trans­port lay­er (PTL).* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#safeguarding-our-intellectual-capital)Safeguarding our intellectual capital Smoltek’s unique posi­tion stems from our [high­ly qual­i­fied research and devel­op­ment](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/why-smoltek-doubles-down-on-qualified-research/7800/) and the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty it gen­er­ates. This exper­tise has solid­i­fied Smoltek’s posi­tion with its largest and longest stand­ing investor as [a com­pa­ny with sig­nif­i­cant, but not ful­ly rec­og­nized, poten­tial](https://www.smoltek.com/david-gramnaes-brings-budo-to-board/7671/). To pro­tect this intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal, Smoltek takes every pos­si­ble mea­sure, includ­ing secur­ing [exclu­sive rights to use the results of our R&D](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/what-you-dont-know-about-patents/7005/) through patents. But even more cru­cial is Smoltek Hydrogen’s com­mit­ment to nur­tur­ing the team behind these remark­able achieve­ments, ensur­ing they thrive and grow while mak­ing Smoltek an attrac­tive employ­er that draws top tal­ent worldwide. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cultivating-a-winning-team)Cultivating a winning team Elli­nor cred­its much of the company’s unique cul­ture to the sup­port­ive and open-mind­ed lead­er­ship of Shafiq Kabir and Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D. “Fabi­an and Shafiq cre­ate an atmos­phere where every­one feels val­ued,” Elli­nor explains. “They are gen­er­ous with their knowl­edge and always approach­able, encour­ag­ing open dis­cus­sion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Their pos­i­tive, inclu­sive approach brings out the best in every­one on the team.” From the begin­ning, Smoltek Hydro­gen’s co-founders, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg and Fabi­an Wenger, have been com­mit­ted to build­ing a safe and col­lab­o­ra­tive cul­ture. No ques­tion is too triv­ial to ask and no idea is too out­landish to sug­gest. They believe in cre­at­ing an open, wel­com­ing envi­ron­ment where every employ­ee feels safe, val­ued and appreciated. This cul­ture pays off through loy­al employ­ees who go the extra mile for the com­pa­ny and each oth­er. A small but telling exam­ple is when the team framed the first A4-sized cell mate­r­i­al and hung it in the office. ![World S First A4 Size Cnf Growth](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/world-s-first-a4-size-cnf-growth-1200x1800.webp) *The Smoltek Hydro­gen team has proud­ly framed and hung on the office wall the world’s first A4 size CNF growth.* --- title: "Why Smoltek doubles down on qualified research" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/why-smoltek-doubles-down-on-qualified-research/7800/" date: 2024-09-05 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/happy-explorer.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "R&D Evaluation Matrix" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/rd-evaluation-matrix.md" --- # Why Smoltek doubles down on qualified research If you haven’t read the blog post about the [*R&D Eval­u­a­tion Matrix*](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/different-meanings-of-research-and-development/7788/), I high­ly rec­om­mend you start there. It’s a straight­for­ward mod­el that helps eval­u­ate where com­pa­nies fall regard­ing their inno­va­tion approach. No quad­rant is bet­ter than anoth­er. The impor­tant thing is that the com­pa­ny you eval­u­ate is where you think it should be. So, where does Smoltek fit? Clear­ly, Smoltek is an *Explor­er*. And there are sev­er­al rea­sons why. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-business-model)Smoltek’s business model Smoltek’s core busi­ness is root­ed in high­ly spe­cial­ized sci­en­tif­ic research aimed at over­com­ing com­plex mate­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy chal­lenges across var­i­ous indus­tries using our pro­pri­etary [car­bon nanos­truc­tures](https://www.smoltek.com/technology/carbon-nanotechnology/). What makes our approach tru­ly unique is our abil­i­ty to grow car­bon nanofibers with extra­or­di­nary pre­ci­sion, posi­tion­ing them exact­ly where need­ed. We can cul­ti­vate extreme­ly thin car­bon nanofibers and nan­otubes while ensur­ing they main­tain an elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion with the under­ly­ing sub­strate. This isn’t just an incre­men­tal improve­ment; it’s a dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion that has the poten­tial to rede­fine entire prod­uct categories. When Smoltek iden­ti­fies a prob­lem that our tech­nol­o­gy unique­ly can address—whether minia­tur­iz­ing capac­i­tors for the elec­tron­ics indus­try or dras­ti­cal­ly reduc­ing the amount of rare and cost­ly irid­i­um in electrolyzers—we estab­lish a ded­i­cat­ed sub­sidiary to focus exclu­sive­ly on that challenge. These sub­sidiaries con­tin­ue the crit­i­cal sci­en­tif­ic research need­ed to tack­le spe­cif­ic obsta­cles unique to their appli­ca­tion. Ques­tions like “How do we grow car­bon nanofibers on mate­ri­als oth­er than sil­i­con?” or “How do we pro­tect car­bon nanofibers from cor­ro­sion?” are at the heart of our work. These are not triv­ial prob­lems, and solv­ing them requires world-class research and a com­mit­ment to push­ing the bound­aries of what’s possible. This tech­nol­o­gy has already attract­ed the atten­tion of some of the most for­ward-think­ing com­pa­nies glob­al­ly. While we can’t name names, our research aligns with the kind of inno­va­tion that indus­try giants look for. ### Smoltek’s scientific articles and conference papers [Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty Assess­ment of CVD growth of Car­bon nanofibers on bulkC­MOS devices](https://www.smoltek.com/compatibility-assessment-of-cvd-growth-of-carbon-nanofibers-on-bulkcmos-devices/979/) [Car­bon nanos­truc­tures per­form high aspect ratio nanoimprinting](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanostructures-perform-high-aspect-ratio-nanoimprinting/977/) [Nanoim­print lith­o­g­ra­phy using ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanos­truc­tures as stamp](https://www.smoltek.com/nanoimprint-lithography-using-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanostructures-as-stamp/975/) [A Test Vehi­cle for RF/​​DC Eval­u­a­tion and Destruc­tive Test­ing Of Ver­ti­cal­ly Grown Nanos­truc­tures (VGCNS)](https://www.smoltek.com/a-test-vehicle-for-rf-dc-evaluation-and-destructive-testing-of-vertically-grown-nanostructures-vgcns/973/) [Car­bon nan­otubes as elec­trode for supercapacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-as-electrode-for-supercapacitors/970/) [Is it time to Rein­force In-pack­age Sol­der Joints Using CNF?](https://www.smoltek.com/is-it-time-to-reinforce-in-package-solder-joints-using-cnf/965/) [Embed­ded Fibers Enhance Nano-Scale Interconnections](https://www.smoltek.com/embedded-fibers-enhance-nano-scale-interconnections/7785/) [Car­bon nanotubes/​​nanofibers com­pos­ites from cel­lu­lose for supercapacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-nanofibers-composites-from-cellulose-for-supercapacitors/956/) [Car­bon Nanotubes/​​Nanofibers Com­pos­ites from Cel­lu­lose as Elec­trodes for Sus­tain­able Ener­gy Devices](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-nanofibers-composites-from-cellulose-as-electrodes-for-sustainable-energy-devices/961/) [Car­bon Nan­otube Based Ridge Gap Res­onator for 220–325 GHz](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotube-based-ridge-gap-resonator-for-220-325-ghz/963/) [Car­bon Nan­otubes as base Mate­r­i­al for Fab­ri­ca­tion of Gap Wave­guide Components](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-as-base-material-for-fabrication-of-gap-waveguide-components/7709/) [Car­bon Nanofibers (CNF) for enhanced sol­der-based nano-scale inte­gra­tion and on-chip inter­con­nect solutions](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers-cnf-for-enhanced-solder-based-nano-scale-integration-and-on-chip-interconnect-solutions/959/) [Car­bon Nanofibers (CNF) for Enhanced Sol­der-based Nano-Scale Inter­con­nects and Pack­ag­ing Solutions](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers-cnf-for-enhanced-solder-based-nano-scale-interconnects-and-packaging-solutions/967/) [Low tem­per­a­ture and cost-effec­tive growth of ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers using spin-coat­ed poly­mer-sta­bi­lized pal­la­di­um nanocatalysts](https://www.smoltek.com/low-temperature-and-cost-effective-growth-of-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-using-spin-coated-polymer-stabilized-palladium-nanocatalysts/952/) [CMOS com­pat­i­ble on-chip decou­pling capac­i­tor based on ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/cmos-compatible-on-chip-decoupling-capacitor-based-on-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers/954/) [Exam­in­ing Car­bon Nanofibers: Prop­er­ties, growth, and applications](https://www.smoltek.com/examining-carbon-nanofibers-properties-growth-and-applications/950/) [Hier­ar­chi­cal cel­lu­lose-derived car­bon nanocom­pos­ites for elec­tro­sta­t­ic ener­gy storage](https://www.smoltek.com/hierarchical-cellulose-derived-carbon-nanocomposites-for-electrostatic-energy-storage/948/) [Devel­op­ment of Super­ca­pac­i­tor based on car­bon nanos­truc­tures as elec­trode materials](https://www.smoltek.com/development-of-supercapacitor-based-on-carbon-nanostructures-as-electrode-materials/943/) [Per­for­mance Enhance­ment of Car­bon Nano­ma­te­ri­als for Supercapacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/performance-enhancement-of-carbon-nanomaterials-for-supercapacitors/940/) [Hier­ar­chi­cal cel­lu­lose-derived CNF/​​CNT com­pos­ites for elec­tro­sta­t­ic ener­gy storage](https://www.smoltek.com/hierarchical-cellulose-derived-cnf-cnt-composites-for-electrostatic-energy-storage/938/) [Car­bon nano­ma­te­r­i­al-based inter­con­nects, inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors and supercapacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanomaterial-based-interconnects-integrated-capacitors-and-supercapacitors/932/) [Coin-cell Super­ca­pac­i­tors Based on CVD Grown and Ver­ti­cal­ly Aligned Car­bon Nanofibers (VAC­N­Fs)](https://www.smoltek.com/coin-cell-supercapacitors-based-on-cvd-grown-and-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-vacnfs/930/) [Inte­grat­ed sol­id-state capac­i­tors based on car­bon nanostructures](https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-solid-state-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanostructures/928/) [On-Chip Inte­grat­ed Sol­id-State Micro-Supercapacitor](https://www.smoltek.com/on-chip-integrated-solid-state-micro-supercapacitor/925/) [Inte­grat­ed on-chip sol­id state capac­i­tor based on ver­ti­cal­ly aligned nanofibers, grown using a CMOS tem­per­a­ture com­pat­i­ble process](https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-on-chip-solid-state-capacitor-based-on-vertically-aligned-nanofibers-grown-using-a-cmos-temperature-compatible-process/923/) [Nanopar­ti­cles-enabled low tem­per­a­ture growth of car­bon nanofibers and their prop­er­ties for supercapacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/nanoparticles-enabled-low-temperature-growth-of-carbon-nanofibers-and-their-properties-for-supercapacitors/921/) [Inte­grat­ed ful­ly sol­id-state capac­i­tor based on car­bon nanofibers and dielectrics](https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-fully-solid-state-capacitor-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-and-dielectrics/915/) [Direct Elec­tri­cal and Mechan­i­cal Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Car­bon Nanofibers Turf Using a Probe Card and Nanoindentation](https://www.smoltek.com/direct-electrical-and-mechanical-characterization-of-carbon-nanofibers-turf-using-a-probe-card-and-nanoindentation/917/) [On-chip sol­id-state CMOS com­pat­i­ble micro-supercapacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/on-chip-solid-state-cmos-compatible-micro-supercapacitors/919/) [Ful­ly Sol­id-State Inte­grat­ed Capac­i­tors Based on Car­bon Nanofibers and Dielectrics with Spe­cif­ic Capac­i­tances High­er Than 200 nF/​​mm2](https://www.smoltek.com/fully-solid-state-integrated-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-and-dielectrics-with-specific-capacitances-higher-than-200-nf-mm2/910/) [Inte­grat­ed and Dis­crete Capac­i­tors Based on Car­bon Nanos­truc­tures with Capac­i­tance Den­si­ties in Excess of 350 nF/​​mm2](https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-and-discrete-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanostructures-with-capacitance-densities-in-excess-of-350-nf-mm2/913/) [Ultra-Thin Capac­i­tors based on Car­bon nanofibers with Ultra-High Capac­i­tance Density](https://www.smoltek.com/ultra-thin-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-with-ultra-high-capacitance-density/907/) [Inte­grat­ed and Dis­crete Ultra-Thin Capac­i­tors Based on Car­bon Nanofibers with High Capac­i­tance Density](https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-and-discrete-ultra-thin-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-with-high-capacitance-density/903/) [Robust­ness of car­bon nanofiber-based MIM capac­i­tors with ultra-high capac­i­tance den­si­ty to elec­tri­cal and ther­mal stress](https://www.smoltek.com/robustness-of-carbon-nanofiber-based-mim-capacitors-with-ultra-high-capacitance-density-to-electrical-and-thermal-stress/905/) [Ultra­thin High-Den­si­ty Capac­i­tors based on Car­bon Nanofibers Fab­ri­cat­ed on Sil­i­con, Alu­mi­na and Glass Inter­pos­er Materials](https://www.smoltek.com/ultrathin-high-density-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-fabricated-on-silicon-alumina-and-glass-interposer-materials/897/) [Elec­tri­cal Per­for­mance and Robust­ness of Ultra­thin High-Den­si­ty Car­bon Nanofiber Capac­i­tors on Sil­i­con, Alu­mi­na and Glass Sub­strate Materials](https://www.smoltek.com/electrical-performance-and-robustness-of-ultrathin-high-density-carbon-nanofiber-capacitors-on-silicon-alumina-and-glass-substrate-materials/7763/) [Impact of elec­trode geom­e­try and thick­ness on pla­nar on-chip microsupercapacitors](https://www.smoltek.com/impact-of-electrode-geometry-and-thickness-on-planar-on-chip-microsupercapacitors/7766/) [High-fre­quen­cy elec­tri­cal cir­cuit mod­el for inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors uti­liz­ing lossy nanostructures](https://www.smoltek.com/high-frequency-electrical-circuit-model-for-integrated-capacitors-utilizing-lossy-nanostructures/840/) [Reli­a­bil­i­ty, sol­der­abil­i­ty and elec­tri­cal per­for­mance of high den­si­ty ultra thin capac­i­tors based on car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/reliability-solderability-and-electrical-performance-of-high-density-ultra-thin-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers/865/) [Flip chip inter­con­nects based on car­bon nanofibers-sol­der composites](https://www.smoltek.com/flip-chip-interconnects-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-solder-composites/892/) [CNF-MIM Tech­nol­o­gy, Enabling the Worlds Thinnest Capacitor](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-technology-enabling-the-worlds-thinnest-capacitor/7714/) [Ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers promise more cost-effi­cient PEM water electrolyzers](https://www.smoltek.com/vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-promise-more-cost-efficient-pem-water-electrolyzers/7718/) [Toward Low Load­ing and High Uti­liza­tion Ratio of Irid­i­um Cat­a­lyst for PEM Water Elec­trolyz­ers Using Smoltek Car­bon Nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/toward-low-loading-and-high-utilization-ratio-of-iridium-catalyst-for-pem-water-electrolyzers-using-smoltek-carbon-nanofibers/7722/) [Low Load­ing and High Uti­liza­tion Ratio of Irid­i­um Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Smoltek Car­bon Nanofibers Used as Anode Mate­r­i­al for PEM Water Electrolyzers](https://www.smoltek.com/low-loading-and-high-utilization-ratio-of-iridium-catalyst-coated-smoltek-carbon-nanofibers-used-as-anode-material-for-pem-water-electrolyzers/7720/) [Enhanc­ing Effi­cien­cy and Dura­bil­i­ty of PEM Water Elec­trol­y­sis with Low Irid­i­um Load­ing through Nanofiber-Mod­i­fied Porous Trans­port Electrodes](https://www.smoltek.com/enhancing-efficiency-and-durability-of-pem-water-electrolysis-with-low-iridium-loading-through-nanofiber-modified-porous-transport-electrodes/7758/) ### Smoltek’s patent families [Nanos­truc­ture E‑beam writer](https://www.smoltek.com/nanostructure-e-beam-writer/999/) [Inter­con­nects A (Smol­GROW™)](https://www.smoltek.com/interconnects-a-smolgrow/1035/) [Nanos­truc­ture IC](https://www.smoltek.com/nanostructure-ic/1011/) [Inter­con­nects B](https://www.smoltek.com/interconnects-b/1044/) [Bump­ing](https://www.smoltek.com/bumping/1019/) [Helplay­er](https://www.smoltek.com/helplayer/1022/) [Nano Imprint Lithography](https://www.smoltek.com/nano-imprint-lithography/1026/) [Cat­a­lyst Diffusion](https://www.smoltek.com/catalyst-diffusion/1030/) [Inter­pos­er](https://www.smoltek.com/interposer/1032/) [Assem­bly platform](https://www.smoltek.com/assembly-platform/1038/) [Com­pact Ener­gy Stor­age Interposer](https://www.smoltek.com/compact-energy-storage-interposer/1041/) [Dis­crete CNF-MIM](https://www.smoltek.com/discrete-cnf-mim/5689/) [Elec­tro Cat­a­lyst Support](https://www.smoltek.com/electro-catalyst-support/5811/) [Elec­tro Cat­a­lyst Heating](https://www.smoltek.com/electro-catalyst-heating/6273/) [Con­tact Resistance](https://www.smoltek.com/contact-resistance/6757/) [Nano Vel­cro](https://www.smoltek.com/nano-velcro/6768/) [Ver­ti­cal Graphene](https://www.smoltek.com/vertical-graphene/6770/) [Mul­ti­lay­er Cap](https://www.smoltek.com/multilayer-cap/7656/) [Elec­trolyz­er Oxide Coating](https://www.smoltek.com/electrolyzer-oxide-coating-2/7925/) [Elec­trode Con­for­mal Coating](https://www.smoltek.com/electrode-conformal-coating/8473/) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#an-investment-company-of-a-sort)An investment company of a sort As our research pro­gress­es, our sub­sidiaries seek indus­tri­al part­ners to devel­op prod­ucts based on our unique solu­tions. Smoltek’s con­tri­bu­tion, in addi­tion to intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and know-how, is fur­ther R&D to adapt the tech­nol­o­gy to the part­ners’ needs and challenges. Ulti­mate­ly, each sub­sidiary is spun off as an inde­pen­dent com­pa­ny, either retained or sold by Smoltek. In this way, Smoltek func­tions like an “invest­ment com­pa­ny” with a port­fo­lio of entities—but unlike tra­di­tion­al invest­ment firms, we don’t acquire exist­ing com­pa­nies. Instead, we incu­bate new ones from the ground up, built on our pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy and research. Smoltek cur­rent­ly has two port­fo­lio com­pa­nies: [Smoltek Semi](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/), which is devel­op­ing a capac­i­tor (CNF-MIM) with a world record capac­i­tance per unit vol­ume, and [Smoltek Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/), which is devel­op­ing a nov­el mate­r­i­al for fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers that reduces the need for irid­i­um in elec­trolyz­ers by 95%. Both are still deeply engaged in qual­i­fied research, and this jour­ney will con­tin­ue for some time. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#shareholder-value)Shareholder value Smoltek’s ded­i­ca­tion to research makes the com­pa­ny gen­uine­ly com­pelling for investors. By tack­ling chal­lenges that could deter­mine the future of entire indus­tries and pro­vide broad soci­etal benefits—such as enabling the fur­ther devel­op­ment of increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful proces­sors and mak­ing green hydro­gen a com­pet­i­tive alter­na­tive to fos­sil fuels—we devel­op unique, patent-pro­tect­ed tech­nolo­gies like CNF-MIM capac­i­tors and mate­ri­als for fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers. These inno­va­tions are in high demand by indus­tries eager to inte­grate them into their prod­ucts, posi­tion­ing Smoltek to gen­er­ate sub­stan­tial roy­al­ties and addi­tion­al rev­enue from ongo­ing qual­i­fied research, ulti­mate­ly cre­at­ing sig­nif­i­cant share­hold­er value. Our abil­i­ty to deliv­er these break­throughs depends entire­ly on our com­mit­ment to qual­i­fied research. This focus has been the foun­da­tion of our past suc­cess­es and will con­tin­ue to dri­ve our future innovations. While Smoltek can be likened to a tra­di­tion­al invest­ment com­pa­ny, rather than acquir­ing busi­ness­es, we act as an incu­ba­tor for deep tech ven­tures. We build our port­fo­lio com­pa­nies from the ground up, each root­ed in Smoltek’s research. These com­pa­nies con­duct their own spe­cial­ized research to solve spe­cif­ic, high-impact prob­lems that indus­tries urgent­ly need to address. This approach allows investors to ben­e­fit from the suc­cess of indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies and gain from Smoltek’s con­tin­u­ous cycle of inno­va­tion and com­pa­ny cre­ation, pro­vid­ing mul­ti­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties for val­ue growth over the long term. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conclusion)Conclusion Qual­i­fied research is at the heart of our busi­ness mod­el, dri­ving the devel­op­ment of car­bon nanos­truc­ture-based solu­tions to address some of the most com­plex mate­r­i­al chal­lenges across indus­tries. This focus firm­ly posi­tions us as an *Explor­er* in the [R&D Eval­u­a­tion Matrix](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/different-meanings-of-research-and-development/7788/). Smoltek is dou­bling down on this strat­e­gy because it promis­es to gen­er­ate sub­stan­tial roy­al­ties and addi­tion­al rev­enue from ongo­ing spe­cial­ized research, ulti­mate­ly deliv­er­ing sig­nif­i­cant val­ue to our shareholders. --- title: "The different meanings of R&D" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/different-meanings-of-research-and-development/7788/" date: 2024-09-04 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/rd-evaluation-matrix.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "R&D Evaluation Matrix" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/rd-evaluation-matrix.md" --- # The different meanings of R&D *Research and devel­op­ment* (*R&D*) is some­thing that almost all com­pa­nies with­in the tech­nol­o­gy sphere do. But what it means varies wide­ly. For some, R&D is dri­ven by the mar­ket­ing team, research­ing cus­tomer pref­er­ences to help design­ers tweak exist­ing prod­ucts or cre­ate new ones that align with mar­ket demands. For oth­ers, R&D is about sci­en­tif­ic research, aim­ing to solve engi­neer­ing chal­lenges or devel­op new foun­da­tions for tech­nol­o­gy break­throughs. Most com­pa­nies that devel­op new prod­ucts lie some­where between these two extremes. From the out­side, it is dif­fi­cult for stake­hold­ers to judge the true nature and qual­i­ty of a company’s R&D. How­ev­er, by using sim­ple mod­els, it’s pos­si­ble to gain insights into how qual­i­fied a company’s R&D efforts tru­ly are. This arti­cle presents such a mod­el that is straight­for­ward to use. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#rd-evaluation-matrix)R&D Evaluation Matrix We intro­duce the R&D Eval­u­a­tion Matrix to bet­ter under­stand and eval­u­ate a company’s R&D efforts. This 2×2 mod­el cat­e­go­rizes R&D activ­i­ties along two key dimen­sions: the *type of inno­va­tion* and the *dri­ving force behind it*. ![R&d Evaluation Matrix](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/rd-evaluation-matrix.svg) *R&D Eval­u­a­tion Matrix* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#innovations)Innovations The hor­i­zon­tal axis of the R&D Eval­u­a­tion Matrix rep­re­sents the out­come of the R&D, dis­tin­guish­ing between two types of innovations: **Incre­men­tal Inno­va­tion** (left side) involves small, con­tin­u­ous improve­ments to exist­ing prod­ucts, process­es, or ser­vices. This type of inno­va­tion focus­es on refin­ing what already exists to opti­mize per­for­mance, reduce costs, or enhance user expe­ri­ence. It is about mak­ing steady advance­ments that pro­vide imme­di­ate, tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to the cur­rent offerings. **Dis­rup­tive Inno­va­tion** (right side) focus­es on ground­break­ing changes that can rede­fine mar­kets or cre­ate entire­ly new ones. This inno­va­tion emerges from explor­ing new ideas, tech­nolo­gies, or approach­es that break away from con­ven­tion­al meth­ods and chal­lenge exist­ing par­a­digms, often result­ing in rev­o­lu­tion­ary prod­ucts or ser­vices that trans­form the mar­ket landscape. ### Sources Chandy, R.K. & Tel­lis, G.J., 2000. Explor­ing the dynam­ics of mar­ket-dri­ven ver­sus tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven inno­va­tion. *Research Pol­i­cy*, 28(2–3), pp. 233–254. Cui, A.S. & Wu, F., 2016. Mar­ket-dri­ven ver­sus tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven in the inno­va­tion process: Insights from the smart­phone indus­try. *Research Pol­i­cy*, 45(8), pp. 1697–1709. Im, S. & Work­man, J.P. Jr, 2004. Inno­va­tion strate­gies of new prod­uct devel­op­ment: A study of mar­ket ori­en­ta­tion and tech­nol­o­gy ori­en­ta­tion. *Jour­nal of Prod­uct Inno­va­tion Man­age­ment*, 21(5), pp. 341–355. Olson, E.M., Walk­er, O.C. & Ruek­ert, R.W., 1995. Bal­anc­ing mar­ket and tech­nol­o­gy ori­en­ta­tion in new prod­uct devel­op­ment: A con­tin­gency per­spec­tive. *Jour­nal of Prod­uct Inno­va­tion Man­age­ment*, 12(3), pp. 216–234. Porter, M.E., 1985. *Com­pet­i­tive Advan­tage: Cre­at­ing and Sus­tain­ing Supe­ri­or Per­for­mance*. New York: Free Press.Schilling, M.A., 2019. *Strate­gic Man­age­ment of Tech­no­log­i­cal Inno­va­tion*. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#driving-forces)Driving forces The ver­ti­cal axis of the R&D Eval­u­a­tion Matrix reflects the moti­va­tion behind R&D activ­i­ties, dis­tin­guish­ing between two fun­da­men­tal dri­ving forces: **Mar­ket-dri­ven** (top half) is not pri­mar­i­ly sci­en­tif­ic but is focused on inves­ti­gat­ing to gain knowl­edge about mar­ket demand, prod­uct-mar­ket fit, and com­pet­i­tive posi­tion­ing. This knowl­edge comes from sources such as ana­lyt­i­cal reports, cus­tomer sur­veys, and data from exist­ing cus­tomers. The objec­tive is to align prod­uct devel­op­ment with explic­it mar­ket needs, solve cus­tomer prob­lems, or antic­i­pate future trends based on mar­ket signals. **Tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven** (bot­tom half) aligns more close­ly with sci­en­tif­ic research. This involves applied research to acquire new knowl­edge and solve spe­cif­ic tech­no­log­i­cal prob­lems or exper­i­men­tal devel­op­ment to cre­ate or improve prod­ucts and process­es. This approach is often a sys­tem­at­ic effort, build­ing on pri­or research and prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence to expand tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties and push the bound­aries of what is pos­si­ble, regard­less of imme­di­ate mar­ket demand. ### Sources Aber­nathy, W.J. & Utter­back, J.M., 1978. Pat­terns of indus­tri­al inno­va­tion. *Tech­nol­o­gy Review*, 80(7), pp. 40–47. Ben­ner, M.J. & Tush­man, M.L., 2003. Exploita­tion, explo­ration, and process man­age­ment: The pro­duc­tiv­i­ty dilem­ma revis­it­ed. *Acad­e­my of Man­age­ment Review*, 28(2), pp. 238–256. Chris­tensen, C.M., 1997. *The Innovator’s Dilem­ma: When New Tech­nolo­gies Cause Great Firms to Fail*. Boston: Har­vard Busi­ness School Press. Chris­tensen, C.M. & Over­dorf, M., 2000. Meet­ing the chal­lenge of dis­rup­tive change. *Har­vard Busi­ness Review*, 78(2), pp. 66–76. Dewar, R.D. & Dut­ton, J.E., 1986. The adop­tion of rad­i­cal and incre­men­tal inno­va­tions: An empir­i­cal analy­sis. *Man­age­ment Sci­ence*, 32(11), pp. 1422–1433. Gar­cia, R. & Calan­tone, R., 2002. A crit­i­cal look at tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion typol­o­gy and inno­v­a­tive­ness ter­mi­nol­o­gy: A lit­er­a­ture review. *Jour­nal of Prod­uct Inno­va­tion Man­age­ment*, 19(2), pp. 110–132. O’Reilly, C.A. & Tush­man, M.L., 2004. The ambidex­trous orga­ni­za­tion. *Har­vard Busi­ness Review*, 82(4), pp. 74–81. Tidd, J. & Bessant, J., 2020. *Man­ag­ing Inno­va­tion: Inte­grat­ing Tech­no­log­i­cal, Mar­ket and Orga­ni­za­tion­al Change*. 6th ed. Hobo­ken: Wiley.Tushman, M.L. & Ander­son, P., 1986. Tech­no­log­i­cal dis­con­ti­nu­ities and orga­ni­za­tion­al envi­ron­ments. *Admin­is­tra­tive Sci­ence Quar­ter­ly*, 31(3), pp. 439–465. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strategic-archetypes)Strategic archetypes Com­bin­ing these two dimen­sions – the type of inno­va­tion and the dri­ving force – the matrix defines four dis­tinct *strate­gic arche­types* rep­re­sent­ing com­pa­nies’ dif­fer­ent approach­es toward their R&D efforts. **Sat­is­fi­er**: In the top-left quad­rant, *Sat­is­fi­er* focus­es on incre­men­tal inno­va­tions dri­ven by mar­ket needs. Com­pa­nies in this quad­rant con­cen­trate on con­tin­u­ous improve­ments to exist­ing prod­ucts, guid­ed by mar­ket research, cus­tomer feed­back, and com­pet­i­tive analy­sis. The aim is to enhance cur­rent offer­ings, such as refin­ing design, func­tion­al­i­ty, or reduc­ing costs, to meet present cus­tomer demands better. **Dis­rup­tor**: In the top-right quad­rant, *Dis­rup­tor* focus­es R&D efforts on dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions that are still dri­ven by mar­ket needs. Com­pa­nies here seek to cre­ate new prod­ucts or ser­vices that rede­fine or expand exist­ing mar­kets. They are high­ly respon­sive to mar­ket sig­nals, like shift­ing con­sumer behav­iors, emerg­ing trends, or unmet needs. **Opti­miz­er**: In the bot­tom-left quad­rant, *Opti­miz­er* engages in incre­men­tal inno­va­tion dri­ven by tech­no­log­i­cal needs. Com­pa­nies in this quad­rant focus on enhanc­ing exist­ing tech­nolo­gies or refin­ing process­es to solve spe­cif­ic engi­neer­ing prob­lems or opti­mize pro­duc­tion meth­ods. The goal is to improve tech­ni­cal foun­da­tions for greater effi­cien­cy, scal­a­bil­i­ty, or robust­ness. This approach is vital in com­pet­i­tive envi­ron­ments where tech­no­log­i­cal supe­ri­or­i­ty and cost-effec­tive­ness pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant advantages. **Explor­er**: In the bot­tom-right quad­rant, *Explor­er* is focus­ing on dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions dri­ven by tech­no­log­i­cal needs. Com­pa­nies in this cat­e­go­ry pur­sue break­throughs that could trans­form entire indus­tries or cre­ate new ones. Their efforts are high­ly explorato­ry, dri­ven by curios­i­ty and sci­en­tif­ic inquiry into unknown ter­ri­to­ries. They are less focused on imme­di­ate mar­ket needs and more on the poten­tial for new tech­nolo­gies to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the future. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#interpreting-the-rd-landscape)Interpreting the R&D landscape By plot­ting a company’s R&D activ­i­ties on this matrix, stakeholders—such as investors, board mem­bers, and strate­gic partners—can bet­ter under­stand the company’s inno­va­tion focus. Are they pri­or­i­tiz­ing incre­men­tal improve­ments or aim­ing for dis­rup­tive break­throughs? Are their efforts pri­mar­i­ly guid­ed by mar­ket demands or dri­ven by tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments? This frame­work clar­i­fies the company’s strate­gic direc­tion, risk pro­file, and growth potential. For exam­ple, a com­pa­ny that falls pri­mar­i­ly with­in the Sat­is­fi­er quad­rant may be per­ceived as risk-averse but high­ly attuned to cus­tomer needs and com­pet­i­tive pres­sures. This can be ide­al for busi­ness­es oper­at­ing in mature mar­kets where dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion comes from per­fect­ing exist­ing offer­ings rather than cre­at­ing new ones. On the oth­er hand, a com­pa­ny heav­i­ly posi­tioned in the Explor­er quad­rant might be viewed as a high-risk, high-reward enti­ty. These com­pa­nies often bet on future tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs that could pay off enormously. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#strategic-reflection-and-alignment)Strategic reflection and alignment More­over, the matrix can help com­pa­nies reflect on their cur­rent R&D strate­gies. Exam­in­ing which quad­rants their activ­i­ties fall into, they can ask them­selves whether their cur­rent focus aligns with their long-term goals. Should they be invest­ing more in dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions to ensure future growth? Are they too focused on short-term mar­ket needs at the expense of long-term tech­no­log­i­cal explo­ration? The matrix offers a frame­work for such strate­gic introspection. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conclusion)Conclusion In con­clu­sion, the R&D Eval­u­a­tion Matrix enables share­hold­ers, investors and oth­er stake­hold­ers to eval­u­ate com­pa­nies by clar­i­fy­ing their inno­va­tion strate­gies, dis­tin­guish­ing between incre­men­tal and dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion, and deter­min­ing whether these are mar­ket- or technology-driven. Try the matrix your­self by fig­ur­ing out where Smoltek belongs. Then com­pare your con­clu­sion with [Smoltek’s own view](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/why-smoltek-doubles-down-on-qualified-research/7800/). --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen achieves milestone with A4-sized CNF-growth" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-achieves-milestone-with-a4-sized-cnf-growth/7826/" date: 2024-09-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/smoltek-2024-09-02-a4-cnf-growth-web.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "plasma" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/plasma.md" - name: "R&D-tool" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/rd-tool.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" - name: "smolGROW" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smolgrow.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen achieves milestone with A4-sized CNF-growth > We are the first in the world to achieve this. The accom­plish­ment is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for us, and very valu­able as a proof to cus­tomers that our tech­nol­o­gy is scal­able. This also means that we now can pro­duce small A4-sized test series of the porous trans­port elec­trode, which cus­tomers can use when devel­op­ing next gen­er­a­tion of PEM electrolyzers. > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen > We are pleased to con­firm that we can now grow car­bon nanofibers (CNF) across a full A4-sized area. This mile­stone was achieved using the same tita­ni­um sub­strate that will be used in our future high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion line, where we plan to coat sur­faces of at least one square meter at a time. > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen **Back­ground to the achieve­ment of CNF in A4-size** In 2023 the founder of Smoltek, Shafiq Kabir, re-joined the com­pa­ny to scale up tech­nolo­gies to the sizes required in the hydro­gen busi­ness. Dur­ing the spring, Smoltek Hydro­gen upgrad­ed Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary PECVD R&D tool to grow CNF over a larg­er area. The improve­ments include a larg­er heater, a new top elec­trode, and a mod­i­fied growth process. As a result, the R&D‑team suc­cess­ful­ly expand­ed the plas­ma size from a 6‑inch diam­e­ter to an A4 size, tripling the cov­er­age area and achiev­ing sta­ble plas­ma across the entire A4 surface. > By expand­ing our R&D tool’s capa­bil­i­ties, we gain valu­able knowl­edge that will pre­pare and accel­er­ate the trans­fer of our growth recipes, from lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nol­o­gy in the R&D tool to indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions. Achiev­ing A4-sized car­bon nanofiber growth is an essen­tial mile­stone towards devel­op­ing a scal­able indus­tri­al process. > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen ![Shafiq Kabir in the MC2 laboratory, in the remodeling of Smoltek's plasma tool.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/a4-plasma-remodeling-shafiq-1200x675.webp) Shafiq Kabir in the MC2 lab­o­ra­to­ry, in the remod­el­ing of Smoltek’s plas­ma tool. --- title: "Smoltek has been granted a new patent in the Discrete CNF-MIM patent family" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-granted-a-new-patent-in-the-discrete-cnf-mim-patent-family/7702/" date: 2024-08-16 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FG-intervju-2022-07-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has been granted a new patent in the Discrete CNF-MIM patent family The new­ly approved US-patent is the fifth in order in the Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly. This patent fam­i­ly dis­clos­es inno­va­tions that exploit the extra ordi­nary sur­face to vol­ume ratio pro­vid­ed by car­bon nanofibers and pro­pos­es a dis­crete Met­al-Insu­la­tor-Met­al (MIM) struc­ture with unpar­al­leled high capac­i­tance density. > This patent grant fur­ther strength­ens our IP port­fo­lio in the field of ultra-thin capac­i­tors, which is impor­tant for us as the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try invests aggres­sive­ly in advanced capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies to match the demands of new­er inte­grat­ed circuits. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek The Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly dis­clos­es a high-den­si­ty dis­crete capac­i­tor based on Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy paving the way for CNF based ultra-thin capac­i­tors that can be placed adja­cent to the com­po­nents they are sup­posed to sup­port. The patent fam­i­ly enables the sys­tem design­ers to bring for­ward inte­gra­tion and pack­ag­ing schemes with supe­ri­or per­for­mance with very small foot­print. These new schemes are vital in devel­op­ing new prod­ucts in the field of IoT, wear­ables, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC), Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI), and similar. ![Discrete CNF-MIM patent US20220013305a1](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/us20220013305a1-900x600.webp) > It is reward­ing to wit­ness that our R&D efforts as reflect­ed in our expand­ing IP port­fo­lio aligns well with the needs of the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and that our dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy can solve prob­lems that tra­di­tion­al tech­nolo­gies can­not, Farzan Gha­vani­ni concludes. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 91 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek is seeking strong partners for industrialization of CNF-MIM capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-seeking-strong-partners-for-industrialization-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/7629/" date: 2024-08-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-01-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "gen-one" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/gen-one.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "volumetric capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/volumetric-capacitance-density.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Smoltek is seeking strong partners for industrialization of CNF-MIM capacitors Smoltek has made sig­nif­i­cant progress in both tech­ni­cal devel­op­ment and cre­at­ing an indus­tri­al process for high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion of the company’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, CNF-MIM. The goal is to com­plete the devel­op­ment of the next gen­er­a­tion, Gen-One, dur­ing the fall of 2024. A new gen­er­a­tion that is expect­ed to deliv­er car­bon nanofiber capac­i­tors that are com­mer­cial­ly com­pet­i­tive with the lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy for ultra-thin capac­i­tors, such as the lat­est trench sil­i­con capac­i­tors made by TSMC/​Apple. > We have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in our semi­con­duc­tor sub­sidiary, Smoltek Semi. In 2024, we expect to reach tech­ni­cal per­for­mance for our capac­i­tors that match­es the com­peti­tors, com­bined with an extreme­ly thin form fac­tor. This is exact­ly what the mar­ket demands. Now that we are no longer bound by exclu­siv­i­ty agree­ments in the semi­con­duc­tor area, we can start dia­logues with sev­er­al poten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ners. Our focus for 2024 is to con­tin­ue the tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment and cre­ate new collaborations.  > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek **Updat­ed strate­gic con­di­tions for Smoltek Semi** Smoltek is seek­ing finan­cial­ly strong part­ners through a bid­ding process aim­ing to bring this tech­nol­o­gy to mar­ket and sup­port con­tin­ued tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment and new collaborations. To ensure long-term suc­cess and con­tin­ued inno­va­tion, Smoltek has launched a bid­ding process, which was announced in a press release on May 22, 2024. Through this process, inter­est­ed par­ties are sought for a poten­tial sale of con­cepts and intan­gi­ble assets in the semi­con­duc­tor busi­ness area, includ­ing Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for ultra-thin capac­i­tors, which is oper­at­ed by the sub­sidiary Smoltek Semi AB, alter­na­tive­ly all or parts of this sub­sidiary. The process is esti­mat­ed to take 6–12 months. **New income oppor­tu­ni­ties for indus­tri­al col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ners** Smoltek’s capac­i­tors offer new oppor­tu­ni­ties for sales income in sev­er­al mar­ket seg­ments, from pre­mi­um sec­tors such as the mobile indus­try and advanced elec­tron­ics to sim­pler appli­ca­tions such as RF fil­ters. The annu­al net sales poten­tial is esti­mat­ed at approx­i­mate­ly 1,000 MSEK dur­ing the peri­od 2030 to 2034. The capac­i­tors can be man­u­fac­tured cost-effec­tive­ly thanks to a CMOS-com­pat­i­ble pro­duc­tion process that is cheap­er than com­pet­ing alter­na­tives and uses exist­ing machines at con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers. This enables col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ners to effec­tive­ly address mul­ti­ple seg­ments with good profitability. Since the nego­ti­a­tions with Yageo Group unex­pect­ed­ly end­ed in March 2024, Smoltek is now able to broad­ly offer inter­est­ed par­ties the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sub­mit bids for license agree­ments or the acqui­si­tion of all or part of the assets in Smoltek Semi. With the end of exclu­siv­i­ty agree­ments, there are no longer any restric­tions on nego­ti­a­tions or bids for Smoltek’s CNF-MIM technology. ![Smoltek Semi Strategic Plan 2022 2028](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/smoltek-semi-strategic-plan-2022-2028-1200x470.webp) **Focus on cap­i­tal and part­ner­ship for Smoltek Semi** In addi­tion to con­tin­ued tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, Smoltek Semi is now focus­ing on attract­ing exter­nal cap­i­tal from one or more part­ners to take the tech­nol­o­gy to indus­tri­al­iza­tion. The com­pa­ny is pri­mar­i­ly aimed at indus­tri­al actors and ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists with exten­sive indus­try knowl­edge. By the end of 2024, the Gen-One results will be pre­sent­ed to Yageo and their com­peti­tors, with the expec­ta­tion that the tech­nol­o­gy will be com­pet­i­tive and part­ner­ship dia­logues will be ini­ti­at­ed with sev­er­al play­ers. Smoltek’s share­hold­ers are main­ly expect­ed to ben­e­fit from roy­al­ty income from sev­er­al play­ers and/​or a pos­si­ble sale of the sub­sidiary to one or more partners. ![Smoltek R&D-team at MC2 nanotech lab](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-12-1200x675.webp) 200 mm wafer with CNF-MIM capacitors **Nec­es­sary hard­ware to meet cus­tomers’ high tech­nol­o­gy require­ments** Semi­con­duc­tor is the col­lec­tive name for the mate­ri­als that con­duct elec­tric­i­ty under spe­cif­ic con­di­tions, and it is an indis­pens­able com­po­nent in mod­ern elec­tron­ics. They are found in every­thing from smart­phones and lap­tops to cars and med­ical equip­ment. Semi­con­duc­tors are also cru­cial for tech­nolo­gies such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) and the Inter­net of Things (IoT), mak­ing the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try cen­tral to the glob­al econ­o­my. Major semi­con­duc­tor com­pa­nies such as Nvidia, TSMC and Broad­com are among the most high­ly val­ued com­pa­nies list­ed on the glob­al stock markets. Smoltek’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is an impor­tant hard­ware com­po­nent to meet the high demands of the tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment with­in AI, 5G/​6G and advanced dri­ver assis­tance sys­tems (ADAS). The mar­ket requires a new gen­er­a­tion of capac­i­tors that are extreme­ly thin with high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, which can be placed close to the active pow­er source or proces­sor chip to meet per­for­mance and func­tion­al­i­ty require­ments. With the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of semi­con­duc­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers and the increas­ing need for small­er and more effi­cient com­po­nents, the mar­ket for extreme­ly thin capac­i­tors is expect­ed to expand in the com­ing years, con­firmed by indus­try-spe­cif­ic entities. Cur­rent­ly, the lead­ing capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that meets mar­ket demands is not com­mer­cial­ly avail­able, as it was devel­oped exclu­sive­ly in a part­ner­ship between Apple and TSMC. This cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties for oth­er play­ers, such as Smoltek. In April 2024, Smoltek announced that its CNF-MIM capac­i­tors (Gen-One) are expect­ed to be com­mer­cial­ly com­pet­i­tive with the lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Gen-One capac­i­tors, based on Smoltek’s nan­otech­nol­o­gy-based CNF-MIM plat­form, will pro­vide a foun­da­tion for future man­u­fac­tur­ing of ultra-thin capac­i­tors with high capac­i­tance density. **The semi­con­duc­tor indus­try’s chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties** The semi­con­duc­tor indus­try has faced chal­lenges in recent years, such as dis­rupt­ed sup­ply chains dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions in Asia, where 90% of the world’s most advanced chips are man­u­fac­tured. The Unit­ed States, EU and oth­er regions have com­mit­ted bil­lions through ini­tia­tives such as the Euro­pean Chips Act and the CHIPS and Sci­ence Act to strength­en region­al manufacturing. The indus­try is expect­ed to grow rapid­ly, dri­ven by con­tin­ued demand for elec­tron­ics and tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments, while pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty in Europe and the Unit­ed States is being great­ly expand­ed with part-financ­ing from region­al pro­grams. The capac­i­tor, which is a basic com­po­nent in all semi­con­duc­tor-based sys­tems, is in con­stant need of improve­ment. Smoltek has the nec­es­sary tech­nol­o­gy to become a key play­er with­in ultra-thin capac­i­tors but needs the right col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ners and cap­i­tal to reach the market. --- title: "David Gramnaes brings Budo to the Board" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/david-gramnaes-brings-budo-to-the-board/7782/" date: 2024-08-08 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/david-gramnaes-1.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" --- # David Gramnaes brings Budo to the Board --- title: "David Gramnaes brings Budo to the Board" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/david-gramnaes-brings-budo-to-board/7671/" date: 2024-08-08 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/david-gramnaes-1.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # David Gramnaes brings Budo to the Board I leave the Euro­pean route E6 and dri­ve along the old coun­try road. It winds across fields and mead­ows and through groves and ham­lets. After a few kilo­me­ters, the light changes to some­thing you can only expe­ri­ence near the coast. A long line of parked cars tells me that one of the province of Halland’s many miles of sandy beach­es is near­by. I dri­ve on, and Kat­te­gatt – the sea between Swe­den and Den­mark – grows larg­er and more promi­nent in my view. Soon I pass the leg­endary ice-cream par­lor Tre Top­par, where the line stretch­es far into the street. I fol­low the main street until I find the house with the same num­ber as on my note in the seat next to me. I’ve arrived at David Gram­naes’ home. David Gram­naes is a part­ner and CEO of Gramtec Ven­ture, an invest­ment com­pa­ny with­in the Gramtec group – Smoltek’s largest sin­gle share­hold­er. I have seen him sev­er­al times at Smoltek’s office in Gothen­burg, where he is always busy in meet­ings, but I don’t know much about him. All I know is that the man­age­ment val­ues his advice and efforts and that he is the son-in-law of Finn Gram­naes, about whom I wrote an [arti­cle](https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts/from-carbon-nanofibers-to-mind-controlled-robotic-prostheses/1/) a few years ago. Curi­ous as I am, I used his elec­tion to Smoltek’s board of direc­tors at the annu­al meet­ing on May 14, 2024, as an excuse to con­tact him and ask if I could inter­view him for [Smoltek’s IR blog](https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts/). He agreed, and that’s why I find myself parked in front of his vil­la in the sum­mer idyll and fish­ing vil­lage of Träs­lövs­läge – or Läjet, as the locals call it. But I can’t sit here all day, so I get out of the car, go to the door, and ring the bell. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#aikido-black-belt)Aikido black belt David Gram­naes opens the door and greets me. He asks if the trip went well. Can he offer me some­thing? Cof­fee? Tea? Yes, please, tea, I reply. While the water is boil­ing, I take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to look around. I see traces of some­one inter­est­ed in mar­tial arts and ask if it’s him. “Yes, that’s me. I’m an Aiki­do nerd,” he replies with a laugh. “I’ve been prac­tic­ing budo for decades and spent much time in dojos.” There’s no mis­tak­ing that David Gram­naes is pas­sion­ate about Aiki­do. He has been the head train­er for chil­dren and teenagers at Var­berg Aiki­do Club since 2012, has been a black belt since 2016, and holds the rank of 2nd dan. David Gram­naes also co-found­ed a large nation­al youth camp and par­tic­i­pates in devel­op­ing a young lead­ers pro­gram in Aiki­do. Since 2021, he has also been chair­man of the Var­berg Aiki­do Club. Will this expe­ri­ence help you in your work on the Smoltek board? “Absolute­ly! Over 20 years of Aiki­do train­ing has tru­ly shaped me. It has taught me that achiev­ing your goals and mas­ter­ing new skills requires focus and a lot of prac­tice. You should nev­er give up. More impor­tant­ly, the jour­ney (*do* in *aiki-do*) mat­ters, not the goal itself. I believe the same applies to entre­pre­neur­ship and build­ing new businesses.” ![Black and white portrait of David Gramnaes sitting on a bench and wearing clothes for martial arts practice.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/david-gramnaes-3-1200x960.webp?t=1722954688) David Gram­naes dressed for mar­tial arts practice. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fostered-in-two-family-businesses)Fostered in two family businesses What else has shaped you and con­tribute to how you will serve on the board? I ask as we walk into the liv­ing room, where we set­tle into a com­fort­able lounge suite. ”I have been fos­tered in two fam­i­ly busi­ness­es. First­ly, my family’s recy­cling com­pa­ny, [Pet­terssons Miljö](https://www.petterssonsmiljo.se/), which I grew up with and worked for ten years in var­i­ous oper­a­tional roles, includ­ing CEO. And my wife Lisa’s and father-in-law Finn’s com­pa­ny, [Gramtec](https://gramtec.com/), where I have been involved for almost ten years now.” What fam­i­ly busi­ness prac­tice do you bring to the boardroom? ”Entre­pre­neur­ship and long-term think­ing. Fam­i­ly busi­ness­es typ­i­cal­ly focus on long-term rela­tion­ships with cus­tomers, sup­pli­ers, and employ­ees. This mind­set has def­i­nite­ly shaped me. My com­mit­ments and invest­ments are often long-term, as is my com­mit­ment to Smoltek, and I will bring this approach to my work on the board.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#worked-his-way-up-in-life)Worked his way up in life David Gram­naes’ resume shows he has worked his way up in the fam­i­ly businesses. He grad­u­at­ed from Blekinge Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy with a Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Soft­ware Engi­neer­ing short­ly after the dot-com bub­ble burst. So, he start­ed work­ing in the fam­i­ly busi­ness as a trans­port coor­di­na­tor. In this role, he was respon­si­ble for plan­ning the garbage truck routes in Halm­stad munic­i­pal­i­ty. In par­al­lel, he ran his own con­sult­ing busi­ness, which includ­ed web­site development. He soon became respon­si­ble for the finances and account­ing of the fam­i­ly busi­ness and, after a few years, took over the company’s day-to-day man­age­ment as COO. After six years, he took over as CEO of the fam­i­ly busi­ness. As CEO, David was respon­si­ble for a sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tion; the com­pa­ny launched new waste man­age­ment and recy­cling ser­vice offer­ings and dou­bled its annu­al revenues. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#first-contact-with-smoltek)First contact with Smoltek He brought his change man­age­ment expe­ri­ence to Gramtec, which he joined in 2013 as a busi­ness devel­op­er and invest­ment manager. Is this when you came into con­tact with Smoltek? “Yes. In 2015 Finn nego­ti­at­ed a buy­out of Smoltek togeth­er with Pro­fes­sor Peter Enoks­son. Finn asked if I could help with the nego­ti­a­tion. That was my first con­tact with Smoltek.” Finn Gram­naes and Gramtec had been small minor­i­ty share­hold­ers in Smoltek since 2007, almost from the begin­ning. The main share­hold­ers were Chalmers Inno­va­tion Seed Fund and Almi Invest. How­ev­er, they had reached their max­i­mum invest­ment lim­it in Smoltek and want­ed to exit. So Gramtec, Finn, and Peter Enoks­son bought them out and became the largest share­hold­ers, respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing the com­pa­ny with the need­ed capital. “In the process, Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB was estab­lished, and I was giv­en oper­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty for it,” says David Gram­naes. “I held this posi­tion until Smoltek was list­ed on Akti­etor­get (now Spot­light Stock Mar­ket) in 2018, at which point the CEO of Smoltek AB also became the CEO of the hold­ing company.” After com­plet­ing his assign­ment at Smoltek, David Gram­naes was appoint­ed CEO of Gramtec Ven­ture. A role he still holds today. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#an-empty-seat-on-the-board)An empty seat on the board Gramtec was rep­re­sent­ed on the Board until 2023 by Finn Gram­naes, Gramtec’s founder and largest share­hold­er. He declined to stand for re-elec­tion in 2023. Why was this? “When Finn, at the age of 75 and after 15 years on the board, felt it was time to step down, we dis­cussed how we would work at Smoltek in the future.” “At that time, Smoltek had been on a jour­ney of change for sev­er­al years and seemed to be on a steady course: We had a new man­age­ment team with indus­tri­al expe­ri­ence. We had a pro­fes­sion­al nom­i­na­tion com­mit­tee. I had worked for sev­er­al years with [Lena Olv­ing](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Olving) and oth­ers to devel­op the board so that it con­sist­ed of peo­ple with the right skills and expe­ri­ence to lead Smoltek’s next step to a prof­itable and suc­cess­ful com­pa­ny. And we had a good plan for indus­tri­al­iza­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion with Yageo.” “With this in mind, we con­clud­ed that we could best con­tribute in the future as mem­bers of the nom­i­nat­ing com­mit­tee and as active owners.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#but)But… So how is it that, after only one year, Gramtec has direct rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the board again – by you? “The sit­u­a­tion changed in March 2024, when Yageo decid­ed not to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions regard­ing the license and ser­vice agree­ment that they and Smoltek had nego­ti­at­ed for quite some time.” For Gramtec, as for all share­hold­ers and the man­age­ment team, Yageo’s deci­sion came as a surprise. “We were under the impres­sion that the sign­ing of the agree­ment was well under way.” At first, they didn’t under­stand the rea­son for the sud­den dropout. Was Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy not good enough? Had Yageo’s mar­ket analy­sis changed? But after a cou­ple of days, the pic­ture start­ed to become clear­er. There was noth­ing wrong with Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy, and the analy­sis was unchanged. ”Yageo told Smoltek that the rea­sons for their with­draw­al were entire­ly inter­nal. They still have a lot of faith in Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy and think that CNF-MIM capac­i­tors will be a game-chang­er in the market.” As the dust set­tled, Finn Gram­naes, David Gram­naes, and Pro­fes­sor Peter Enoks­son, who Gramtec works close­ly with on own­er­ship mat­ters in Smoltek, sat down to dis­cuss their con­tin­ued involve­ment in Smoltek. “We decid­ed to keep invest­ing in the com­pa­ny but felt we need­ed to get more involved again. Finn and Peter, there­fore, thought it would be a good idea for me to rep­re­sent Gramtec on the board.” The Chair­man of the Nom­i­na­tion Com­mit­tee had pre­vi­ous­ly asked me the same thing. So, at a meet­ing that, of course, David Gram­naes didn’t attend, the Nom­i­na­tion Com­mit­tee decid­ed to pro­pose him for elec­tion to the Board at the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing on May 14, 2024. ![Portrait of David Gramnaes](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/david-gramnaes-2.webp) David Gram­naes ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#bring-to-the-table)Bring to the table After this short cat break, I con­tin­ue the inter­view with David Gram­naes: What can you bring to the table as a board member? > We must demon­strate the tremen­dous val­ue of Smoltek to poten­tial part­ners or buyers “I’ve been involved with Smoltek since 2015, so I under­stand the com­pa­ny and its devel­op­ment over the years. This has helped me con­tribute in dif­fer­ent ways, often as a sound­ing board for Finn in Gramtec’s own­er­ship role and hands-on in var­i­ous projects. For exam­ple, I’ve helped with Smoltek’s lat­est financ­ing rounds, which were suc­cess­ful despite a chal­leng­ing financ­ing cli­mate. So, I think my knowl­edge of Smoltek, both tech­ni­cal­ly and finan­cial­ly, is some­thing I can add.” “I have also served on sev­er­al cor­po­rate boards over the years, pro­vid­ing valu­able experience.” “Financ­ing is a big part of this expe­ri­ence. I don’t have a finance back­ground, but I’ve been deeply involved in rais­ing cap­i­tal for Smoltek and oth­er tech­nol­o­gy start-ups. So, I’ve got expe­ri­ence from both sides of the nego­ti­at­ing table. I think it’s a real strength to have both the investor and entrepreneur’s per­spec­tive on cap­i­tal and funding.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#personal-qualities)Personal qualities What per­son­al qual­i­ties will help you con­tribute to the work of the board? “I’m an entre­pre­neur at heart and choose to focus on exist­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. I tru­ly believe that any­thing is pos­si­ble. As an entre­pre­neur, I’m not very struc­tured, but over the years, I’ve learned to appre­ci­ate the impor­tance of being struc­tured to stay legal and compliant.” After a brief pause, he adds: “I have found that I some­times think dif­fer­ent­ly than oth­ers, so I hope to bring some ‘out­side the box’ think­ing to the table. I am also an active and involved per­son. And I talk a lot. Some­times too much. But I think that helps cre­ate a good atmos­phere and encour­ages healthy discussions.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pursuit-of-shareholder-value)Pursuit of shareholder value So far, I’ve played him soft­balls. Time to lev­el up the game, so I ask him what he wants to push on the board. ”The Board’s cur­rent focus is to secure a com­mer­cial deal, part­ner­ship, or sale of one or more appli­ca­tions based on the tech­nol­o­gy or all or part of the sub­sidiaries. In doing so, we must be care­ful not to under­val­ue our com­pa­ny. To cre­ate the great­est share­hold­er val­ue, we must demon­strate the tremen­dous val­ue of Smoltek to poten­tial part­ners or buyers.” ”It’s the same for share­hold­ers. To cre­ate share­hold­er val­ue, we have to show the stock mar­ket what we at Gramtec see in Smoltek, which isn’t reflect­ed at all in the share price.” “If there’s one thing I think is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant, it’s investor rela­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the stock mar­ket. I think Smoltek has improved sig­nif­i­cant­ly in this regard over the past year, and I’ll work to ensure this continues.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-past-and-future)Smoltek’s past and future I’ve saved the most chal­leng­ing ques­tion for last. I take a deep breath and start my ques­tion with a back­ground description. Next year, Smoltek will cel­e­brate its 20th anniver­sary. The com­pa­ny spent many years focused pri­mar­i­ly on R&D with­out much empha­sis on bring­ing prod­ucts to mar­ket. Recent­ly, the com­pa­ny has focused on CNF-MIM capac­i­tors and cell mate­ri­als for PEM elec­trolyz­ers, putting all oth­er prod­uct ideas on the back burn­er. It looked like Smoltek would final­ly bring CNF-MIM capac­i­tors to mar­ket, but that all fell through when Yageo backed out of the deal. To keep afloat, the com­pa­ny has relied on investors for two decades. Those who invest­ed ear­ly, includ­ing Gramtec, have essen­tial­ly seen their invest­ments dis­ap­pear. What are your hon­est thoughts about Smoltek’s past and future? > Smoltek will be Gramtec’s best invest­ment ever ”Smoltek grew out of a research lab at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy. Going from lab to com­mer­cial prod­uct takes a long time, espe­cial­ly for cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy with many skep­tics initially.” ”Finn saw the poten­tial of the tech­nol­o­gy in many dif­fer­ent busi­ness areas and invest­ed in the com­pa­ny in 2007. In 2015, Gramtec became the largest share­hold­er and, togeth­er with Pro­fes­sor Peter Enoks­son, took the sole respon­si­bil­i­ty for financ­ing the oper­a­tions until the IPO in 2018. Gramtec has con­tin­ued to invest in Smoltek and is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the com­pa­ny in the future. We’re more con­vinced than ever that Smoltek and its devel­oped car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy will be used world­wide in the next decade.” ”Look­ing back, I can see that a lot of time has been spent devel­op­ing the tech­nol­o­gy and build­ing rela­tions with com­pa­nies in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. This has been a good thing and has helped many glob­al com­pa­nies in the elec­tron­ics and semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to know about Smoltek. But some­times too much resources have been spent on projects and rela­tion­ships that didn’t result in busi­ness or partnerships.” ”In 2019, Smoltek took a deci­sive step from a com­pa­ny that only devel­ops tech­nol­o­gy to one that cre­ates busi­ness units based on the tech­nol­o­gy. Smoltek has cre­at­ed two such busi­ness units: Smoltek Semi, which devel­ops and mar­kets CNF-MIM capac­i­tors for the elec­tron­ics indus­try, and Smoltek Hydro­gen, which devel­ops and mar­kets cell mate­ri­als for PEM elec­trolyz­ers for the hydro­gen and ener­gy mar­kets. I think it was wise to cre­ate two busi­ness units because it’s hard to know at this ear­ly stage which busi­ness will take off first.” ”A lot has hap­pened in the com­pa­ny in the last few years, and Smoltek, with its two busi­ness units, has posi­tioned itself to achieve major deals and part­ner­ships. I think in the next two or three years, we will see sev­er­al major events. It will take time but I’m con­vinced that in the long run Smoltek will be Gramtec’s best invest­ment ever.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#reflections)Reflections As I sit in the car, dri­ving along the E6 towards Gothen­burg, I think about every­thing David Gram­naes has told me, not least how he and Lena Olv­ing and oth­ers have recruit­ed peo­ple with the right skills and expe­ri­ence for the board. As I run through the names on [the board](https://www.smoltek.com/about/board/) – Per Zell­man, Gus­tav Bris­mark, Emma Rön­n­mark and now David Gram­naes – it strikes me that Smoltek has a board that few deep tech com­pa­nies can match. Admit­ted­ly, the board mem­bers are not the most well-known peo­ple in the busi­ness world, but what they lack in name recog­ni­tion, they make up for in high­ly rel­e­vant and valu­able knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence. They have hands-on expe­ri­ence from Smoltek’s tar­get mar­kets, the semi­con­duc­tor and ener­gy indus­tries. They have deep exper­tise in intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty man­age­ment and cor­po­rate financ­ing. They excel in prod­uct devel­op­ment and mar­ket­ing – which are the only core func­tions of a com­pa­ny, accord­ing to the father of cor­po­rate man­age­ment, Peter Druck­er. And, let’s not for­get, they all have years of expe­ri­ence sit­ting on boards and run­ning companies. This diverse and robust set of skills pro­vides Smoltek with a Board of Direc­tors that, through its active and com­mit­ted par­tic­i­pa­tion in the company’s man­age­ment, pro­vides clear direc­tion and scope, as well as assis­tance and sup­port to the Exec­u­tive Man­age­ment in the day-to-day run­ning of the business. --- title: "Multilayer Cap" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/multilayer-cap/7656/" date: 2024-08-01 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/wo2021211038a1-multilayer-cap.webp" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitance-density.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "Discrete capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/discrete-capacitors.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Multilayer Cap The inven­tion: A MIM ener­gy stor­age device com­pris­ing a bot­tom elec­trode; a plu­ral­i­ty of con­duc­tive ver­ti­cal nanos­truc­tures; con­for­mal­ly coat­ing a bot­tom con­duc­tive con­trol lay­er of each of the plu­ral­i­ty of con­duc­tive ver­ti­cal nanos­truc­tures; and a lay­ered stack of alter­nat­ing con­duc­tive con­trol lay­ers and elec­trode lay­ers con­for­mal­ly coat­ing the bot­tom con­duc­tive con­trol lay­er, the lay­ered stack includ­ing at least a first odd-num­bered elec­trode lay­er at the bot­tom of the lay­ered stack, a first odd-num­bered con­duc­tive con­trol lay­er direct­ly on the first odd-num­bered elec­trode lay­er, and a first even-num­bered elec­trode lay­er direct­ly on the first odd-num­bered con­duc­tive con­trol lay­er. Each even-num­bered elec­trode lay­er in the lay­ered stack is con­duc­tive­ly con­nect­ed to the bot­tom elec­trode; and each odd-num­bered elec­trode lay­er in the lay­ered stack is con­duc­tive­ly con­nect­ed to any oth­er odd-num­bered elec­trode lay­er in the lay­ered stack. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN115428107B](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN115428107B/en?oq=CN%20115428107%20B) | | USA | US12183520 | | Tai­wan | I900555 | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Smoltek has received a new patent for improving the capacitance density of CNF-MIM capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-received-a-new-patent-for-improving-the-capacitance-density-of-cnf-mim-capacitors/7639/" date: 2024-07-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has received a new patent for improving the capacitance density of CNF-MIM capacitors The patent is the first one in a new cat­e­go­ry called Mul­ti­lay­er Cap, and describes a method for cre­at­ing a lay­ered capac­i­tor using a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) struc­ture. This method involves stack­ing con­duc­tor-insu­la­tor lay­ers to enhance capac­i­tance den­si­ty, a key fea­ture of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor technology. > Capac­i­tance den­si­ty is one of the most impor­tant KPIs of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. In this new patent, we pro­pose a tech­nique that dou­bles or triples the capac­i­tance den­si­ty through an inno­vat­ing mul­ti-lay­er structure. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The patent dis­clos­es a dis­crete met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor com­po­nent based on the pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped at Smoltek. It also describes the struc­ture of such capac­i­tor and the relat­ed micro­fab­ri­ca­tion process­es to real­ize it The patent includes two main claims: one for the struc­ture of the capac­i­tor and anoth­er for the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. This inven­tion focus­es on improv­ing met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tors and bat­ter­ies, includ­ing capac­i­tors and bat­ter­ies, through a new, inno­v­a­tive mul­ti-lay­er structure. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 90 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Enhancing Efficiency and Durability of PEM Water Electrolysis with Low Iridium Loading through Nanofiber-Modified Porous Transport Electrodes" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/enhancing-efficiency-and-durability-of-pem-water-electrolysis-with-low-iridium-loading-through-nanofiber-modified-porous-transport-electrodes/7758/" date: 2024-07-02 author: "Ellinor Ehrnberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/smoltekhydrogen-ptl-with-cnf-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Enhancing Efficiency and Durability of PEM Water Electrolysis with Low Iridium Loading through Nanofiber-Modified Porous Transport Electrodes Smoltek Hydro­gen has made sig­nif­i­cant strides in achiev­ing low irid­i­um load­ing through our inno­v­a­tive Porous Trans­port Elec­trode (PTE) con­cept. This approach involves mod­i­fy­ing a Porous Trans­port Lay­er (PTL) by grow­ing ver­ti­cal­ly aligned Car­bon Nanofibers (CNFs) using our in-house patent pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy, effi­cient­ly increas­ing sur­face area. Fol­low­ing this mod­i­fi­ca­tion, a pro­tec­tive lay­er of cor­ro­sion-resis­tant and con­duc­tive mate­r­i­al (e.g., Plat­inum) is applied to the CNFs. Sub­se­quent­ly, an OER cat­a­lyst lay­er is deposit­ed uti­liz­ing a three-elec­trode cathod­ic elec­trode­po­si­tion method. The elec­trode­posit­ed Ir cat­a­lyst exhibits strong adhe­sion to the CNF PTEs, result­ing in a high elec­tri­cal conductivity.  In this work, we suc­cess­ful­ly reduced Ir load­ings to 0.1 mg/​cm2 in the PTE, demon­strat­ing excel­lent mass activ­i­ty in the half-cell tests. In the PEMWE tests, the polar­iza­tion curves of elec­trodes with low Ir load­ing exhib­it­ed supe­ri­or per­for­mance com­pared to cells with sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er Ir loading. [Read more](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/MA2024-01341893mtgabs/meta) --- title: "Circularity – using hydrogen in the carbon nanofiber production process" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/circularity-using-hydrogen-in-the-carbon-nanofiber-production-process/7575/" date: 2024-06-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/sh2-john-schack-top-photo.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Circularity – using hydrogen in the carbon nanofiber production process The project is now com­ing to its end – with promis­ing results to present. Some main take-aways are: - The fea­si­bil­i­ty of deposit­ing car­bon nanofibers with a H2-based process has been demon­strat­ed with some chal­lenges remain­ing to make it com­plete­ly viable. - The main area of improve­ment to tar­get is the growth rate of the CNFs. - Obser­va­tions of the CNF struc­ture in detail gives an under­stand­ing of how to tack­le the remain­ing challenges. The growth of CNFs is a fas­ci­nat­ing process and just like the green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion it requires a cat­a­lyst. Each fiber grows from a cat­a­lyst par­ti­cle and usu­al­ly the par­ti­cle can be seen at the tip of the fiber, or at the base. By using a trans­mis­sion elec­tron micro­scope (TEM), capa­ble of cap­tur­ing details on the atom­ic scale, the grown fibers were imaged, and the result was rather unex­pect­ed: The cat­a­lyst par­ti­cle in this case was elon­gat­ed, almost along the whole fiber. The fibers could be called Fe-filled car­bon nan­otubes (CNT) or Fe/​CNT core-shell fibers. The behav­ior of the cat­a­lyst par­ti­cle is inti­mate­ly cou­pled to the growth and the observed shape is like­ly relat­ed to the issue with low growth rate – lead­ing to plen­ty ideas of how to solve it. For exam­ple, expos­ing the sub­strate to a plas­ma treat­ment before CNF growth starts might loosen the cat­a­lyst par­ti­cle from the sub­strate and change its behav­ior dur­ing growth. This type of core-shell struc­ture is not only a prob­lem to solve how­ev­er, with the fer­ro­mag­net­ic prop­er­ties of the Fe core it could prove inter­est­ing in its own right, per­haps for a future Smoltek busi­ness area?  In the near-term the pos­si­bil­i­ty of using H2 in the process could lead to new ways of con­trol­ling the car­bon nanofiber struc­ture and increase flex­i­bil­i­ty when it comes to the plan­ning of scale-up and com­mer­cial­iza­tion. One poten­tial up-side with the H2-based process is the pro­duc­tion of free-stand­ing CNFs which could improve water flow and gas bub­ble dis­si­pa­tion in the elec­trol­y­sis cell but whether this can be real­ized with longer fibers remains to be seen. If you are inter­est­ed, please read more in the full the­sis: [Car­bon nanofibers as cat­a­lyst sup­port – Devel­op­ing an H2-based recipe for plas­ma enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion](https://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=9161661&fileOId=9161679). ![H2 Fecatalyst Transparent](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/h2-fecatalyst-transparent.webp) Fig­ure 1: a) TEM com­pos­ite show­ing CNF grown at gas ratio of 1:40 at 550 C for 15 min­utes. b) High res­o­lu­tion image show­ing graphitic sheets of car­bon on the side of the same CNF. The anno­tat­ed dis­tance is mea­sured between 10 lay­ers yield­ing an inter­lay­er spac­ing of 3.6 Å. c) Ener­gy dis­per­sive x‑ray spec­trum from the same fiber, show­ing the pres­ence of Fe and C. Cu-sig­nal is from the TEM grid that the CNF is trans­ferred to, and there was some Si con­t­a­m­i­na­tion found on the TEM grid which could explain the weak Si-sig­nal observed. ![H2 Cnf Fibers](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/h2-cnf-fibers-2.webp) Fig­ure 2: Free-stand­ing car­bon nanofibers grown using a H2-based recipe. Thus mak­ing CNF-growth almost circular. *Top pho­to:* Pic­tur­ing a zoomed out view of grown car­bon nanofibers and John Schack, a master’s the­sis stu­dent at Smoltek Hydro­gen, in the lab, reflect­ed in a 6 inch wafer. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen has achieved A4 size plasma" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-achieved-a4-size-plasma/7615/" date: 2024-06-25 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_773cbfa7d72d4ffea35b0ccebf810a1amv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "plasma" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/plasma.md" - name: "R&D-tool" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/rd-tool.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" - name: "smolGROW" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smolgrow.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen has achieved A4 size plasma Smoltek Hydro­gen has suc­cess­ful­ly refur­bished the in-house devel­oped pro­pri­etary PECVD R&D tool, from its 6‑inch diam­e­ter area, to be com­pat­i­ble with A4 size. This cor­re­sponds to an expan­sion of area by more than 3 times, and sta­ble plas­ma cov­er­ing the entire A4 area has been achieved. > By expand­ing our capa­bil­i­ties in the R&D tool we gain use­ful knowl­edge that will pre­pare and speed up the trans­fer of the growth recipes from lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nol­o­gy in the R&D tool to indus­tri­al tech­nol­o­gy in the [Pro­to­type Coater\*](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-finalized-design-of-a-prototype-coater-tool-for-carbon-nanofibers/7438/) , why achiev­ing A4 size plas­ma is an impor­tant step­ping stone towards a scal­able indus­tri­al process. > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen ![Shafiq Kabir in the MC2 laboratory, in the remodeling of Smoltek's plasma tool.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/a4-plasma-remodeling-shafiq-1200x675.webp) Shafiq Kabir in the MC2 lab­o­ra­to­ry, in the remod­el­ing of Smoltek’s plas­ma tool. Cur­rent­ly Smoltek’s PTE cell mate­r­i­al pro­to­types are man­u­fac­tured with lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nolo­gies, and the car­bon nanofibers are grown using the R&D PECVD tool which up until now has been capa­ble of coat­ing up to approx­i­mate­ly 6‑inch diam­e­ter area. Elec­trolyz­er cells and their con­stituent mate­ri­als are often rec­tan­gu­lar or square shaped and elec­trol­y­sis test sys­tems are typ­i­cal­ly designed for square shaped pro­to­types, so is the test sys­tem used by Smoltek Hydro­gen, why it is more suit­able to adapt the tools for rec­tan­gu­lar or square shaped instead of round ones. A larg­er rec­tan­gu­lar shape also pro­vides high­er flex­i­bil­i­ty by being able to pro­duce both sin­gle large pro­to­type or a high­er quan­ti­ty of mul­ti­ple small ones dur­ing a sin­gle run, which in turn enables faster devel­op­ment and increased capac­i­ty to pro­vide pro­to­types to cus­tomers based on their size needs.  **Plas­ma – fun­da­men­tal for car­bon nanofiber growth** Plas­ma is one of the four fun­da­men­tal states of mat­ter, along­side sol­id, liq­uid, and gas, and it is char­ac­ter­ized by the elec­trons being sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ent atoms or mol­e­cules, which sim­pli­fied means that plas­ma is a cloud of elec­trons and a source of extra ener­gy in the sys­tem. Plas­ma has unique prop­er­ties and achiev­ing a sta­ble plas­ma is essen­tial for Smoltek’s process of car­bon nanofiber growth on the porous trans­port lay­er (PTL) for its elec­trolyz­er cell material.  > The suc­cess­ful rebuild of the in-house PECVD R&D tool to A4 size plas­ma is an ini­tial result at one of our growth recipes, and the focus now is to fur­ther improve and fine-tune the hard­ware and recipe, and val­i­da­tion by grow­ing nanofibers on PTLs. > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen ![Smoltek's proprietary A4 Plasma Image R&D-tool at Chalmers MC2 laboratory](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/a4-plasma-size.webp) Active plas­ma of A4 size inside the Smoltek pro­pri­etary PECVD R&D tool for car­bon nanofiber growth, as shown through a view­port into the cham­ber which is under vac­u­um. The plas­ma, seen as a grey­ish cloud over the entire heater area, is cre­at­ed in the elec­tri­cal field between the top and bot­tom elec­trode, out of which the lat­ter also acts as heater and dic­tates the max­i­mum coat­ing area. The porous trans­port lay­er is placed on the sub­strate heater when grow­ing car­bon nanofibers. ![Slide 5 H2 Roapmap](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/slide-5-h2-roapmap.webp) The devel­op­ment of the indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cept for Smoltek Hydrogen’s Elec­trolyz­er Cell Mate­r­i­al is at its final stages, with aim on being final­ized dur­ing 2024. \* [Smoltek Hydro­gen has final­ized design of a pro­to­type coater](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-finalized-design-of-a-prototype-coater-tool-for-carbon-nanofibers/7438/) > **Fact box: Smoltek Hydrogen’s PTE cell mate­r­i­al**: > Smoltek Hydro­gen is devel­op­ing a nanofiber based porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) cell mate­r­i­al for the anode in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. The cell mate­r­i­al con­sists of a sin­tered porous tita­ni­um lay­er (PTL) where the sur­face area has been enhanced with ver­ti­cal nanofibers, a con­for­mal plat­inum cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion and ultra-thin nanopar­ti­cle lay­er of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst. The mate­r­i­al is one of the lay­ers in an elec­trolyz­er cell. When man­u­fac­tur­ing elec­trolyz­ers, a large num­ber of elec­trolyz­er cells are assem­bled into a cell stack, which is the main ele­ment in the elec­trolyz­er as it is where the elec­trol­y­sis takes place and hydro­gen is produced. --- title: "Smoltek receives 22.4 million through a rights issue" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-receives-22-4-million-through-a-rights-issue/7636/" date: 2024-06-21 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/hp-2022-1-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" --- # Smoltek receives 22.4 million through a rights issue > The issue pro­ceeds from the rights issue give us the right con­di­tions to con­tin­ue the bid­ding process we pre­vi­ous­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed as well as for con­tin­ued val­ue-cre­at­ing tech­nol­o­gy development.  > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO Smoltek car­ried out a rights issue dur­ing May and June. The sub­scrip­tion peri­od in the rights issue ran between May 31, 2024 and June 17, 2024. The final out­come result­ed in a sub­scrip­tion rate cor­re­spond­ing to 86.4 per­cent of the rights issue. 66.8 per­cent of the rights issue was sub­scribed with the sup­port of sub­scrip­tion rights and 19.6 per­cent of the rights issue was sub­scribed with­out the sup­port of sub­scrip­tion rights.  The high sub­scrip­tion rate meant that no guar­an­tee com­mit­ments had to be called upon. Alto­geth­er, 49,853,180 new shares were sub­scribed through the rights issue, which brings the com­pa­ny approx­i­mate­ly SEK 22.4 mil­lion, before issue costs. These funds are intend­ed to be allo­cat­ed to the fol­low­ing areas of use:  - Imple­men­ta­tion of a struc­tured process for the sale of all or parts of one or both of the sub­sidiaries Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen, or only the con­cepts and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights owned by the respec­tive subsidiaries. - Con­tin­ued val­ue-enhanc­ing tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment with­in the busi­ness areas semi­con­duc­tors and hydro­gen with­in the sub­sidiaries Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen respectively. - Work­ing cap­i­tal for Smoltek’s run­ning expens­es in addi­tion to tech­nol­o­gy development. **Com­ment from Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB** *”We in the man­age­ment, togeth­er with the board, are very hap­py to be able to announce that the out­come of the rights issue has been very good giv­en the pre­vail­ing mar­ket con­di­tions and that guar­an­tee com­mit­ments there­fore did not need to be used. The issue pro­ceeds from the rights issue give us the right con­di­tions to con­tin­ue the bid­ding process we pre­vi­ous­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed and for con­tin­ued val­ue-cre­at­ing tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment. I would like to extend a big thank you to both exist­ing share­hold­ers and at the same time wel­come new share­hold­ers who have cho­sen to par­tic­i­pate and sup­port us on the con­tin­ued journey.”* **Sum­ma­ry of the rights issue** Through the rights issue, the num­ber of shares in the com­pa­ny increased by 49,853,180 shares, from 23,074,203 shares to 72,927,383 shares, and the share cap­i­tal increased by approx. SEK 5,938,922.21, from approx. 2,748,789.48 to approx. 8,687,711.69 SEK. For exist­ing share­hold­ers who did not par­tic­i­pate in the rights issue, this meant a dilu­tion effect of approx­i­mate­ly 68 percent. - The sub­scrip­tion peri­od for the Rights Issue ran from and includ­ing 31 May 2024 to and includ­ing 17 June 2024. - For each (1) share owned on the record date of May 29, 2024, the hold­er received one (1) sub­scrip­tion right. Two (2) sub­scrip­tion rights gave the right to sub­scribe for five (5) shares. The sub­scrip­tion price per share amount­ed to SEK 0.45. - The rights issue cor­re­spond­ed to an issue of a max­i­mum of 57,685,506 shares. - In the event of full sub­scrip­tion in the rights issue, the com­pa­ny would receive an issue pro­ceeds of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 26.0 mil­lion, before issue costs. The issue was sub­scribed to 86.4 per­cent and the issue costs amount­ed to a total of approx­i­mate­ly SEK 1.5 mil­lion, which added approx­i­mate­ly SEK 21 mil­lion to the company. Read more finance-relat­ed news on our [Investor pages](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/). --- title: "Extended cut of the interview with YAGEO CTO" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/extended-cut-of-the-interview-with-yageo-cto/7597/" date: 2024-06-14 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/extended-cut-interview-with-yageo-cto.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # Extended cut of the interview with YAGEO CTO Did you see the [press release](https://mb.cision.com/Main/16786/4000383/2863793.pdf) about a new [video](https://youtu.be/pJOOm5k_0Eo) fea­tur­ing Louise Duk­er, Chief Prod­uct Offi­cer at Smoltek Semi and Philip Less­ner, CTO at Yageo Group? It was also shared on Smoltek’s ded­i­cat­ed [LinkedIn page for Investor Rela­tions](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/smoltek-investor-relations/) (you fol­low it, right?). You might be inter­est­ed to know that it does­n’t show the whole inter­view. Smoltek’s own auteur direc­tor cut out a full 6 min­utes and 24 sec­onds. Scan­dalous, I know. But don’t wor­ry. Just as the mas­ter­ful auteur was mak­ing the final cut, I snuck in behind him and col­lect­ed all the movie clips. I have com­piled them into an “extend­ed cut” of *The future of the capac­i­tor industry—Interview with YAGEO CTO about Smoltek CNF-MIM*. The extend­ed cut will appeal to movie geeks who love the eso­teric sub­genre that deals with geeky top­ics, such as the chal­lenges of mak­ing ultra-thin capac­i­tors and how Smoltek is tack­ling them. I get goose­bumps just think­ing about it. The extend­ed ver­sion will only appear on this IR blog, exclu­sive­ly for you loy­al read­ers who love Smoltek and what we do. So grab a hand­ful of pop­corn and a sip of Coke because the show is about to begin. --- title: "We have the technology to make production of green hydrogen profitable" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/we-have-the-technology-to-make-production-of-green-hydrogen-profitable/7573/" date: 2024-06-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ellinor-2024-06-webb.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # We have the technology to make production of green hydrogen profitable Green hydro­gen, pro­duced from fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty is con­sid­ered, both with­in the EU and glob­al­ly, to be a key tech­nol­o­gy to man­age the green tran­si­tion. Cur­rent­ly, there are no oth­er fos­sil-free alter­na­tives for many indus­tri­al and ship­ping areas. Green hydro­gen has the poten­tial to become the lead­ing solu­tion for fos­sil-free steel pro­duc­tion and heavy ocean freight. When pro­duc­ing green hydro­gen in large solar or wind farms, it is cru­cial to be able to quick­ly start and stop pro­duc­tion. This process requires the spe­cif­ic PEM elec­trol­y­sis tech­nol­o­gy, where the expen­sive and rare met­al irid­i­um splits water into hydro­gen and oxy­gen. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the lack of avail­able irid­i­um risks mak­ing mass pro­duc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­ers unprof­itable. This is due to today’s overuse of irid­i­um, as well as the fact that the price of irid­i­um is fore­cast to rise sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the com­ing years. **Smoltek’s nano­ma­te­r­i­al – proven tech­nol­o­gy lead and a clear path to com­mer­cial man­u­fac­tur­ing** Smoltek Hydro­gen has devel­oped a nano­ma­te­r­i­al that has been proven to work well in long-term stud­ies, and the com­pa­ny has a clear path to reach the goal of 0.1 mg of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter, which Smoltek as well as the lead­ing insti­tute Fraun­hofer con­sid­er to be the lev­el at which large-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing of PEM elec­trolyz­ers becomes com­mer­cial­ly prof­itable. This is prob­a­bly the only indus­tri­al­ly ver­i­fied solu­tion that is able to reach this tip­ping point. ![Smoltek Hydrogen Roll Ups 2023 08](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/smoltek-hydrogen-roll-ups-2023-08-1200x1336.webp) To cap­i­tal­ize on this head start, Smoltek Hydro­gen is now seek­ing finan­cial­ly strong part­ners to finance the remain­ing devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the nano­ma­te­r­i­al, includ­ing scale-up of pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty, and cre­ate the con­di­tions need­ed to reach its tar­get of a 30% mar­ket share, cor­re­spond­ing to approx. 20 bil­lion SEK in net sales in 2030. This process has been con­cretized with Smoltek’s ongo­ing bid­ding process for Smoltek Hydro­gen, which is expect­ed to take 6–12 months. > We have high ambi­tions as we are cur­rent­ly unique in pro­vid­ing a solu­tion to a crit­i­cal prob­lem. Fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of excel­lent long-term results, we have start­ed to more firm­ly work towards becom­ing the elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers’ col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner for the next gen­er­a­tion of elec­trolyz­ers. The inter­est from lead­ing play­ers is strong even before we have active­ly start­ed to reach out to the mar­ket, and dis­cus­sions and tests are already under­way with a num­ber of lead­ing com­pa­nies. Our tar­get is to reach a 30 per­cent mar­ket share in 2030 togeth­er with part­ners, which would cor­re­spond to a turnover of approx­i­mate­ly 20 bil­lion SEK. And even if the pro­ject­ed sales vol­ume is large, a giant fac­to­ry plant is not required. But it is urgent to start build­ing a pilot plant, because time is short. For that rea­son, the ongo­ing bid­ding process is an impor­tant step on the way there. > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen **Plan for indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion of the nano­ma­te­r­i­al** Dur­ing the next year, Smoltek Hydro­gen plans to estab­lish a pilot plant for small-scale indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion to, togeth­er with cus­tomers, man­u­fac­ture pro­to­types of new elec­trolyz­ers and, togeth­er with machine sup­pli­ers, be able to cre­ate the spec­i­fi­ca­tions for the first large-scale plant. There are sev­er­al pos­si­ble paths for­ward regard­ing vol­ume pro­duc­tion, but in a such a fast-grow­ing indus­try it is not unusu­al to build up the busi­ness oper­a­tions as an inde­pen­dent com­pa­ny, as an alter­na­tive to being part of a larg­er indus­tri­al structure. ![Slide 5 H2 Roapmap](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/slide-5-h2-roapmap.webp) Smoltek Hydro­gen – Roadmap to 2030 --- title: "The future for the capacitor industry" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/the-future-for-the-capacitor-industry/7567/" date: 2024-06-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024-06-13-smoltek-interview-with-phil-lessner.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "ultra-thin capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ultra-thin-capacitors.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # The future for the capacitor industry --- title: "Answers to questions from the shareholder community" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/answers-to-questions-from-the-shareholder-community/7561/" date: 2024-06-12 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/satirical-cartoon-showing-private-detective-with-deerstalker-and-calabash-questioning-thoughtful-businessman.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ir.md" --- # Answers to questions from the shareholder community At the time of this writ­ing, Smoltek has about 3,000 share­hold­ers. About half of them hang out in a Dis­cord group ded­i­cat­ed to dis­cussing the Smoltek stock. I don’t know who start­ed the group, but I do know who its main asset is, both in terms of set­ting a good tone and help­ing mem­bers under­stand the more intri­cate parts of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy and nav­i­gate the quirks of stock own­er­ship. This per­son goes by the pseu­do­nym Emma200. I know this because, as a very small share­hold­er in Smoltek, I am also a group member. The oth­er day, Emma200 wrote to the group that s/​he could not attend the webi­nar and there­fore couldn’t ask ques­tions. Instead, s/​he emailed us four excel­lent and rel­e­vant ques­tions we want­ed to answer. How­ev­er, as a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny, we have many rules about what we say and how we com­mu­ni­cate. That’s why it takes us time to respond if we respond at all. The words we use in response must be weighed on a gold­en scale, and var­i­ous reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies must have their say. Some­times, we can’t get back to you at all—not because we are unwill­ing or unable to respond, but because we are not allowed to. This is frus­trat­ing for every­one, espe­cial­ly those of us work­ing in cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions. But these are the rules. But this time we have a go from rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies. That is if we give every­one an equal chance to par­tic­i­pate in the answer. Hence, the press release announc­ing this blog post. Since Emma200 also post­ed the ques­tions in the Dis­cord group, we assume s/​he doesn’t mind a pub­lic answer. So, here are Emma200’s ques­tions and our answers with­out fur­ther ado. **Q:** About sell­ing sub­sidiaries or parts of the busi­ness: What about patents and future license rev­enues from such a sale? Are you will­ing to sell Semi and the patents/​rights/​applications of the semi­con­duc­tor side? If so, will it gen­er­ate future license rev­enues thanks to the under­ly­ing patents and the “Smol­Grow” base locat­ed in Smoltek AB? Or are you pre­pared to sell Semi and the patents/​rights for the semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions for a lump sum that will NOT gen­er­ate future license income to Smoltek as a par­ent company? **A:** It is too ear­ly to spec­u­late on what such a busi­ness mod­el will look like. We assume that a part­ner will invest in the com­pa­ny and fund the devel­op­ment and industrialization/​commercialization of each busi­ness area and tech­nol­o­gy. In the event of a poten­tial pur­chase of the com­pa­ny at a lat­er stage, this will be against a val­u­a­tion of future rev­enues, with roy­al­ties on the devel­oped com­po­nent being part of the trans­ac­tion, either as cur­rent or pre­paid roy­al­ties. A part­ner will have access to patents, rights, and appli­ca­tions as need­ed to best sup­port the nego­ti­at­ed trans­ac­tion model. **Q:** It appears that you have sub­mit­ted appli­ca­tions that, if suc­cess­ful, could pro­vide “soft fund­ing” in Q1 2025 and will be sub­mit­ting oth­er sim­i­lar appli­ca­tions. What amounts could this pro­vide in terms of cap­i­tal received? When did you sub­mit your first appli­ca­tion? Sup­pose you sub­mit fur­ther appli­ca­tions suc­cess­ful­ly; what amounts might this involve regard­ing cap­i­tal received, and when do you think this might be? **A:** The sub­mit­ted appli­ca­tion can pro­vide up to SEK 10 mil­lion. If we are suc­cess­ful, the pay­ment will come in the first half of 2025. We con­tin­u­ous­ly eval­u­ate oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties and will com­mu­ni­cate applications/​programs in which we participate. **Q:** How have the terms and con­di­tions of TO8 changed due to the issue? **A:** Giv­en that the min­i­mum lev­el in the rights issue is reached, the sub­scrip­tion price and/​or the option uti­liza­tion ratio for the war­rants of series TO8 will be recal­cu­lat­ed accord­ing to the war­rant terms. The recal­cu­la­tion will be com­mu­ni­cat­ed by Smoltek sep­a­rate­ly after the com­ple­tion of the rights issue. **Q:** There are rumors, com­ing from inside Smoltek i Hydro­gen, that Smoltek Hydro­gen will build a fac­to­ry with new own­ers. I have not seen or heard any­thing pub­licly about this. Can you com­ment on this? **A:** Our plan­ning includes eval­u­at­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es and equip­ment and devel­op­ing scale-up plans required for indus­tri­al-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing. How this is imple­ment­ed in prac­tice and with what approach depends on the part­ner, indus­tri­al or finan­cial, that comes into the com­pa­ny to fund these activities. These were Emma200’s ques­tions and our care­ful­ly craft­ed and vet­ted answers. I expect that Emma200 will post the answers on the Dis­cord group, and the share­hold­er com­mu­ni­ty will scru­ti­nize them and inter­pret them like Krem­li­nol­o­gists. I will be fol­low­ing the dis­cus­sion with inter­est. You should, too! [Join today if you are not already a member](https://discord.gg/qgfxSWtJYH) For clar­i­ty, nei­ther I nor any­one else at Smoltek par­tic­i­pates in dis­cus­sions on the Dis­cord group about Smoltek. That would be unpro­fes­sion­al and inappropriate. --- title: "Q&A on future directions of Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/qna-on-future-directions-of-smoltek/7553/" date: 2024-06-12 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/webinar.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ir.md" - name: "ir-webinar" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ir-webinar.md" --- # Q&A on future directions of Smoltek On June 4, Smoltek held a webi­nar on the company’s future. After [the pre­sen­ta­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/future-direction-of-smoltek/7525/) by Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek, he answered ques­tions from the audi­ence and mod­er­a­tor Albin Kjell­berg. Here are the ques­tions and answers, slight­ly edit­ed for readability. **Albin Kjell­berg: How long will the mon­ey from the issue last?** If you look at it in iso­la­tion, the mon­ey should take us well into 2025. We also have the bid­ding process under­way; if it is suc­cess­ful, the mon­ey will last longer. In addi­tion, we are involved in a num­ber of EU-relat­ed projects; we have sub­mit­ted one appli­ca­tion and will sub­mit sev­er­al. If we are suc­cess­ful, it will mean that we will receive addi­tion­al cap­i­tal in the first half of next year. **Mikael Johans­son: What is meant by” disruptive”?** The tech­nol­o­gy is total­ly dif­fer­ent. Nobody else is doing what we are doing. We can solve the prob­lem dif­fer­ent­ly. Let’s com­pare it to sil­i­con deep trench, where you etch into the mate­r­i­al. We do the oppo­site and build on top of the mate­r­i­al to cre­ate more sur­face area on the sub­strate. This gives you bet­ter per­for­mance and a more robust engi­neer­ing solu­tion. And this is what makes Smoltek unique. We are the only ones using car­bon nanofiber to build this solu­tion and solve mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy prob­lems. Nobody else is doing it. That is why the play­ers are also inter­est­ed in what we are doing and are work­ing with us to make this tech­nol­o­gy a reality. **Mikael Johans­son: If the tech­nol­o­gy is so good, why are there no part­ners to co-fund it?** We have ongo­ing process­es and dis­cus­sions with dif­fer­ent types of part­ners. We were very close to get­ting YAGEO on board. Now, giv­en their inter­nal pri­or­i­ties, they had to make oth­er deci­sions. But this is the path we are work­ing on, and this is what we have to do. As I have said for many years, this is not a quick fix. It is a con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment process, and soon­er or lat­er, we will break through and involve our part­ners in this process. That’s what the whole bid­ding process is about: just accel­er­at­ing that development. **Albin Kjell­berg: Is it chal­leng­ing to explain to the mar­ket and poten­tial part­ners what Smoltek has and where the poten­tial lies?** Yes, it is. But it’s also an advan­tage because it makes us unique and rel­e­vant, and the mar­ket needs our expertise. For exam­ple, YAGEO is a world leader in pas­sive com­po­nents. Still, they do not have the exper­tise that we have to solve their future problems. That is why we are rel­e­vant. That is what we bring. At the same time, the sales process and the projects we do take a long time. That is the nature of the busi­ness; what we are doing is not a quick fix, but we are cre­at­ing new ways to take the next step in two excit­ing busi­ness­es: hydro­gen and semiconductors. That’s what’s dis­rup­tive. We’re doing things in a dif­fer­ent way to solve a prob­lem that the indus­try is strug­gling to solve today. **Bengt Nord­ström: Hur är det med konkurrensen ?** Of course, there are com­pet­ing solutions. In semi­con­duc­tors, we have Sil­i­con Deep Trench­es, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between TSMC and Apple. How­ev­er, it has many lim­i­ta­tions, both in terms of patents and process technology. With hydro­gen, there are com­pet­ing tech­nolo­gies that try to reduce the amount of irid­i­um. But most of them work with the ink. That is not the solu­tion. The solu­tion is to work with the sub­strate. That’s where we can add val­ue with our car­bon nanofiber technology. **Albin Kjell­berg: After semi­con­duc­tors and hydro­gen, what is the most like­ly application?** Some things are very sim­i­lar to what we do. Let’s take hydro­gen as an exam­ple. Fuel cells are very close. Fuel cells are real­ly a mir­ror image of what we do for elec­trolyz­ers. So [the part­ner in the auto­mo­tive indus­try](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/a-world-leading-vehicle-manufacturer-is-testing-custom-made-cell-material-from-smoltek,c3987888) that’s test­ing our mate­r­i­al has a dual inter­est here; they’re doing elec­trolyz­ers, but they’re also doing fuel cells. How­ev­er, we are not stand­ing still; we are an incu­ba­tor, and we have a long list of oppor­tu­ni­ties that we are mov­ing through the incu­ba­tor process to eval­u­ate. These include night vision sen­sors, auto­mo­tive radar, and med­ical applications. One exam­ple is an ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with a den­tal tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny that man­u­fac­tures x‑ray equip­ment. Our tech­nol­o­gy is vir­tu­al­ly the only way for them to imple­ment their tech­nol­o­gy. It’s a small­er project that has flown under the radar, but we’re work­ing on it. There are a lot of things that we can do. It is impor­tant for us to have a struc­tured process for eval­u­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties so that we see not only the tech­ni­cal oppor­tu­ni­ty but also its com­mer­cial rel­e­vance. We should not throw tech­nol­o­gy at projects that we can­not mon­e­tize. That is why we are using an incu­ba­tor process to assess their rel­e­vance to us and our shareholders. **Mikael Johans­son: What is Håkan’s inter­pre­ta­tion that the mar­ket does not have con­fi­dence in Smoltek at the moment?** Of course, it is a lia­bil­i­ty for us. Every­body knows that we are a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny; there­fore, there is no direct rev­enue. We have to find part­ners to help us finance devel­op­ment, indus­tri­al­iza­tion, and com­mer­cial­iza­tion. That’s what we’ve been pur­su­ing for quite some time. We’re very close to get­ting there, thanks to the tech­no­log­i­cal advances that have put us in a much bet­ter posi­tion. And I think that is not reflect­ed in the market’s con­fi­dence in our stock. That’s why we’re going out in these bid­ding process­es – to make that val­ue vis­i­ble. It is cen­tral to us. **Albin Kjell­berg: What mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy is most sim­i­lar to Smoltek’s in com­mer­cial use today?** In the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, it is the sil­i­con deep trench. In the hydro­gen indus­try, it is the irid­i­um ink. **Jacob John­son: What is the rela­tion­ship with YAGEO? Could they be a poten­tial bidder?** YAGEO could be one of the bidders. We have an ongo­ing rela­tion­ship with YAGEO. Our CTO, Farzan Gha­vani­ni, and YAGEO’s CTO, Phil Less­ner, are in reg­u­lar con­tact and have month­ly coor­di­na­tion meet­ings. We also pro­vide them with *sam­ples* for test­ing and eval­u­a­tion. This is great for us: On the one hand, we keep them informed about where we are and how we are devel­op­ing tech­ni­cal­ly. On the oth­er hand, it also saves a lot of time and mon­ey; they have entire­ly dif­fer­ent resources for test equip­ment and the activ­i­ties we ben­e­fit from. I would say that the con­tin­ued coop­er­a­tion is proof of what Bob says: It wasn’t a lack of con­fi­dence in the tech­nol­o­gy and the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the tech­nol­o­gy that caused YAGEO to walk away from the nego­ti­a­tions, but oth­er pri­or­i­ties that they have to take into account. But they are still fol­low­ing us, and I think there is a good chance they will return. But since our con­tracts were ter­mi­nat­ed, YAGEO no longer has exclu­siv­i­ty. This allows us to approach oth­ers. We know exact­ly who they are, and they know exact­ly who we are; we have been in con­tact with them before and, in many cas­es, togeth­er with YAGEO. We are, of course, pick­ing up those threads. And if we do what we need to do accord­ing to the plan that we are exe­cut­ing, we will show that the tech­nol­o­gy is evolv­ing, and there­fore I see good prospects to have a very inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion at the end of the year. Not just with YAGEO, but with YAGEO and oth­ers, and then maybe we will have an auc­tion process on the tech­nol­o­gy. That in itself is a val­ue-cre­ation oppor­tu­ni­ty for us in this process that we are going through. **Albin Kjell­berg: Can you elab­o­rate on the news that a world-lead­ing auto­mo­tive man­u­fac­tur­er has recent­ly start­ed test­ing a cus­tom-made cell mate­r­i­al from Smoltek?** It is a company—I can­not name it now—that is inter­est­ed in both vehi­cle and elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ing. They are inter­est­ed in our cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells; it is basi­cal­ly the same tech­nol­o­gy. They will be test­ing our mate­r­i­al for both purposes. **Albin Kjell­berg: Vad mer behöver kom­ma på plats för att nå slut­målet om 0,1 mil­ligram per kvadrat­cen­time­ter cellmaterial?** We have already achieved this in the half-cell for­mat. So, we have the anode side done. We have to assem­ble it into an entire cell and then do the same thou­sand-hour test that we did for 0.2 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter. We are prepar­ing for that right now. **Albin Kjell­berg: Were poten­tial part­ners dis­cour­aged by the break with YAGEO?** They have not been dis­cour­aged. We are in the process of dis­cussing the bid­ding process, and every­one we are in con­tact with shows the same inter­est in the tech­nol­o­gy because they know what it can do. The need is there; we get proof of that in every con­tact we have. The semi­con­duc­tor and hydro­gen indus­tries have real prob­lems that need to be solved. Our part­ners have not lost con­fi­dence that we can help them. We are in a sit­u­a­tion where the plan we were sup­posed to exe­cute is not hap­pen­ing. That’s why we need to clar­i­fy the val­ue of what we’re actu­al­ly doing and raise addi­tion­al mon­ey to move forward. **Albin Kjell­berg: How has inter­nal con­fi­dence in tech­nol­o­gy been affect­ed by recent events?** It has not changed at all; on the con­trary, we have made much tech­no­log­i­cal progress in the hydro­gen area and the semi­con­duc­tor side, so the moti­va­tion remains high. But we feel, and I feel myself, the frus­tra­tion that what we are doing is not reflect­ed in the stock mar­ket. That’s one of the prob­lems of being a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny; we have to make the val­ue vis­i­ble. And that’s why we’re going into these process­es now. So, the moti­va­tion is high. We know what is need­ed out there. We know what we can do, and that is what we are going to do. That’s extreme­ly impor­tant because if we stop exe­cut­ing our plans, we stop cre­at­ing val­ue, and we become irrel­e­vant over time. That’s why we must raise mon­ey to keep doing what we do. **Oliv­er Win­ches­ter: What busi­ness areas could Smoltek estab­lish after the bid­ding process is completed?** We have a long list of poten­tial appli­ca­tions run­ning through the incu­ba­tor process. For exam­ple, there are fuel cells. Bat­ter­ies are also a hot area where we can con­tribute. On the semi­con­duc­tor side, for exam­ple inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, there is what we call IC-CNF-MIM, which will con­tribute to the kind of chip archi­tec­ture of the future. So, there are many things we can look at and are look­ing at. But the focus right now is on nail­ing down the exist­ing busi­ness­es and using them as a plat­form to gen­er­ate rev­enue, cre­ate prof­itabil­i­ty, and fund what we do. That’s what enables new areas and inno­va­tion. That is the foun­da­tion of this company—to cap­i­tal­ize on the car­bon fiber tech­nol­o­gy that we have. **missko1962: It sounds like hydro­gen has a faster route to mar­ket than semi; what is Håkan’s opinion?** It’s about how fast we can get to an indus­tri­al­ized prod­uct that we can man­u­fac­ture in vol­ume. Hydro­gen is an indus­try that is explod­ing, while the semi­con­duc­tor side is a more mature indus­try. But I would say the time hori­zon for both is about the same. We have the ambi­tion to start sales and also vol­ume pro­duc­tion in 2025–2027. **Albin Kjell­berg: What are you most excit­ed about for the rest of 2024?** It’s fas­ci­nat­ing to go out into the mar­ket, make con­tacts, and be open and explic­it about the fact that we’re look­ing for part­ners. We have worked with indus­try play­ers before, but it was not as clear­ly stat­ed as it is now. And I think that also gives us a whole dif­fer­ent lev­el of vis­i­bil­i­ty for our val­ue. So I think that’s going to be very excit­ing. Of course, this aligns with the tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment we are pur­su­ing because it cre­ates the con­di­tions and results nec­es­sary for this process to be successful. So it’s a very excit­ing time, and I real­ly hope that we can con­tin­ue on this path. That is what will cre­ate and max­i­mize share­hold­er val­ue over the next 6–12 months. **Albin Kjell­berg: There is nev­er a dull moment being CEO of Smoltek?** No, it keeps you busy. But at the same time, it’s a hell of much fun. --- title: "Future direction of Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/future-direction-of-smoltek/7525/" date: 2024-06-11 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/future-direction-smoltek.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ir.md" - name: "ir-webinar" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ir-webinar.md" - name: "webinar" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/webinar.md" --- # Future direction of Smoltek On June 4, Smoltek held a webi­nar on the company’s future. The speak­er was Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek, and the mod­er­a­tor was Albin Kjell­berg, known in Swe­den for his talks, pod­casts, and tips on stock, sav­ings, and funds. This blog post sum­ma­rizes Håkan Persson’s speech. In a fol­low-up blog post, we will report on all the ques­tions raised after the pre­sen­ta­tion and Håkan Persson’s answers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#amazing-technology-and-significant-potential)**Amazing technology and significant potential** Smoltek is a com­pa­ny with rev­o­lu­tion­ary tech­nol­o­gy and enor­mous poten­tial. Accord­ing to Håkan Pers­son, Smoltek has the most sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial of all the com­pa­nies he has worked with. The company’s tech­nol­o­gy is very rel­e­vant in today’s tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, which requires high­er per­for­mance and small­er, cheap­er, and more effi­cient com­po­nents. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy can meet these demands through inno­v­a­tive and dis­rup­tive solutions. ![Bild 01](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-01-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#brief-on-smoltek)**Brief on Smoltek** Found­ed in 2005, Smoltek works with nan­otech­nol­o­gy based on 20 years of research at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy in Gothen­burg. The com­pa­ny was list­ed on Spot­light in 2018. Smoltek aims to solve advanced mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing prob­lems with its pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy, Smol­GROW. This tech­nol­o­gy cre­ates a three-dimen­sion­al sur­face struc­ture by con­trol­ling the growth of car­bon nanofibers. This pro­vides a larg­er active sur­face for elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal process­es, which can be used in var­i­ous appli­ca­tion areas. ![Bild 02](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-02-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#business-model)**Business model** Smoltek’s busi­ness mod­el is based on an incu­ba­tor mod­el where busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties based on the core tech­nol­o­gy Smol­GROW are iden­ti­fied and devel­oped with part­ners into mar­ket-ready com­pa­nies. Smoltek makes mon­ey by licens­ing the tech­nol­o­gy and sell­ing the subsidiaries. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-potential-sale-of-assets-or-entire-subsidiaries)**The potential sale of assets or entire subsidiaries** Smoltek has [recent­ly announced](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-initiates-bidding-process-for-the-potential-sale-of-assets-or-entire-subsidiaries-within-the,c3985940) that it is explor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sell­ing all or part of its sub­sidiaries Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen, or their tech­nol­o­gy, to high­light the val­ue of the com­pa­ny and ensure con­tin­ued growth. There is a large gap between the con­fi­dence of the stock mar­ket and the val­ue that the board and man­age­ment see in the com­pa­ny. They have begun to reach out to poten­tial stake­hold­ers to max­i­mize share­hold­er value. ![Bild 03](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-03-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#new-issue-of-shares)**New issue of shares** To ensure a struc­tured process and to con­tin­ue the devel­op­ment, Smoltek is [con­duct­ing a rights issue](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab-have-decided-on-a-partially-secured-rights-issue-of-shares-of-a-minimum-,c3985922). The sub­scrip­tion price is set at SEK 0.45 per share, which can pro­vide the com­pa­ny with SEK 26 mil­lion before expens­es. The issue is sub­ject to a min­i­mum sub­scrip­tion of 80 per­cent. Approx­i­mate­ly 50 per­cent of the issue is ini­tial­ly under­writ­ten by sub­scrip­tions and guar­an­tees from investors who have fol­lowed the com­pa­ny over time. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-invest-in-smoltek)**Why invest in Smoltek** Smoltek is an inno­v­a­tive deep-tech com­pa­ny with great poten­tial in two busi­ness areas: semi­con­duc­tors and hydro­gen. The com­pa­ny has an expe­ri­enced man­age­ment team and board of direc­tors and tar­gets vol­ume pro­duc­tion between 2025 and 2027. The tech­nol­o­gy plat­form has the poten­tial to expand into many oth­er appli­ca­tion areas. Smoltek has cre­at­ed much val­ue in recent years that it can cap­i­tal­ize on. ![Bild 04](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-04-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#two-business-areas)**Two business areas** Smoltek focus­es on semi­con­duc­tors and hydro­gen. In semi­con­duc­tors, it devel­ops ultra-thin capac­i­tors for appli­ca­tion process­es in mobile phones and oth­er advanced elec­tron­ic com­po­nents. In hydro­gen, the com­pa­ny is devel­op­ing high-per­for­mance cell mate­ri­als for cheap­er and more effi­cient pro­duc­tion of fos­sil-free hydrogen. ![Bild 05](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-05-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#semiconductor-industry)**Semiconductor industry** After this intro­duc­tion, Håkan Pers­son goes into each busi­ness area to explain its poten­tial. He start­ed with Smoltek Semi – the sub­sidiary that serves the semi­con­duc­tor industry. The con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment of more and more tran­sis­tors on chips requires new, thin, and advanced capac­i­tors. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy meets these needs by cre­at­ing high capac­i­tance den­si­ty while main­tain­ing per­for­mance, solv­ing minia­tur­iza­tion prob­lems, and improv­ing the func­tion­al­i­ty of mod­ern semiconductors. ![Bild 06](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-06-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-yageo-stopped-negotiations)**Why YAGEO stopped negotiations** Before con­tin­u­ing, Håkan Pers­son addressed the ele­phant in the room. Nego­ti­a­tions with YAGEO were sus­pend­ed due to their inter­nal cir­cum­stances and pri­or­i­ties, not dis­trust of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy. YAGEO still sees the poten­tial of tech­nol­o­gy and may return to col­lab­o­ra­tion if its con­di­tions change. Robert S. Willough­by, direc­tor of YAGEO’s Mul­ti­lay­er Ceram­ic Capac­i­tor Divi­sion, explains:” We believe in the poten­tial of Smoltek’s Car­bon Nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy to pro­duce Sil­i­con capac­i­tors. How­ev­er, after a thor­ough eval­u­a­tion, we regret to con­clude that the tim­ing is not right for us to make fur­ther invest­ments cur­rent­ly. Nev­er­the­less, we remain open to revis­it­ing the deci­sion if con­di­tions change. We are still con­fi­dent that Smoltek’s inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy will pro­vide com­mer­cial­ized prod­ucts that deliv­er dis­rup­tive capa­bil­i­ties com­pared to the cur­rent prod­ucts on the market.” ![Bild 07](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-07-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#yageo-may-return)**YAGEO may return** The deci­sion to break off nego­ti­a­tions was based on inter­nal pri­or­i­ties. YAGEO still wants to become a tech­nol­o­gy provider and is inter­est­ed in Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy. Smoltek will now approach more play­ers in the mar­ket as exclu­siv­i­ty agree­ments with YAGEO no longer bind it. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#new-generation-of-capacitors-required)**New generation of capacitors required** The mar­ket requires a new gen­er­a­tion of capac­i­tors with high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, and Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy can meet these require­ments. Mul­ti­lay­er Ceram­ic Capac­i­tors (MLCC) can­not meet the new require­ments, which gives Smoltek’s [CNF-MIM capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/) a unique position. ![Bild 08](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-08-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#existing-option)**Existing option** The exist­ing option to meet these needs is *sil­i­con deep trench*. It is devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion between Apple and TSMC, cre­at­ing intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and com­pet­i­tive chal­lenges for oth­er play­ers in the mar­ket. Smoltek offers a more com­pet­i­tive solu­tion by adding mate­r­i­al to the sub­strate, which pro­vides high capac­i­tance and is robust, rather than etch­ing mate­r­i­al away from the sub­strate, which lim­its capac­i­tance and is frag­ile. Smoltek achieves per-microm­e­ter capac­i­tance lev­els on par with the best cur­rent­ly avail­able. With our next gen­er­a­tion, [Gen 1](https://www.smoltek.com/gen-one-next-generation-of-smolteks-carbon-nanofiber-capacitors/7445/), Smoltek’s CNF MIM capac­i­tors will have a sig­nif­i­cant increase in capacitance. ![Bild 09](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-09-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cost-effective-alternative)**Cost-effective alternative** Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors enable high­er per­for­mance and are a cost-effec­tive alter­na­tive to sil­i­con deep trench. The tech­nol­o­gy is com­pat­i­ble with stan­dard CMOS man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es and can be used by exist­ing con­tract manufacturers. ![Bild 10](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-10-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#possible-auction)**Possible auction** Smoltek sees an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate an auc­tion sit­u­a­tion around its tech­nol­o­gy by re-engag­ing with YAGEO and oth­er poten­tial part­ners. The com­pa­ny is also work­ing on soft fund­ing through par­tic­i­pa­tion in EU-relat­ed projects. ![Bild 11](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-11-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#summary-about-smoltek-semi)**Summary about Smoltek Semi** Smoltek Semi offers a com­pet­i­tive alter­na­tive to mar­ket-lead­ing tech­nolo­gies for future minia­tur­iza­tion and high capac­i­tance den­si­ty needs. In 2024, the focus will be on increas­ing capac­i­tance den­si­ty and deliv­er­ing pro­to­types to part­ners for eval­u­a­tion. There are sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties for Smoltek and a poten­tial partner. ![Bild 12](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-12-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogen)**Smoltek Hydrogen** Håkan Pers­son switch­es gears and talks about Smoltek Hydro­gen – the sub­sidiary that serves the hydro­gen industry. Smoltek Hydro­gen is devel­op­ing a new type of cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers that can scale up the pro­duc­tion of fos­sil-free hydro­gen. This is nec­es­sary to com­bat cli­mate change. ![Bild 13](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-13-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#huge-market)**Huge market** PEM elec­trolyz­ers are essen­tial for har­ness­ing ener­gy from inter­mit­tent green sources such as solar and wind. They match capac­i­ty to ener­gy avail­abil­i­ty, low­er­ing the cost of pro­duc­ing green hydro­gen. Fore­casts show a sharp hock­ey stick increase as the need for this tech­nol­o­gy is urgent and widespread. ![Bild 14](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-14-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#iridium-the-achilles-heel-of-fossil-free-hydrogen)**Iridium – the Achilles heel of fossil-free hydrogen** PEM elec­trolyz­ers require irid­i­um, an extreme­ly rare and expen­sive pre­cious met­al. Today, irid­i­um costs about € 150,000 per kilo­gram, but it is expect­ed to reach € 700,000 per kilo­gram by 2030. Cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy, which mix­es irid­i­um into ink on the mem­brane, is inef­fi­cient. The solu­tion is to place irid­i­um on a sub­strate in con­tact with the mem­brane, which requires 10–30 times more sur­face area. ![Bild 15](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-15-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#95-less-iridium)**95 % less iridium** Smoltek’s solu­tion mul­ti­plies the sur­face area in con­tact with the mem­brane, pro­duc­ing the same amount of hydro­gen with sig­nif­i­cant­ly less irid­i­um. This reduces the need for irid­i­um and low­ers pro­duc­tion costs. A [suc­cess­ful thou­sand-hour test](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-successfully-completed-a-long-term-electrolyzer-cell-test/7065/) shows a 90 per­cent reduc­tion in demand. In the lab, we have achieved a 95 per­cent reduction. ![Bild 16](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-16-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#saves-10-billion-sek)**Saves 10 billion SEK** It is rea­son­able to expect that Smoltek’s cell mate­r­i­al will reach a mar­ket share of 30% by 2030, which means pro­duc­ing 200,000 square meters of cell mate­r­i­al. This would save SEK 10 bil­lion in elec­trolyz­er pro­duc­tion costs, cre­at­ing a strong busi­ness case for an indus­tri­al partner. ![Bild 17](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-17-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#next-step)**Next step** Smoltek has proven its tech­nol­o­gy and know how to  pro­duce the mate­r­i­al in large quan­ti­ties. The next step is to find a part­ner to indus­tri­al­ize the solu­tion and bring it to market. ![Bild 18](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-18-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#summary-about-smoltek-hydrogen)**Summary about Smoltek Hydrogen** Smoltek Hydro­gen offers a cost-effec­tive solu­tion to reduce the need for irid­i­um in the pro­duc­tion of green hydro­gen. The com­pa­ny has sol­id patents and part­ner­ships with glob­al lead­ers. The mar­ket is grow­ing rapid­ly, and Smoltek is well-posi­tioned to cap­i­tal­ize on this growth. ![Bild 19](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-19-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#invest-in-smoltek)**Invest in Smoltek** Smoltek has cre­at­ed much val­ue not reflect­ed in today’s mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion. The com­pa­ny has both the tech­nol­o­gy and the com­pe­tence to real­ize its poten­tial. It is an excit­ing invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty for both the short and long term. ![Bild 20](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bild-20-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-end)**The end** This was the sum­ma­ry of Håkan Persson’s speech. You can watch the entire speech on YouTube. And don’t miss the next blog post, which details the ques­tions from the audi­ence and Håkan Persson’s answers. --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen’s plans revealed" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogens-plans-revealed/7509/" date: 2024-06-04 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/entreprenorsdriv.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" - name: "Smoltek Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen’s plans revealed In episode 639 of the pod­cast *Entre­prenörs­driv* (”Entre­pre­neur’s Dri­ve”), Tomas Tränkn­er inter­viewed Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent  of Smoltek Hydro­gen AB. This insight­ful inter­view cov­ered the inno­v­a­tive solu­tions Smoltek Hydro­gen is devel­op­ing, Ehrn­berg’s back­ground and qual­i­fi­ca­tions, the com­pa­ny’s growth plans, indus­try feed­back, and busi­ness strat­e­gy for the next five years. This arti­cle sum­ma­rizes the key points of the inter­view, high­light­ing Smoltek Hydro­gen’s unique approach to solv­ing crit­i­cal chal­lenges in the green hydro­gen sec­tor and show­cas­ing Ehrn­berg’s exper­tise in lead­ing the com­pa­ny to sig­nif­i­cant growth. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#solving-a-critical-challenge-in-green-hydrogen-production)**Solving a critical challenge in green hydrogen production** Smoltek Hydro­gen AB address­es one of the most press­ing issues in green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion: the depen­dence on irid­i­um, one of the world’s rarest and most expen­sive met­als. Irid­i­um is essen­tial for PEM (Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane) elec­trolyz­ers, which pro­duce hydro­gen by elec­trol­y­sis of water. How­ev­er, irid­i­um’s scarci­ty and high cost are sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers to scal­ing up green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. The price of irid­i­um in 2024 is around EUR 200,000 per kilo­gram. It is expect­ed to rise sharply due to lim­it­ed annu­al pro­duc­tion of only 9 tons, sourced main­ly from South Africa and Russia. Smoltek Hydro­gen has devel­oped a tech­nol­o­gy that dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduces the irid­i­um required in PEM elec­trolyz­ers by up to 95%. This makes green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion more eco­nom­i­cal and scal­able, con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the glob­al tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able energy. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ellinor-ehrnbergs-way-to-smoltek-hydrogen)**Ellinor Ehrnberg’s way to Smoltek Hydrogen** Elli­nor Ehrn­berg brings a wealth of expe­ri­ence and exper­tise to her role as Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydro­gen AB. She has a Ph.D. in Indus­tri­al Man­age­ment focus­ing on tech­no­log­i­cal change and dis­rup­tive innovation. Her career includes strate­gic roles in long-term plan­ning and busi­ness devel­op­ment, inno­va­tion man­age­ment and merg­ers and acqui­si­tions (M&A) at SKF, Mölnly­cke and Husq­var­na. Before join­ing Smoltek, she worked on tech­nol­o­gy trends and strate­gic plan­ning at RISE (Research Insti­tutes of Swe­den), work­ing with CTOs from major Swedish companies. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#scaling-up-smoltek-hydrogen-ab)**Scaling up Smoltek Hydrogen AB** Smoltek Hydro­gen AB is strate­gi­cal­ly posi­tioned to cap­i­tal­ize on the rapid­ly grow­ing demand for elec­trolyz­ers dri­ven by the glob­al push for green hydro­gen. As the need for PEM (Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane) elec­trolyz­ers sky­rock­ets, the lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of irid­i­um is becom­ing a sig­nif­i­cant bot­tle­neck. Man­u­fac­tur­ers urgent­ly seek solu­tions to reduce irid­i­um con­sump­tion, mak­ing Smoltek Hydro­gen’s inno­va­tion critical. The indus­try moves through sev­er­al stages, from con­cept to pro­to­type devel­op­ment, fol­lowed by pilot pro­duc­tion and full-scale indus­tri­al­iza­tion. Smoltek Hydro­gen has care­ful­ly aligned its scal­ing strat­e­gy with these indus­try stages. By syn­chro­niz­ing its devel­op­ment time­lines with major elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, Smoltek Hydro­gen ensures it is ready with a scal­able, irid­i­um-effi­cient solu­tion when the mar­ket needs it. This proac­tive approach posi­tions Smoltek Hydro­gen as a leader in green hydro­gen tech­nol­o­gy. It ensures they can effec­tive­ly meet the grow­ing demand, pro­vid­ing a crit­i­cal solu­tion to an indus­try-wide challenge. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#industry-feedback-and-validation)**Industry Feedback and validation** Demand for PEM elec­trolyz­ers is expect­ed to grow rapid­ly, mak­ing the effi­cient use of irid­i­um crit­i­cal. Two approach­es are avail­able: the exist­ing tech­nique of deposit­ing irid­i­um direct­ly onto the pro­ton exchange mem­brane and Smoltek’s method of deposit­ing irid­i­um on met­al in con­tact with the membrane. The exist­ing tech­nique wastes much irid­i­um, and attempts to reduce this waste have proven inad­e­quate. Inde­pen­dent stud­ies have shown that elim­i­nat­ing this waste is phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble by plac­ing irid­i­um ink direct­ly on the pro­ton exchange membrane. Smoltek Hydro­gen’s solu­tion is to cre­ate a for­est of nanoscale met­al rods to which the irid­i­um is attached atom by atom. This allows every irid­i­um atom to come into con­tact with the mem­brane and be use­ful. In this way, Smoltek can reduce irid­i­um usage by 95% with the same effi­ca­cy as today. Until recent­ly, Smoltek Hydro­gen did not make a big deal about its tech­nol­o­gy. There was no point until they demon­strat­ed in a 1,000-hour dura­bil­i­ty test that the solu­tion met real-world require­ments. How­ev­er, with the [suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the 1,000-hour test](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-successfully-completed-a-long-term-electrolyzer-cell-test/7065/), they have now begun to show­case their solu­tion. This break­through has attract­ed con­sid­er­able atten­tion at the 245th Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Soci­ety Meet­ing, high­light­ing Smoltek Hydro­gen’s poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the green hydro­gen indus­try by address­ing a crit­i­cal resource challenge. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-hydrogens-five-year-business-plan)**Smoltek Hydrogen’s Five-year business plan** Smoltek Hydro­gen’s five-year busi­ness plan focus­es on find­ing a strate­gic part­ner, indus­tri­al or finan­cial, to co-cre­ate a com­mer­cial prod­uct based on its tech­nol­o­gy. Dis­cus­sions are under­way with sev­er­al poten­tial part­ners. The plan is to devel­op pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty in sync with the part­ner’s devel­op­ment project: First, a pilot plant for small-scale indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion, fol­lowed by a full-scale, high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion unit. They already have a sup­pli­er ready to build a turnkey pro­duc­tion facility. Giv­en the new par­a­digm for build­ing PEM elec­trolyz­ers, intro­duced by Smoltek’s solu­tion, many sur­round­ing com­po­nents can be improved for greater effi­cien­cy. Smoltek Hydro­gen wants to be part of this broad­er devel­op­ment. Elli­nor Ehrn­berg says, “We are at the cen­ter of it all; it’s in irid­i­um that things are hap­pen­ing.” This strate­gic approach posi­tions Smoltek Hydro­gen to lead the way in rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing PEM elec­trolyz­er pro­duc­tion and improv­ing the over­all effi­cien­cy of green hydro­gen technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conclusion)**Conclusion** This arti­cle sum­ma­rizes the key points from Elli­nor Ehrn­berg’s inter­view on the *Entre­prenörs­driv* pod­cast. It high­lights how Smoltek Hydro­gen address­es the crit­i­cal chal­lenge of irid­i­um scarci­ty in green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, Ehrn­berg’s exten­sive back­ground, the com­pa­ny’s strate­gic growth plans, and the indus­try’s pos­i­tive feed­back. To gain deep­er insights into Smoltek Hydro­gen’s inno­v­a­tive solu­tions and prospects, lis­ten to the full episode: [https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/forcedn/entreprenorsdriv/639\_Att\_lansera\_revolutionerande\_vatgasteknologi\_pa\_marknaden\_-\_Ellinor\_Ehrnberg.mp3](https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/forcedn/entreprenorsdriv/639_Att_lansera_revolutionerande_vatgasteknologi_pa_marknaden_-_Ellinor_Ehrnberg.mp3) --- title: "Gen-One – next generation of Smoltek’s carbon nanofiber capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/gen-one-next-generation-of-smolteks-carbon-nanofiber-capacitors/7445/" date: 2024-05-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/farzan-interview-2024-04.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "gen-one" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/gen-one.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "volumetric capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/volumetric-capacitance-density.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Gen-One – next generation of Smoltek’s carbon nanofiber capacitors The Gen-One capac­i­tors are based on a nov­el approach in con­vert­ing a car­bon nanofiber for­est into a high capac­i­tance den­si­ty capac­i­tor. This approach uti­lizes the valu­able foot­print area of the capac­i­tor more effi­cient­ly while keep­ing the par­a­sitic induc­tance and resis­tance at a min­i­mum. This, com­bined with the expect­ed increase in the length of the car­bon nanofibers will be a leap for­ward com­pared to the [Gen-Zero CNF-MIM capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/7303). The Gen-Zero capac­i­tors was devel­oped togeth­er with Yageo, one of the biggest capac­i­tors man­u­fac­tur­ers in the world. The capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment col­lab­o­ra­tion between Smoltek Semi and Yageo Group will con­tin­ue, although Yageo has paused the dis­cus­sions on an exclu­sive license and ser­vice agree­ment, and they will assist in the test­ing and eval­u­a­tion of our upcom­ing Gen-One capac­i­tors that are under development. > Smoltek Semi is still work­ing very close­ly with Yageo to devel­op the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy. And the next gen­er­a­tion, Gen-One is expect­ed to enable capac­i­tance val­ues on par with the top capac­i­tors on the market. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO **High capac­i­tance in a small area – and the impor­tance of vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty** Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber-based capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, CNF-MIM, cre­ates high capac­i­tance val­ues by grow­ing extreme­ly thin and tall car­bon nanofibers on top of a sil­i­con sub­strate. With this tech­nol­o­gy, a very high capac­i­tance is cre­at­ed in a very small area. This is fun­da­men­tal and demand­ed from the capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers and their cus­tomers worldwide. > With the new tech­nol­o­gy gen­er­a­tion, Smoltek can cre­ate a vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty of up to 120 nano­farads per square mil­lime­ter, and per microm­e­ter of car­bon nanofiber. This is com­pa­ra­ble to the top capac­i­tors on the mar­ket. How­ev­er, the capac­i­tance val­ues in the Gen-Zero capac­i­tors were today low­er than the com­peti­tors. This is because we have not yet opti­mized the length of the car­bon nanofibers, which in Gen-Zero were only a few microm­e­ters long. In the next gen­er­a­tion, Gen-One, the ambi­tion is to grow car­bon nanofibers that are up to 10 microm­e­ters long, which is expect­ed to enable capac­i­tance val­ues on par with the competition. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen has finalized design of a Prototype Coater tool for carbon nanofibers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-finalized-design-of-a-prototype-coater-tool-for-carbon-nanofibers/7438/" date: 2024-05-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/smoltekhydrogenagc-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen has finalized design of a Prototype Coater tool for carbon nanofibers Smoltek Hydro­gen is work­ing on solv­ing the biggest pain point of PEM elec­trolyz­ers – “The Irid­i­um prob­lem”. Irid­i­um is need­ed as cat­a­lyst on the anode side in an elec­trolyz­er cell. How­ev­er, irid­i­um is extreme­ly expen­sive and most of all scarce and a lim­it­ed resource, and the short­age of irid­i­um is rec­og­nized as the sin­gle most severe threat towards scal­ing up PEM elec­trolyz­ers. For this rea­son, the hydro­gen indus­try is eager to find a new, game-chang­ing tech­nol­o­gy that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the irid­i­um load.  Smoltek Hydro­gen has a solu­tion to this par­tic­u­lar prob­lem, by intro­duc­ing an ultra-thin irid­i­um coat­ing on the porous trans­port lay­er side instead of the mem­brane, and where the sur­face area first has been enlarged by coat­ing the sur­face with cor­ro­sion pro­tect­ed ver­ti­cal car­bon nanofibers. Smoltek Hydro­gen aims to reduce the irid­i­um amount with 95% com­pared to today’s stan­dard mate­r­i­al (that uses ca 2.5 mg iridium/​cm2), and has recent­ly com­plet­ed a 1,000 hour dura­bil­i­ty test with only 0.2 mg iridium/​cm2 ([Read about the test](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-successfully-completed-a-long-term-electrolyzer-cell-test/7065/)). **Man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies to enable scale-up of PEM elec­trolyz­ers** Besides hav­ing a game chang­ing tech­nol­o­gy, Smoltek Hydro­gen also need to be able to man­u­fac­ture the elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al in large vol­umes. Today the sam­ples are pro­duced with lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nolo­gies, in low quan­ti­ties and with typ­i­cal area of only a few square cen­time­ters, where­as the indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cept must be scal­able to the high vol­umes fore­seen, which is tens of thou­sands of square meters a year, and beyond.  An impor­tant first step towards indus­tri­al­iza­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the Smoltek Hydro­gen elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al is prac­ti­cal val­i­da­tion of the select­ed con­cept for the growth of nanofibers, since it is a dif­fer­ent type of Plas­ma Enhanced Chem­i­cal Vapor Depo­si­tion (PECVD) process than used today. In order to do this Smoltek Hydro­gen has, togeth­er with AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions, designed a new ded­i­cat­ed Pro­to­type Coater tool that will be placed in the Chalmers MC2 facil­i­ties in Gothen­burg, where Smoltek cur­rent­ly has its nanofiber fab­ri­ca­tion operations. ![Smoltek Agc Tool Design](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-agc-tool-design-1200x555.webp) Ilus­tra­tion of the Pro­to­type Coater which has been designed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions. The Pro­to­type Coater shall be used to val­i­date the scal­able high-vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy for growth of car­bon nanofibers. > The Pro­to­type Coater is a pow­er­ful tool with small foot­print and will pro­vide an impor­tant plat­form for con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of indus­tri­al growth recipes. The ambi­tion with the tool is to com­bine scal­able AGC lin­ear hol­low cath­ode PECVD tech­nol­o­gy and our exper­tise in grow­ing car­bon nanofibers. We fine tune dif­fer­ent growth con­di­tions and select the para­me­ters most suit­able for fur­ther scale-up. The tool will also enable us to man­u­fac­ture rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ples to cus­tomers with indus­tri­al scal­able technology. > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen Based on the learn­ings from val­i­da­tion of the Pro­to­type Coater, Smoltek Hydro­gen aims to order a Pilot Coater, which is a small­er ver­sion of a high-vol­ume tool. This is also a cru­cial com­po­nent of AGC’s busi­ness mod­el, since they guar­an­tee the per­for­mance of the vol­ume machine if their small­er coater is used to spec­i­fy its require­ments. The Pilot Coater will be used to pro­duce test series for cus­tomers as well as for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies before vol­ume manufacturing. ![Smoltek Manufacturing Strategy 2024 04](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/smoltek-manufacturing-strategy-2024-04-e1716897302613-1200x514.webp) The roadmap for scal­ing up pro­duc­tion of Smoltek Elec­trolyz­er Cell Mate­r­i­al is per­formed in sev­er­al phas­es. The val­i­da­tion of the select­ed con­cept for the growth of nanofibers in the Pro­to­type Coater is an impor­tant first step in the indus­tri­al­iza­tion & com­mer­cial­iza­tion phase. **About AGC** AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions is a new busi­ness unit with­in AGC Glass Europe SA, a Euro­pean leader in flat glass. AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions is pro­vid­ing low-pres­sure plas­ma coat­ing tech­nol­o­gy and equip­ment. AGC Plas­ma is an expan­sive team of plas­ma coat­ing experts spe­cial­ized in inno­v­a­tive PVD and PECVD appli­ca­tions from R&D and new prod­uct devel­op­ment all the way through to equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ing and oper­a­tional man­age­ment of mass pro­duc­tion coat­ing plants. Vis­it the web­site www.agc-plasma.com to learn more about the equip­ment and ser­vices offered by AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solutions. *Peo­ple pic­tured in the top pho­to, from left: Amin Saleeem, Bastien Pen­ninckx, Shafik Kabir, Erwan-Axel Mor­ris­son (AGC), Fabi­an Wenger, Jeroen Schot­saert (AGC), Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Réka Simon-Balint.* --- title: "World-leading vehicle manufacturer is testing custom-made cell material" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/world-leading-vehicle-manufacturer-is-testing-custom-made-cell-material/7447/" date: 2024-05-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # World-leading vehicle manufacturer is testing custom-made cell material Smoltek Hydro­gen, a whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary of the Smoltek Group, has devel­oped a cell mate­r­i­al that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the amount of irid­i­um in an elec­trolyz­er cell, which has res­onat­ed around the world. Among oth­er things, one of the world’s largest vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ers has reached out to get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to test the cell mate­r­i­al.   In the col­lab­o­ra­tion that the two com­pa­nies have entered, the vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­er is very inter­est­ed in the unique con­struc­tion, and in this ini­tial project, Smoltek Hydro­gen has deliv­ered a spe­cial­ly man­u­fac­tured and cus­tomized cell mate­r­i­al for test­ing and evaluation. > We have man­u­fac­tured pro­to­types where car­bon nanofibers were first coat­ed with plat­inum, and then applied irid­i­um accord­ing to the cus­tomer’s requests. It has tak­en time to fig­ure out exact­ly how to con­fig­ure the pro­to­types, so that they can also be test­ed in their lab­o­ra­to­ry, but now they have just start­ed test­ing the pro­to­types to see if they meet their requirements. > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen > If the test turns out well, we think this cus­tomer wants to start a larg­er project because they have big plans to use their fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy to also devel­op elec­trolyz­ers, and there seems to be no oth­er solu­tion to the irid­i­um prob­lem than the tech­nol­o­gy we have developed. > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg continues The pro­to­types are based on Smoltek’s unique and patent-pro­tect­ed car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy, where the objec­tive is to reduce the irid­i­um load in the anode elec­trode in elec­trolyz­er cells by 95% (which cor­re­sponds to 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2), com­pared to today’s com­mer­cial mate­ri­als (which use 2.0 mg iridium/​cm2). Smoltek Hydro­gen has already proven in long-term tests that the com­pa­ny’s cell mate­r­i­al can pro­duce the same amount of hydro­gen at only 0.2 mg iridium/​cm2, which makes it hope­ful of reach­ing the final goal of 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2. > The project with this cus­tomer has its back­ground in the pre­sen­ta­tions of the tech­nol­o­gy that Smoltek Hydro­gen car­ried out dur­ing the Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Soci­ety meet­ing in Gothen­burg last fall, and next week we will present updat­ed results at the 245th ECS meet­ing, which will be held in San Francisco. > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg concludes **Fact box: Smoltek Hydro­gen’s cell mate­r­i­al** Smoltek Hydro­gen is devel­op­ing a ver­ti­cal nanofiber-based mate­r­i­al for the anode porous trans­port lay­er (PTL) in PEM elec­trolyz­er cells. The mate­r­i­al con­sists of a sin­tered porous tita­ni­um lay­er with nanofibers, a con­for­mal plat­inum cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion and irid­i­um cat­a­lyst (a thin nanopar­ti­cle lay­er of irid­i­um). The mate­r­i­al is one of the lay­ers in an elec­trolyz­er cell. When man­u­fac­tur­ing elec­trolyz­ers, a large num­ber of elec­trolyz­er cells are assem­bled into a cell stack, which is the main ele­ment in the elec­trolyz­er as it is where the elec­trol­y­sis takes place and hydro­gen is produced. --- title: "Helicopter view of today’s news" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/helicopter-view-of-todays-news/7426/" date: 2024-05-22 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/investors.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # Helicopter view of today’s news On a day like today, when Smoltek’s press releas­es are full of details expressed in num­bers and finan­cial jar­gon, it is hard to see the for­est for the trees. But there is a solu­tion! Let’s rise above the tree­tops to get a heli­copter view of it all. So hop into my chop­per, and let’s go up. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#tender-process)Tender process In [yesterday’s blog post](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/state-of-smoltek/7420/), Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek, explains that Smoltek is a deep tech incu­ba­tor or deep tech ven­ture studio. Let’s unpack that a bit. *Deep tech* is a term used to describe com­pa­nies that tack­le com­plex chal­lenges by push­ing the bound­aries of cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy through cut­ting-edge research and devel­op­ment. A key char­ac­ter­is­tic of deep-tech com­pa­nies is that they require sig­nif­i­cant cap­i­tal from per­sis­tent investors, as it takes long time  to turn advanced research into com­mer­cial­ly viable products. A *deep-tech incu­ba­tor* or *deep-tech ven­ture stu­dio* is a deep-tech com­pa­ny that uses the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty devel­oped through its R&D to build a port­fo­lio of com­pa­nies that will even­tu­al­ly be spun off. The deep-tech com­pa­ny pro­vides the ini­tial team, strate­gic direc­tion, and cap­i­tal to get each new ven­ture off the ground. Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen are such star­tups. They are part of the port­fo­lio of Smoltek Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Hold­ing AB. Even­tu­al­ly, every port­fo­lio busi­ness will be spun-off, par­tial­ly or in its entire­ty, and sold to an indus­tri­al part­ner or investor. That’s the goal of an incu­ba­tor or  a ven­ture studio. For Smoltek, this has an impor­tant twist. The spin-off com­pa­nies will typ­i­cal­ly pay roy­al­ties for the license to use our tech­nol­o­gy and pur­chase our ser­vices. Thus, Smoltek receives com­pen­sa­tion not only in the form of a pur­chase price, but also in the form of an ongo­ing rev­enue stream. The nego­ti­at­ed license and ser­vice agree­ment with YAGEO is an exam­ple of this. Now that YAGEO has sus­pend­ed the final­iza­tion of it, Smoltek wants to find a new part­ner for Smoltek Semi. Smoltek Hydro­gen is also approach­ing the point where it is rel­e­vant to sell all or part of their busi­ness to an indus­tri­al part­ner or financier. They have come a long way with their tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and will soon take the next step. Against this back­ground, Smoltek Nan­otech­nol­o­gy Hold­ing AB plans to ini­ti­ate a sys­tem­at­ic process to find buy­ers for all or parts of one or both of the com­pa­nies. This is expect­ed to take 6–12 months. This was the main mes­sage of the [press release on the bid­ding  process](https://mb.cision.com/Main/16786/3985940/2813930.pdf). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-smoltek-will-be-funded)How Smoltek will be funded As men­tioned in [yesterday’s blog post](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/state-of-smoltek/7420/), the plan was to use the rev­enue from the license and ser­vice agree­ment with YAGEO to fund Smoltek’s oper­a­tions and growth. Now that the agree­ment is on hold, Smoltek must find anoth­er way to fund the busi­ness while work con­tin­ues to find a new buy­er as described above. Against this back­ground, the Board of Direc­tors of Smoltek has decid­ed to issue up to 57,685,506 new shares of SEK 0.45 each. Exist­ing share­hold­ers will have pref­er­en­tial sub­scrip­tion rights. Smoltek’s four largest share­hold­ers, Board mem­bers and the CEO, among oth­ers, have com­mit­ted to sub­scribe for approx­i­mate­ly 20.4 per­cent of the shares. In addi­tion, [Jin­der­man & Part­ners AB](https://jinderman.se/), [UBB Con­sult­ing AB](https://www.ubbconsulting.se/), [JEQ Cap­i­tal AB](https://www.jeqcapital.se/), among oth­ers, guar­an­tee 30.6 per­cent of all shares. Both com­mit­ments are sub­ject to the con­di­tion that at least an addi­tion­al 29 per­cent of all issued shares are sub­scribed for. This means that at least 80 per­cent of the shares will be sub­scribed, rais­ing between SEK 20.8 mil­lion and SEK 26.0 mil­lion before the costs of the rights issue (approx­i­mate­ly SEK 1.5 million). The raised mon­ey will be used - to car­ry out pos­si­ble the sales of all or part of one or both of Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen, or only the con­cepts and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights owned by each subsidiary. - to con­tin­ue val­ue-adding tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment with­in Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydrogen - to pay for ongo­ing costs in addi­tion beyond tech­nol­o­gy development This was the main mes­sage of the [press release on the new issue of shares](https://mb.cision.com/Main/16786/3985922/2813931.pdf). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-direction)Future direction On June 4, Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek, will hold a webi­nar on the future direc­tion of Smoltek. There will be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask ques­tions. Do not miss it. [Sign up today!](https://www.smoltek.com/webinar-future-direction/7403/) --- title: "State of Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/state-of-smoltek/7420/" date: 2024-05-21 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/hakan-persson.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "businessdevelopment" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/businessdevelopment.md" --- # State of Smoltek Dear Share­hold­ers and Investors, As I walked through the streets of Gothen­burg on the evening of March 25, on my way home after a good and pro­duc­tive day at the office, I felt sat­is­fied with the direc­tion Smoltek was mov­ing: The license and ser­vice agree­ment with YAGEO had been final­ized, and all that remained was for the board of direc­tors of the YAGEO Group to make the for­mal deci­sion to sign the deal. The rev­enue from the deal would fund Smolteks con­tin­ued oper­a­tions and expan­sion. And the deal was a shin­ing exam­ple of where the strat­e­gy we’ve been fol­low­ing since 2019 can take us. The next morn­ing, every­thing was shat­tered by a notice from YAGEO.  Their board had decid­ed not to sign the agree­ment. Not for the time being, anyway. What had hap­pened? And what does the future hold for Smoltek? I have to admit that I had no answers to these ques­tions that morn­ing. Ques­tions I know you are still ask­ing today. But now I can answer them, and I will do so here. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#insight-into-the-smoltek-business-model)Insight into the Smoltek business model Since its incep­tion in 2005, Smoltek’s mis­sion has been to devel­op tech­niques and process­es for the indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion of car­bon nanos­truc­tures, such as car­bon nanofi­bres (CNF) and ver­ti­cal graphene (VG), and to devel­op com­mer­cial­ly viable appli­ca­tions of this technology. The busi­ness mod­el from the begin­ning was to gen­er­ate rev­enue from roy­al­ties on licens­es to use our tech­nol­o­gy and fees for pro­vid­ing our exper­tise. This proved to be a hard sell, how­ev­er, as poten­tial buy­ers were unwill­ing to take on the risks asso­ci­at­ed with devel­op­ing the tech­nol­o­gy to the point where it could be used in com­mer­cial products. So we even­tu­al­ly real­ized that we need­ed to get the appli­ca­tions much clos­er to indus­tri­al­iza­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion in order to sell licens­es and ser­vices. There­fore, in 2019 we decid­ed on a strat­e­gy to cre­ate busi­ness units for dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tions. The first was Smoltek Semi, found­ed that same year with the ini­tial mis­sion of sell­ing [CNF-MIM capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/) to the semi­con­duc­tor industry. But start­ing with tech­nol­o­gy and look­ing for a mar­ket is like putting the cart before the horse. Of course, it should be the oth­er way round. So, when the next busi­ness unit, Smoltek Inno­va­tion, was formed in 2020, they were tasked with find­ing a mar­ket with a seri­ous chal­lenge that our tech­nol­o­gy could solve. They iden­ti­fied the hydro­gen indus­try, where CNF can reduce the amount of the extreme­ly rare and pre­cious met­al irid­i­um required in [PEM elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/electrolyzers/) (and in fuel cells) by 95 per­cent. Soon they changed their name to Smoltek Hydrogen. But tak­ing an appli­ca­tion, such as Smoltek Semi’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors or Smoltek Hydrogen’s cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers all the way to com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and sell­ing the result direct­ly to end cus­tomers is way out of our com­fort zone. We there­fore real­ized that we need­ed part­ners to help us co-cre­ate com­mer­cial­ly viable products. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#looking-ahead)Looking ahead Smolteks plan for the future is to con­tin­ue with the over­all strat­e­gy, set out in 2019, of iden­ti­fy­ing prod­uct-mar­ket fit of our patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy, task­ing a busi­ness unit to pur­sue the mar­ket togeth­er with a co-cre­at­ing part­ner. Even­tu­al­ly, the busi­ness unit will be spun-off, par­tial­ly or in its entire­ty, or anoth­er solu­tion will be found, such as a joint ven­ture or licensing. Thus, Smoltek can be described as a deep tech com­pa­ny that builds a port­fo­lio of appli­ca­tion busi­ness­es that even­tu­al­ly are spun off. In essence, Smoltek is a deep tech incu­ba­tor or ven­ture studio. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-the-suspended-agreement-affect-smoltek)How the suspended agreement affect Smoltek With all the press releas­es about tech­nol­o­gy break­throughs, new oppor­tu­ni­ties, and finan­cial state­ments, it can be easy to miss how the details fit into the big pic­ture. With a myopic view of the lost deal with YAGEO, it can be dif­fi­cult to under­stand how the whole is affect­ed. But con­sid­er­ing that Smoltek is a deep tech incu­ba­tor, that works with co-cre­ation part­ners to devel­op port­fo­lio com­pa­nies, such as Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen, to a point where they can be spun off and sold or launched as stand­alone com­pa­nies, the impli­ca­tions are not as dam­ag­ing as one might think. First and fore­most, Smoltek’s core busi­ness is not affect­ed by YAGEO’s deci­sion to with­draw from the license and ser­vice agree­ment. Nor is the oth­er port­fo­lio com­pa­ny (Smoltek Hydro­gen), which is in con­tact with poten­tial part­ners of its own. Sec­ond, Smoltek Semi is not as affect­ed as one might think. YAGEO is still a co-cre­ation part­ner. For exam­ple, as Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek, said in [the April 25 video inter­view](https://youtu.be/ZizXxClKDgg?t=1260), they will be eval­u­at­ing Smoltek Semi’s Gen-One batch of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, which are expect­ed to be deliv­ered by the end of 2024. Third and last, since YAGEO has pressed the pause but­ton on the com­mer­cial col­lab­o­ra­tion, they no longer have exclu­siv­i­ty. So we are free to talk to oth­er poten­tial suit­ors of Smoltek Semi. We are see­ing a lot of inter­est in our tech­nol­o­gy. CNF-MIM may be the only viable alter­na­tive to today’s sil­i­con capac­i­tors, in par­tic­u­lar the *deep trench sil­i­con capac­i­tors* used in lead­ing mobile phones, which are approach­ing their per­for­mance lim­its and are dom­i­nat­ed by a few suppliers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#yageos-reason)YAGEO’s reason Let’s go back to the morn­ing of March 26, 2024. We received the unex­pect­ed and unwel­come notice from YAGEO that they were sus­pend­ing the license and ser­vice agree­ment that both sides had spent so much time and resources negotiating. What had hap­pened? Was there some­thing in the con­tract they dis­liked? Was there some­thing about our tech­nol­o­gy they did­n’t like? To our relief, it was nei­ther. The rea­sons for the sus­pend­ed agree­ment are entire­ly inter­nal to YAGEO. It has noth­ing to do with us or our technology. That’s a relief. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-elephant-in-the-room)The elephant in the room Final­ly, I would like to address the ele­phant in the room: How will Smoltek finance its con­tin­ued oper­a­tions and growth now that the rev­enues from the license and ser­vice agree­ment will not be gen­er­at­ed as planned? Rest assured that the Board, the man­age­ment team and I are work­ing hard on this. We will tell you more as soon as we can. Yours sin­cere­ly, Håkan Pers­son, CEO --- title: "A new generation of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/a-new-generation-of-smolteks-cnf-mim-capacitor-technology/7299/" date: 2024-04-25 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/farzan-interview-2024-04.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "volumetric capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/volumetric-capacitance-density.md" --- # A new generation of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capacitor technology --- title: "Gen-Zero – a new generation of Smoltek’s carbon nanofiber capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/gen-zero-a-new-generation-of-smolteks-carbon-nanofiber-capacitors/7303/" date: 2024-04-23 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FG-intervju-2022-07-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "volumetric capacitance density" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/volumetric-capacitance-density.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Gen-Zero – a new generation of Smoltek’s carbon nanofiber capacitors Dur­ing 2023 group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi has worked on devel­op­ing a new tech­nol­o­gy gen­er­a­tion of the com­pa­ny’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors with high vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty. Gen-Zero, as it is called, has recent­ly been com­plet­ed as part of the col­lab­o­ra­tion with YAGEO, with Smoltek Semi own­ing all rights to the result. > Although we have cur­rent­ly con­clud­ed dis­cus­sions regard­ing a license and ser­vice agree­ment for the capac­i­tors, YAGEO still has a great inter­est in our tech­nol­o­gy and will help us eval­u­ate the results of upcom­ing Gen-One capacitors.  > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. > Smoltek has devel­oped a new tech­nol­o­gy gen­er­a­tion of the com­pa­ny’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors that enables a pow­er­ful increase in the capac­i­tance den­si­ty in capacitors. > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO **High capac­i­tance in a small area – and the impor­tance of vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty** Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber-based capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, CNF-MIM, cre­ates high capac­i­tance val­ues by grow­ing extreme­ly thin and tall car­bon nanofibers on top of a sil­i­con sub­strate. With this tech­nol­o­gy, a very high capac­i­tance is cre­at­ed in a very small area. This is fun­da­men­tal and demand­ed from the capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers and their cus­tomers worldwide. > Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy dif­fers from com­peti­tors’, which etch deep trench­es, or holes, in the sil­i­con sub­strate. To fair­ly eval­u­ate the two tech­nolo­gies, one must look at the vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty. This means that you must com­pare how much capac­i­tance you can get in a giv­en vol­ume in a CNF-MIM capac­i­tor com­pared to that of the competitors. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni With the new Gen-Zero capac­i­tors, Smoltek can cre­ate a vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty of up to 120 nano­farads per square mil­lime­ter and per 1 microm­e­ter of car­bon nanofiber. This is com­pa­ra­ble to the best capac­i­tors on the mar­ket. The capac­i­tance val­ues in the Gen-Zero capac­i­tors are, how­ev­er, low­er than the com­peti­tors. This is due to the fact that Smoltek Semi has not yet opti­mized the length of the fibers. The car­bon nanofibers in Gen-Zero are only a few of microm­e­ters tall. In the next gen­er­a­tion, Gen-One, the ambi­tion is to grow longer car­bon nanofibers, up to 10 microm­e­ters tall, which is expect­ed to bring the capac­i­tance val­ues on par with the competitors. > Although we can pro­vide a very high vol­u­met­ric capac­i­tance den­si­ty, there is still work to be done to reach our full poten­tial. The ongo­ing Gen-One project will already dur­ing this year prove the strength and poten­tial of our tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate a world-lead­ing capac­i­tor prod­uct. And, as I said, YAGEO’s tech­ni­cal inter­est in our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy remains, and we will work very close­ly togeth­er in eval­u­at­ing the upcom­ing Gen-One capacitors. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen has successfully completed a long-term electrolyzer cell test" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-has-successfully-completed-a-long-term-electrolyzer-cell-test/7065/" date: 2024-04-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen has successfully completed a long-term electrolyzer cell test Smoltek Hydro­gen has com­plet­ed a suc­cess­ful long-term test of our new­ly devel­oped mate­r­i­al for PEM elec­trolyz­er cells. Dur­ing 1000 hours of con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion, at 2 A/​cm2, we have pro­duced hydro­gen with only 0.2 mg iridium/​cm2 with­out any degra­da­tion of the nanos­truc­ture in the cell hav­ing occurred. The mate­r­i­al, which con­sists of a cor­ro­sion-pro­tect­ed car­bon nanos­truc­ture, forms one of the lay­ers in an elec­trolyz­er cell and the tech­nol­o­gy aims to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the amount of irid­i­um used as cat­a­lysts to pro­duce hydrogen. > We have now proven that our tech­nol­o­gy with car­bon nanofibers, coat­ed with plat­inum, cre­ates a sta­ble struc­ture in an anode elec­trode in a PEM elec­trolyz­er. Our com­pet­i­tive analy­sis shows that we are the only one with a work­ing solu­tion for the anode side elec­trode, which is both durable and cre­ates a large sur­face area for the irid­i­um cat­a­lysts. This rep­re­sents an impor­tant mile­stone for the com­pa­ny and for our dia­logues with col­lab­o­ra­tion partners.  > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen > Full-cell per­for­mance mea­sure­ments show that we have per­for­mance com­pa­ra­ble to con­ven­tion­al solu­tions, with only one-tenth as much irid­i­um! Dur­ing the first 10 hours of the test, the volt­age ris­es from 2.1 to 2.5 volts, then increas­es only mar­gin­al­ly. This is not abnor­mal for a process like this in a lab envi­ron­ment and it is some­thing we will opti­mize in the next step in col­lab­o­ra­tion with cus­tomers, for exam­ple by using dif­fer­ent types of irid­i­um and per­haps also ruthenium.  > > Fabi­an Wenger, head of devel­op­ment at Smoltek Hydrogen > The thing that has been most ques­tioned dur­ing the devel­op­ment of this tech­nol­o­gy is how we could cre­ate such a con­for­mal lay­er of plat­inum that it can pro­tect the car­bon nanofibers against cor­ro­sion. Now, after 1,000 hours of con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion at 60°C, the fiber struc­ture is intact and we proud­ly state that we have solved the most impor­tant ques­tion from both part­ners and com­peti­tors: how to cre­ate a sta­ble nanos­truc­ture for an extreme­ly thin irid­i­um layer.  > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen ![Smoltek Hydrogen 1000h Nanostructure 2024 04 10](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/smoltek-hydrogen-1000h-nanostructure-2024-04-10.webp) Smoltek Hydro­gen’s anode elec­trode with intact nanos­truc­ture after 1,000 hours of con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion at 2 A/​cm2 in an extreme­ly cor­ro­sive environment. **Great progress in a short peri­od of time** In a short time, Smoltek Hydro­gen has made great progress towards sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing the amount of irid­i­um in the anode side elec­trode in elec­trolyz­er cells by using nanofibers as the struc­ture for the catal­y­sis in the cell stack. In the spring of 2023, the com­pa­ny demon­strat­ed that the new­ly devel­oped mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy with cor­ro­sion-pro­tect­ed nanofibers could reduce the amount of irid­i­um by 80 per­cent com­pared to a con­ven­tion­al mate­r­i­al (0.5 mg iridium/​cm2 com­pared to 2.5 mg iridium/​cm2). This in an ini­tial long-term test with an ear­ly pro­to­type of the cell mate­r­i­al.   “Through the estab­lish­ment of our own devel­op­ment and test lab­o­ra­to­ry, H2LAB, includ­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions with world-lead­ing researchers and part­ners, we have been able to accel­er­ate R&D, which has increased the per­for­mance of our cell mate­r­i­al for PEM elec­trol­y­sers”, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg explains.   Smoltek Hydro­gen aims to reduce the amount of irid­i­um in the elec­trolyz­er cell towards 0.1 mg/​cm2. It is an ambi­tion that aligns with the hydro­gen indus­try’s goal to be able to scale up the pro­duc­tion of elec­trol­y­sers for large-scale pro­duc­tion of fos­sil-free hydro­gen. Irid­i­um is a very expen­sive and crit­i­cal pre­cious met­al with lim­it­ed sup­ply. Today it costs about SEK 1.7 million/​kg and is fore­cast to cost about SEK 8 million/​kg in 2030. --- title: "Smoltek’s CEO comments on the intended agreement that Yageo backed out of" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-ceo-comments-on-the-intended-agreement-that-yageo-backed-out-of/7071/" date: 2024-03-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/hp-2022-2-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Smoltek’s CEO comments on the intended agreement that Yageo backed out of On March 26, 2024, Smoltek had to announce that Yageo, at this time, does not intend to sign the license and ser­vice agree­ment with Smoltek. Link to the offi­cial press release, [from Decem­ber](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-intention-to-sign-a-global-exclusive-license-and-services-agreement-for-discrete-a,c3889506). Link to the offi­cial press release, [from yes­ter­day](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-announces-that-yageo-group-has-chosen-not-to-continue-discussions-regarding-license-and-serv,c3952643). > Yageo’s deci­sion not to go ahead and sign the license and ser­vice agree­ment that both par­ties intend­ed to enter into is extreme­ly unfor­tu­nate from our per­spec­tive, con­sid­er­ing all the ener­gy and the resources we have invest­ed in this collaboration.  > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek Håkan Pers­son, con­tin­ues: “After this dis­ap­point­ing news, I have had intense dis­cus­sions with both the board and oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties. We will now grad­u­al­ly cre­ate a plan for how to pro­ceed. The poten­tial of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for capac­i­tors is intact, and it con­tin­ues to be of great inter­est to Yageo as well as to oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties. Now, unfor­tu­nate­ly, Yageo has decid­ed to leave the col­lab­o­ra­tion with us, at least for the time being. And this means that we have to look at what oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties we have.” **Back­ground infor­ma­tion on the col­lab­o­ra­tion** > We start­ed this process togeth­er with Yageo right after the sum­mer of 2023. And we have col­lab­o­rat­ed inten­sive­ly dur­ing the autumn, which was then fur­ther inten­si­fied dur­ing the first months of this year with many activ­i­ties from both par­ties. But unfor­tu­nate­ly, based on their cir­cum­stances and pri­or­i­ties, Yageo has cho­sen not to pro­ceed with this con­tract nego­ti­a­tion at this time. > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek And he con­tin­ues: “It is impor­tant to high­light that we have gained valu­able expe­ri­ences from this col­lab­o­ra­tion. They con­sist of both tech­ni­cal achieve­ments, regard­ing prod­uct devel­op­ment as well as indus­tri­al vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing, and an excel­lent plan for com­mer­cial­iz­ing the tech­nol­o­gy. We can con­tin­ue to build on this, regard­less of Yageo, with intact poten­tial when it comes to being able to deliv­er a unique capac­i­tor prod­uct to the mar­ket. We have thus gained a lot from this col­lab­o­ra­tion in terms of build­ing knowhow and rel­e­vant skillsets, as well as what we need to do to car­ry out a com­mer­cial­iza­tion. And we are still aim­ing to do this.” “We had a part­ner in Yageo, who up until very recent­ly said they were will­ing to help us finance the remain­ing devel­op­ment by pay­ing for our devel­op­ment work. Now we have to find anoth­er way to do this. Their sur­pris­ing deci­sion was new infor­ma­tion for us, and I have spent most of this day try­ing to get a grip on the sit­u­a­tion and start look­ing at how we can resolve this for the future.” --- title: "Smoltek has been granted two new patents – strengthening the Discrete CNF-MIM patent family" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-granted-two-new-patents-strengthening-the-discrete-cnf-mim-patent-family/7014/" date: 2024-03-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has been granted two new patents – strengthening the Discrete CNF-MIM patent family The two new­ly approved patents are the sec­ond and third in the Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly. This par­tic­u­lar inno­va­tion makes full use of and derive the ben­e­fit from the extra-ordi­nary sur­face to vol­ume ratio pro­vid­ed by car­bon nanofibers to cre­ate a MIM capac­i­tor with unpar­al­leled high capac­i­tance density. > The Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly cov­ers the field of dis­crete capac­i­tors – a field that we have been heav­i­ly invest­ing in terms of R&D and inno­va­tion resources. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The patent dis­clos­es a dis­crete met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor com­po­nent based on the pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped at Smoltek. It also describes the struc­ture of such capac­i­tor and the relat­ed micro­fab­ri­ca­tion process­es to real­ize it. > This patent grant fur­ther strength­ens our IP port­fo­lio in a field that the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is heav­i­ly invest­ing in, name­ly advanced capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. Our invest­ment in this is dri­ven by the demands of new­er inte­grat­ed cir­cuits tar­get­ing advanced appli­ca­tion areas such as AI. It is reward­ing to wit­ness that our R&D efforts as reflect­ed in our expand­ing IP port­fo­lio aligns well with the needs of the indus­try and that our dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy can solve prob­lems that tra­di­tion­al tech­nolo­gies cannot. > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni The Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly dis­clos­es a high-den­si­ty dis­crete capac­i­tor based on Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy paving the way for ultra-thin capac­i­tors that can be placed adja­cent to the com­po­nents they are sup­posed to sup­port. The patent fam­i­ly enables the sys­tem design­ers to bring for­ward inte­gra­tion and pack­ag­ing schemes with supe­ri­or per­for­mance with very small foot­print. These new schemes are vital in devel­op­ing new prod­ucts in the field of IoT, wear­ables, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC), Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), and similar. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 89 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "What you don’t know about patents" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/what-you-dont-know-about-patents/7005/" date: 2024-03-19 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-6.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "patent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patent.md" --- # What you don’t know about patents If you’ve been fol­low­ing the Smoltek news feed, you’ll know that we are apply­ing for patents in spades. This is nat­ur­al; the patents give us time to mon­e­tize the cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy we have devel­oped with your investment. We have patent­ed 17 inven­tions and have pend­ing appli­ca­tions for anoth­er four. The inven­tions are patent­ed in the EU, the US, and many oth­er coun­tries. At the time of writ­ing, we have 89 approved patents and more than 20 pend­ing patent applications. Every patent appli­ca­tion requires a lot of work, both before the appli­ca­tion is filed and when the patent is pend­ing, as well as after­ward. Let’s take a clos­er look at what is required to apply for a patent and how it works. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#requirements)Requirements To patent an inven­tion, it gen­er­al­ly needs to meet the fol­low­ing for­mal requirements: - **Nov­el­ty:** The inven­tion must not have been pre­vi­ous­ly known. An inven­tion can­not be patent­ed if it has been made known pri­or to the appli­ca­tion, for exam­ple, by the inven­tors themselves. - **Inven­tive step:** The inven­tion must be sub­stan­tial­ly dif­fer­ent from any­thing pre­vi­ous­ly known and must not be obvi­ous to any­one with knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence in the field. - **Indus­tri­al applic­a­bil­i­ty:** The inven­tion must be capa­ble of being man­u­fac­tured or per­formed in some sort of indus­tri­al way. Indus­tri­al­iza­tion in this con­text has a much broad­er mean­ing than usu­al and also includes activ­i­ties such as trans­porta­tion, agri­cul­ture, hunt­ing, pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion, and health care. - **Sub­ject mat­ter eli­gi­bil­i­ty:** The inven­tion must be patentable. The last require­ment needs some fur­ther explanation. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#whats-patentable)What’s patentable? You can­not patent an idea, a sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery or the­o­ry, a math­e­mat­i­cal method, a pro­gram for com­put­ers, an artis­tic cre­ation, a pre­sen­ta­tion of infor­ma­tion, or schemes, rules, and meth­ods for per­form­ing men­tal acts, play­ing games, or doing business. An inven­tion must be tech­ni­cal in nature to be patentable. This means that the claims must fall into one or more of the fol­low­ing categories: - **Process:** These claims refer to steps in a process or method. - **Appa­ra­tus:** These claims refer to the struc­tur­al or func­tion­al aspects of an appa­ra­tus or device. - **Man­u­fac­ture:** These claims are con­cerned with how an item is made and what it is made of. - **Com­po­si­tion of Mat­ter:** These claims cov­er chem­i­cal com­po­si­tions and compounds. ![Patent 1](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-1-900x514.webp) First attempt to AI-gen­er­ate a car­i­ca­ture draw­ing illus­trat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of obtain­ing a patent. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#patent-application)Patent application To apply for a patent, an appli­ca­tion must be filed with a nation­al patent office. An appli­ca­tion must meet sev­er­al for­mal require­ments. In par­tic­u­lar, it must con­sist of the fol­low­ing elements: - **Abstract:** A sum­ma­ry of the tech­ni­cal con­tent so that inter­est­ed par­ties can eas­i­ly under­stand the inven­tion’s purpose. - **Descrip­tion:** Instruc­tions suf­fi­cient­ly detailed to enable a per­son knowl­edge­able in the field to apply the invention. - **Claims:** A set of legal claims about what the patent will pro­tect. Each claim should belong to one or more of the cat­e­gories described above. - **Draw­ings:** Any draw­ings and fig­ures nec­es­sary to explain the inven­tion and the claims. The claims are the most crit­i­cal part of the appli­ca­tion. They should be as broad and gen­er­al as pos­si­ble to pro­vide good pro­tec­tion while being clear, con­cise, and sup­port­ed by the descrip­tion. They serve as the basis for deter­min­ing whether an inven­tion infringes the patent and are crit­i­cal­ly ana­lyzed dur­ing the patent exam­i­na­tion process. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#patent-pending)Patent pending Once the appli­ca­tion is filed, the legal terms “patent pend­ing” and “patent applied for” can be used to dis­cour­age oth­ers from copy­ing the invention. The mark­ing informs oth­ers that an appli­ca­tion has been filed, and they may be liable for infringe­ment once the patent has been grant­ed. How­ev­er, there is no enforce­able right until the patent is actu­al­ly issued.  ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-long-journey-of-the-patent-application)The long journey of the patent application It takes years from the moment the appli­ca­tion is sub­mit­ted until it is grant­ed (or reject­ed). It’s not a quick process because it is thor­ough. It has to be. The result is a restric­tion on the rights of oth­ers, and thus, the gov­ern­ment wants to be on the safe side that it is justified. When the patent office receives an appli­ca­tion, a for­mal exam­i­na­tion begins. An offi­cer checks that the appli­ca­tion meets all for­mal requirements. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#investigation-far-and-wide)Investigation far and wide Once the for­mal exam­i­na­tion is com­plete, the tech­ni­cal exam­i­na­tion begins. A patent exam­in­er reviews the appli­ca­tion, check­ing that every­thing need­ed to grant a patent is in place. They also search glob­al data­bas­es to ensure that no sim­i­lar inven­tions are pub­lished. If the patent exam­in­er finds obsta­cles to grant­i­ng the appli­ca­tion, the appli­cant receives a tech­ni­cal notice. The appli­cant can respond if they dis­agree with the patent examiner. The appli­ca­tion becomes pub­lic when the patent is grant­ed or after 18 months from the fil­ing date if it has not been with­drawn before then. At that point, the recipe for the secret sauce becomes pub­lic. So, if one is not absolute­ly sure about being grant­ed the patent, it may be appro­pri­ate to with­draw the appli­ca­tion to keep the inven­tion secret. ![Patent 2](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-2-900x514.webp) Sec­ond attempt to AI-gen­er­ate a car­i­ca­ture draw­ing illus­trat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of obtain­ing a patent. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#communication-ping-pong)Communication ping-pong If the patent office con­cludes that your appli­ca­tion’s require­ments are patentable and that there are good chances to issue a patent, the appli­cant receives a final notice. Then, the appli­cant can make minor changes, such as cor­rect­ing spelling errors. Now comes a noti­fi­ca­tion that the patent office will “issue the patent.” This is the very last chance to with­draw the application. Final­ly, the patent office announces that the patent has been granted. Now every­thing is peace and joy. Or is it? Of course, it’s not. All com­peti­tors and oth­er trou­ble­some char­ac­ters have nine months to object to the patent. Nat­u­ral­ly, the patent hold­er can con­test the objec­tion. If the patent office accepts the objec­tion, the patent can either be revoked or amended. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-are-the-alternatives)What are the alternatives? Apply­ing for a patent requires a lot of work, takes quite some time, and costs a fair amount of mon­ey. Are there no more straight­for­ward and cheap­er alternatives? Sure, there are. For starters, you can just shut up. Keep your inven­tion to your­self. Don’t reveal your secret sauce. As a result, your inven­tion enjoys a cer­tain legal pro­tec­tion as it is con­sid­ered a trade secret. If some­one leaks the trade secret, they may be guilty of a breach of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty or cor­po­rate espionage. One advan­tage over patents is that your secret remains secret, and anoth­er is that no one can freely copy it after twen­ty years. On the oth­er hand, there is noth­ing to stop a com­peti­tor from reverse engi­neer­ing your prod­ucts to find out your secret and then using it themselves. Anoth­er solu­tion is defen­sive publishing. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#defensive-publishing)Defensive publishing One dis­ad­van­tage of keep­ing your inven­tion secret is that some­one else may come up with some­thing sim­i­lar and apply for a patent. Sud­den­ly, you are infring­ing their patent – even if you have made your inven­tion entire­ly on your own and per­haps even long before them. To pre­vent that from hap­pen­ing, you can pub­lish a detailed descrip­tion of your inven­tion. This makes it impos­si­ble for oth­ers to apply for a patent on the inven­tion, as it is already known. This is called defen­sive pub­lish­ing because it is a pub­li­ca­tion that defends you against the very pos­si­bil­i­ty of some­one else patent­ing the idea in the future. An obvi­ous dis­ad­van­tage is that your secret does not remain secret. Any­one is free to use your inven­tion. More­over, you have made it impos­si­ble for your­self to apply for a patent in the future, as it is already known. ![Patent 3](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-3-900x514.webp) Third attempt to AI-gen­er­ate a car­i­ca­ture draw­ing illus­trat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of obtain­ing a patent. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#world-patent)World patent Giv­en the options, patents are not so bad after all. So, you decide to go through all the hoops to get a patent grant­ed. Con­grat­u­la­tions! Your inven­tion is now protected. There is only one catch. The patent is only valid in coun­tries where you have been grant­ed it. In the rest of the world, any­one can copy your inven­tion, which is now pub­lished and pub­licly avail­able. Darn! Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is no world patent or even a Euro­pean patent. Sure, many peo­ple talk about them as if they exist, but they do not. What exists is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of apply­ing in sev­er­al coun­tries at the same time. But in the end, each coun­try’s patent office has to approve the patent, and you have to pay fees for all of them. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-urgency-of-international-patents)The urgency of international patents You need to know if you want to apply for a patent out­side your own coun­try almost from the start, as inter­na­tion­al patent appli­ca­tions must be filed with­in 18 months. Guess why! You are absolute­ly right. After 18 months, your nation­al appli­ca­tion is pub­lished, mak­ing your inven­tion unpatentable. Remem­ber the nov­el­ty require­ment? There­fore, all inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tions must be sub­mit­ted before that date. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#closing-the-loopholes)Closing the loopholes In the peri­od between the first appli­ca­tion and the receipt of the inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tions, some­one else may come up with the same inven­tion and apply for a patent in their coun­try. If this hap­pens before your appli­ca­tion is pub­lished, i.e. with­in the first 18 months, the nov­el­ty require­ment is met. As a result, your appli­ca­tion will be refused. To close this loop­hole, the appli­ca­tion must be filed even ear­li­er, with­in 12 months of the nation­al appli­ca­tion. Then, the date of the first appli­ca­tion also counts as the date of the sub­se­quent ones under the Paris Con­ven­tion of 1883. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#last-deadline)Last deadline A final dead­line to keep an eye on is 30 months after the first appli­ca­tion. This is the time­frame with­in which inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tions must be completed. So the process is that you first apply for a nation­al patent, then start the inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tion with­in 12 months, and com­plete the inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tion with­in 30 months. In between, you will hope­ful­ly have been informed whether the nation­al patent has been approved, which indi­cates that the inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tions will prob­a­bly be approved as well. But, again, each nation’s patent office makes its own deci­sions, so noth­ing is cer­tain until it is certain. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#need-of-patent-agency)Need of patent agency As you can imag­ine, apply­ing for a patent is not easy. There is a lot to keep track of. Get it wrong, and you’re screwed. That’s why we hire a patent agency to help us with this, even though we do a lot of the work ourselves. ![Patent 4](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-4-900x514.webp) Fourth attempt to AI-gen­er­ate a car­i­ca­ture draw­ing illus­trat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of obtain­ing a patent. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#patent-families)Patent families Every patent­ed inven­tion has a first patent, the one that was first applied for, and then sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al patents, all relat­ing to pre­cise­ly the same inven­tion. These are col­lec­tive­ly known as a *patent fam­i­ly*. Cur­rent­ly, Smoltek has 89 grant­ed patents across [17 patent fam­i­lies](https://www.smoltek.com/patents/). We have anoth­er 4 patent fam­i­lies in the mak­ing and about 20 pend­ing patents. New patent fam­i­lies are added reg­u­lar­ly, and with them come many patents over sev­er­al years. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#not-what-you-think)Not what you think I’m glad to see that you’ve stuck around until now. I guess it’s because my cliffhang­er at the begin­ning is work­ing. You are dying to know why it is not true that a patent gives the hold­er the right to make, use, and sell an invention.  If you con­sid­er the fol­low­ing two exam­ples, you will see that it is pret­ty logical: - Being grant­ed a patent for a new type of med­i­cine does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly give you the right to man­u­fac­ture, use, or sell the med­i­cine. Even if the med­i­cine rep­re­sents an inno­v­a­tive treat­ment, it must first under­go exten­sive clin­i­cal tri­als and be approved by drug reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties before it can be made avail­able to the pub­lic. This step is cru­cial to ensure that the med­i­cine is safe and effec­tive for its intend­ed use. - Being grant­ed a patent for an inno­v­a­tive improve­ment to the design of an appa­ra­tus already patent­ed by some­one else does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly give you the right to make, use, and sell the improved appa­ra­tus. While your improve­ment may be sig­nif­i­cant, you still need per­mis­sion from the hold­er of the orig­i­nal patent to exer­cise the rights of the under­ly­ing appa­ra­tus, as the orig­i­nal design is still pro­tect­ed under their patent. Now you under­stand why a patent does not con­fer the right to make, use, and sell an inven­tion, right? ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#patent-rights)Patent rights So, what is a patent? It is essen­tial­ly a right to *restrict oth­ers* from mak­ing, using, and sell­ing an invention. It does­n’t just sound crazy, it is crazy. Or…? If you pon­der the fol­low­ing two exam­ples, it may not seem as far-fetched as it first appears. - After long and cost­ly research, you have devel­oped a rev­o­lu­tion­ary med­i­cine, but you don’t have the mon­ey or skills to build your own pill fac­to­ry. If you want a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny to pro­duce your med­i­cine, you have to share the for­mu­la. With­out the right to restrict oth­ers from mak­ing, using, and sell­ing it, there is noth­ing to stop them from prof­it­ing from your hard work with­out com­pen­sa­tion. With a patent, you can approach sev­er­al of them with­out the risk of rip-off. - You’ve fig­ured out a real­ly inno­v­a­tive improve­ment to some­one else’s  device. Since you are an hon­est guy who does­n’t steal oth­er peo­ple’s ideas, you pro­pose the improve­ment with the hope of being com­pen­sat­ed. With­out the right to restrict oth­ers from mak­ing, using, and sell­ing your improve­ment, you risk get­ting only a thank-you as a reward. With a patent, you have a much stronger nego­ti­a­tion position. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#negative-right-is-positive)Negative right is positive The right of a patent hold­er to deny oth­ers the use of an inven­tion is called a *neg­a­tive right* in patent law. The neg­a­tive right sounds neg­a­tive, but it is actu­al­ly some­thing pos­i­tive; it gives the patent hold­er an exclu­sive right to decide who can do what with the invention. For exam­ple, the patent own­er can decide that nobody is allowed to do any­thing with the inven­tion, and thus be the sole user of it. Or the paten­tee can give select­ed com­pa­nies the right to use the invention. The lat­ter is called *licens­ing*. The patent hold­er grants a par­ty a license to use the patent under cer­tain con­di­tions. The most com­mon con­di­tion is that the oth­er par­ty pays a roy­al­ty – a fee for each item sold that is made using the patent. How­ev­er, con­di­tions that lim­it the licensed right to a par­tic­u­lar appli­ca­tion or geo­graph­ic area are also common. We will explore what this means for deep-tech com­pa­nies like Smoltek in a future arti­cle. Don’t miss it! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#intermezzo)Intermezzo Now you under­stand why a patent is not a right to pro­duce, use, or sell your inven­tion but a right to deny oth­ers that right. You can use this right to grant oth­ers per­mis­sion to pro­duce, use, or sell your inven­tion on the terms you dictate. So who gives this right? The gov­ern­ment does, through its patent office. But why does the gov­ern­ment, which is sup­posed to treat every­one in its ter­ri­to­ry equal­ly, want to give some­one an exclu­sive right to deny oth­ers the use of an invention? ![Patent 5](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-5-900x514.webp) Fifth attempt to AI-gen­er­ate a car­i­ca­ture draw­ing illus­trat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of obtain­ing a patent. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#social-contract)Social contract In exchange for dis­clos­ing the secret sauce, the patent hold­er is giv­en the exclu­sive right to deter­mine, for a lim­it­ed time, usu­al­ly twen­ty years, who can use the inven­tion and under what conditions. The patent own­er ben­e­fits from - Com­peti­tors can only use the solu­tion under a license, allow­ing the paten­tee to recoup its invest­ment either by licens­ing or by being the sole provider of the solution; - with­out a license, com­peti­tors can­not copy the solu­tion, allow­ing them to recoup their investment; - com­peti­tors are forced to devel­op their own inven­tions rather than pla­gia­rize, giv­ing them an advan­tage in the mar­ket­place; and - they can talk open­ly about their inven­tion with­out risk­ing los­ing the ben­e­fits, mak­ing it eas­i­er to nego­ti­ate with investors, part­ners, and buyers. Soci­ety and human­i­ty at large will ben­e­fit from - that the details of new tech­nolo­gies become pub­licly avail­able, allow­ing knowl­edge to spread and soci­ety to develop; - oth­ers can find prob­lems and solu­tions, which improves the inven­tion and devel­ops the tech­nol­o­gy faster - any­one can exploit the tech­nol­o­gy after the patent expires, and - the inven­tion is not lost to humanity. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#historical-retrospect)Historical retrospect The idea of giv­ing the inven­tor a time-lim­it­ed exclu­siv­i­ty goes back a long way. As ear­ly as 500 BCE, the Greek city of Sybaris, in what is now Italy, is said to have giv­en inven­tors the right to make mon­ey from “any new refine­ment in lux­u­ry” for a whole year. Almost two thou­sand years lat­er and a bit fur­ther north on the Apen­nine Penin­su­la, this idea had evolved into some­thing akin to today’s patents: In 1474, the Sen­ate of Venice decid­ed that the inven­tor was grant­ed ten years of legal pro­tec­tion against poten­tial infringers in exchange for com­mu­ni­cat­ing new and inven­tive devices to the Repub­lic. This is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered the birth of patents and patent law as known today. In the more than five hun­dred years since then, the patent sys­tem has devel­oped in small steps in many parts of the world. Some milestones: - **1474:** The Venet­ian Patent Statute intro­duced the world’s first patent sys­tem, pro­tect­ing new inventions. - **1555:** France intro­duces the pub­li­ca­tion of patent descrip­tions, increas­ing transparency. - **1624:** Eng­land for­mal­izes patents as rights for inventors. - **1790:** The Unit­ed States passed its first patent law intro­duc­ing a stan­dard­ized patent process. - **1791:** France cre­ates a mod­ern patent system. - **1883:** *Paris Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of Indus­tri­al Prop­er­ty* stan­dard­ized inter­na­tion­al patent laws. - **1970:** *Patent Coop­er­a­tion Treaty (PCT)* sim­pli­fied glob­al patent filings. - **1977:** The *Euro­pean Patent Con­ven­tion (EPC)* uni­fied patent pro­tec­tions across Europe. - **1994:** *Agree­ment on Trade-Relat­ed Aspects of Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Rights (TRIPS)* inte­grat­ed patents into inter­na­tion­al trade. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#lets-sum-up)Let’s sum up What have we learned? Patents give the hold­er the right to restrict oth­ers from mak­ing, using, and sell­ing inven­tions. The gov­ern­ment grants this right for a lim­it­ed peri­od, usu­al­ly twen­ty years, in exchange for mak­ing the inven­tion gen­er­al­ly known for the ben­e­fit of human­i­ty. And that this idea is at least more than 500 years old (if not 2500 years). You could say that in the long run, patents turn inven­tions into open source. Even the name reflects that. The word patent comes from the Latin *patere*, which means “to be open” (for pub­lic inspec­tion – just like open source). Amaz­ing! Isn’t it? In an upcom­ing arti­cle, we will look deep­er into patents—or rather, their impor­tance for you as an investor and share­hold­er in a deep tech company. ![Patent 6](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-6-900x514.webp) Sixth and last attempt to AI-gen­er­ate a car­i­ca­ture draw­ing illus­trat­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty of obtain­ing a patent. --- title: "Advancing Electrochemical Efficiency" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/advancing-electrochemical-efficiency/6794/" date: 2024-03-07 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/patent-office.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "patent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patent.md" --- # Advancing Electrochemical Efficiency It’s easy to receive news that Smoltek has been grant­ed new patents with a shrug or a yawn. After all, such news comes along all the time. Usu­al­ly, it is a pre­vi­ous­ly known inno­va­tion that has been grant­ed a patent in yet anoth­er coun­try. The umpteenth in a row. This is, of course, good. But not nec­es­sar­i­ly some­thing to write home about. So you’re for­giv­en if you missed the bomb­shell: Smoltek has been grant­ed patents for three break­through inno­va­tions. We believe these inven­tions will make elec­trolyz­er and fuel cell man­u­fac­tur­ers crave our tech­nol­o­gy and know-how even more. Curi­ous? Read on! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#two-challenges)**Two challenges** The tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able ener­gy depends on the effi­cien­cy of elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells – the work­hors­es behind tech­nolo­gies such as fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers. How­ev­er, these essen­tial com­po­nents face two prob­lems: high con­tact resis­tance and rapid corrosion. High con­tact resis­tance leads to sig­nif­i­cant ener­gy loss­es, result­ing in reduced per­for­mance and increased oper­at­ing costs. Cor­ro­sion erodes the struc­tur­al integri­ty of the elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells, caus­ing them to wear out quick­ly and require replacement. All man­u­fac­tur­ers of fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers want to tack­le these two chal­lenges. Bet­ter solu­tions are needed. Guess who is sit­ting on them? That’s right! Smoltek. Our super-tal­ent­ed researchers and devel­op­ers have invent­ed not one but three solu­tions that work togeth­er to deal with these problems. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#three-patents)**Three patents** Smoltek’s three patents form a for­mi­da­ble arse­nal against the dual chal­lenges of high con­tact resis­tance and cor­ro­sion, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant leap in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell technology. [Patent SE545845](https://www.smoltek.com/contact-resistance/6757/) cov­ers an inno­va­tion we have giv­en the com­plete­ly unimag­i­na­tive name of ”a sep­a­ra­tor plate arrange­ment for an elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell com­pris­ing a nanos­truc­ture.” To avoid drop­ping dead of bore­dom when say­ing the name, we use the much sex­i­er unof­fi­cial name: *Con­tact Resis­tance*. This is a mis­nomer, as the inno­va­tion is not about con­tact resis­tance but coun­ter­act­ing it. As the offi­cial name sug­gests, this is accom­plished by arrang­ing the flow plates in an elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell in a cer­tain way. More about that later. [Patent SE545846](https://www.smoltek.com/nano-velcro/6768/) has a much cool­er name: *Nano Vel­cro*. Sure, it’s not the offi­cial name; it’s as dry as the paper the patent is writ­ten on: “Fuel cell or elec­trolyz­er with a con­nec­tive nanos­truc­ture.” More infor­ma­tion will fol­low on this as well. How­ev­er, you are cor­rect if you con­clude from the offi­cial name that it is also about reduc­ing con­tact resistance. [Patent SE545852](https://www.smoltek.com/vertical-graphene/6770/) fol­lows and cov­ers also an inno­va­tion to low­er con­tact resis­tance. (Resis­tance is futile!). The offi­cial name does­n’t give much away: “A sep­a­ra­tor ele­ment with a coat­ing com­pris­ing nanos­truc­tures.” But our unof­fi­cial name is a bit more reveal­ing: *Ver­ti­cal Graphene*. It is sim­i­lar to the first patent, but uses ver­ti­cal graphene instead of car­bon nanofibers. We’ll get to what that means. Are you ready to explore the patents a bit further? ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#contact-resistance-se545845)**Contact Resistance (SE545845)** An elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell is where the mag­ic hap­pens in elec­trolyz­ers (elec­tric­i­ty and water become hydro­gen and oxy­gen) and fuel cells (hydro­gen and oxy­gen become elec­tric­i­ty and water). Thus, it’s a crit­i­cal com­po­nent in many appli­ca­tions need­ed if we are to tran­si­tion from an ener­gy sys­tem with tons of car­bon emis­sions to a green and clean ener­gy system. A mem­brane is at the very core of an elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell. PEM elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells use a mem­brane that lets pro­tons through but blocks elec­trons, forc­ing them to detour through wires. This is what makes the mag­ic possible. How­ev­er, to work, elec­tri­cal con­tact between an elec­trode and the sur­face of the mem­brane is required. How hard can it be? Just press an elec­trode against the mem­brane, and it’s done. Or is it? Of course, it is not that sim­ple. A lot of water and hydro­gen gas must also fit in the inter­face between the elec­trode and the mem­brane, and if you cre­ate some space for it, the elec­tri­cal con­tact is broken. The way to resolve this is to have elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive porous mate­r­i­al between the elec­trode and the mem­brane. The pores allow water and hydro­gen to pass through while pro­vid­ing path­ways for the cur­rent to flow between the elec­trode and the membrane. Easy, huh? No. The dif­fi­cul­ty is to cre­ate a good elec­tri­cal con­tact between the elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive porous mate­r­i­al and the mem­brane. And pre­vent the con­tact sur­face from oxi­diz­ing because it is elec­tri­cal­ly insulating. Enter the stage: Smoltek’s innovation. If you have been a keen stu­dent, you will rec­og­nize the solu­tion. We’ve made no secret of it since we applied for the patent. (Inven­tions become pub­lic at the time of appli­ca­tion, but in return enjoy pro­tec­tion dur­ing the appli­ca­tion period.) Smoltek’s inno­va­tion is to insert nanofibers between the elec­trode and the mem­brane. These are attached to the elec­trode or porous mate­r­i­al, and the tip is stuck into the mem­brane. Elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive car­bon nanofibers in elec­tri­cal con­tact with the elec­trode and mem­brane reduce con­tact resistance. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/se545845-900x427.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nano-velcro-se545846)**Nano Velcro (SE545846)** Do you like Sein­feld? The TV series? I love it. And like many oth­er fans of television’s great­est shows of all time (that’s a sci­en­tif­ic fact), I can see par­al­lels and sim­i­lar­i­ties every­where between life and the show. In this case, when we talk about Nano Vel­cro, it should be pret­ty obvi­ous that I’m think­ing of Bar­ney Martin’s line, as Morty Sein­feldt: ”I can’t stand vel­cro. That tear­ing sound.” Unlike Morty, we love vel­cro, at least if they are made of car­bon nanofibers and are used to cre­ate strong elec­tri­cal con­tact between two lay­ers in an elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell. For exam­ple, let’s return to the con­tact sur­face between an elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive porous mate­r­i­al and the sur­face of a mem­brane. Cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy is to press them togeth­er and hope that there is enough elec­tri­cal con­tact. But this has many problems. On the scale that elec­trons move, there are no smooth sur­faces in per­fect con­tact with each oth­er. Irreg­u­lar­i­ties and grow­ing oxi­da­tion make the con­tact sur­face small­er than you might think. There is also a lot of water and gas­es flow­ing, caus­ing the sur­faces to vibrate, fur­ther dete­ri­o­rat­ing the contact. In short, it is almost a mir­a­cle that today’s PEM elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells even work. This is where our Nano Vel­cro comes in. The idea is to grow car­bon nanofibers from both sur­faces and allow them to be mechan­i­cal­ly entan­gled togeth­er, much like a piece of vel­cro. These car­bon nanofibers should nei­ther be com­plete­ly straight nor grow straight out from the sur­face, but they should twist a lit­tle and grow at a slight angle. This increas­es the entan­gle­ment when they are pressed togeth­er. One can even let the car­bon nanofibers on one side grow almost par­al­lel to the plane they are attached to, to effec­tive­ly cre­ate mechan­i­cal interlocking. This cre­ates larg­er con­tact sur­faces; each car­bon nanofiber has a sur­face area orders of mag­ni­tude larg­er than the sur­face it grows on. In addi­tion, the entan­gle­ment cre­ates a mechan­i­cal­ly more sta­ble contact. ![Se545846](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/se545846-900x307.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#vertical-graphene-se545852)**Vertical Graphene (SE545852)** This inno­va­tion aims at the same thing as the oth­er two: cre­at­ing larg­er and more sta­ble con­tact sur­faces between an elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive porous mate­r­i­al and the sur­face of a mem­brane. Just like in the first-men­tioned patent (SE545845), nanos­truc­tures pro­trud­ing into the mem­brane do the trick. But unlike that, it’s not car­bon nanofibers but ver­ti­cal graphene that does the job. Car­bon atoms can bond to each oth­er in many dif­fer­ent ways, cre­at­ing many dif­fer­ent struc­tures. Graphene is one of them. In graphene, the car­bon atoms form hexag­o­nal rings, where adja­cent rings share sides and are in the same plane. It looks like a sheet of chick­en wire where the knots are car­bon atoms, and the threads between them are their bonds. While the “reg­u­lar” graphene chick­en wire grows along the sub­strate, *ver­ti­cal graphene* grows per­pen­dic­u­lar to the sub­strate. They form a chick­en wire fence that twists and turns. It looks like a curved wall. This is why ver­ti­cal graphene is also called *car­bon nanowalls*. They are criss-cross­ing and high­ly interconnected. So what’s the point of replac­ing the well-known and trust­ed car­bon nanofibers with the new­com­er, ver­ti­cal graphene? Here’s the tri: this fresh entrant in the nano-world is like car­bon nanofibers on steroids. All the things that car­bon nanofibers do well, they do better: - **Sur­face Area:** Extreme­ly high sur­face area due to the ver­ti­cal ori­en­ta­tion of the sheets. - **Edge Den­si­ty:** Very high den­si­ty of reac­tive edges. - **Con­duc­tiv­i­ty:** Good elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, espe­cial­ly with­in the plane of the sheets. - **Mechan­i­cal Robust­ness:** The inter­con­nect­ed sheet struc­ture of ver­ti­cal graphene pro­vides good mechan­i­cal strength and resilience. In oth­er words, these new kids aren’t just match­ing the old boys – they’re out­play­ing them on many fronts. ![Se545852](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/se545852-900x294.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#a-word-of-caution)**A word of caution** I have tried to describe the inno­va­tions cov­ered by the patents in a hope­ful­ly under­stand­able way. There­fore, I have had to sim­pli­fy the descrip­tion and focus on the most imme­di­ate appli­ca­tion areas (fuel cells and PEM elec­trolyz­ers). There­fore, this descrip­tion does not do full jus­tice to the scope and appli­ca­tions of the innovations. What I mean by this is that the patents pro­tect far more than just improved elec­tri­cal con­tact between elec­trode and pro­ton exchange mem­brane with a porous trans­port lay­er in between; they pro­tect far more elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells than fuel cells and PEM elec­trolyz­ers. For exam­ple, they also pro­tect the anion exchange mem­brane (AEM), which may be used in future elec­trolyz­ers and var­i­ous forms of batteries. My point is that these three patents give Smoltek the exclu­sive right for twen­ty years to dic­tate the con­di­tions for using these types of solu­tions in all pos­si­ble contexts. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-now)**What now?** Life goes on. We con­tin­ue to devel­op our cell mate­r­i­al for PEM electrolyzers. In the case of the three patents, they each form a new patent fam­i­ly. As the patents for the three inno­va­tions are approved in the EU, the US and oth­er coun­tries, the new patent fam­i­lies will grow. For Smoltek’s share­hold­ers and investors, these patents are more than just a tes­ta­ment to Smoltek’s unique exper­tise and inven­tive­ness; they rep­re­sent a true strate­gic advan­tage in the grow­ing clean ener­gy market.  Our com­pa­ny pos­sess­es tech­nol­o­gy and know-how that is increas­ing­ly sought after as the demand for clean ener­gy solu­tions grows. We can safe­ly say that Smoltek is very well poised to face the future and become a key play­er in the field.  Don’t you agree? --- title: "The Hydrogen Ladder" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/the-hydrogen-ladder/6778/" date: 2024-02-29 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/hydrogen-ladder.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" --- # The Hydrogen Ladder Clean hydro­gen is seen by most peo­ple famil­iar with the sub­ject, from experts to politi­cians, as a cru­cial tool to stop glob­al warm­ing before it exceeds 2 °C. That’s why gov­ern­ments and investors are throw­ing mon­ey at almost any project that uses clean hydro­gen. This is tempt­ing many to try to strike gold with clean hydro­gen projects; ini­tia­tives, projects and large-scale plants are spring­ing up like mush­rooms in a wide range of applications. But, says Michael Liebre­ich, a promi­nent fig­ure in the clean hydro­gen dis­course, there will not be enough green ener­gy to pro­duce clean hydro­gen for all applications. He there­fore wants to steer stake­hold­ers away from fuel cell cars and oth­er appli­ca­tions where bat­ter­ies are a viable alter­na­tive to fer­til­iz­ers and oth­er select­ed appli­ca­tions where clean hydro­gen can be more ben­e­fi­cial. To illus­trate which areas of appli­ca­tion investors and politi­cians should or should not invest in, he has cre­at­ed a frame­work named the *Hydro­gen Lad­der*. Let’s delve deep­er into the intri­ca­cies of the Hydro­gen Lad­der to bet­ter under­stand its impli­ca­tions for [the clean hydro­gen land­scape](https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen-is-used-for-more-than-you-think/6739/). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#shortage)Shortage There is not enough green elec­tric­i­ty that can be con­vert­ed into clean hydro­gen to sup­ply all pos­si­ble appli­ca­tions of hydro­gen, says Michael Liebreich. Of course it’s not enough *today*, says the opti­mist. This is because less than 1 per­cent of all hydro­gen pro­duced 2023 is clean. We will rem­e­dy this by build­ing a heck of a lot of PEM elec­trolyz­ers all over the world. But even then, insists Michael Liebre­ich, we will not be able to pro­duce enough hydrogen. It feels like Michael Liebre­ich is a par­ty crash­er. Here we have the par­ty of a life­time to cel­e­brate the great future of clean hydro­gen. We are drink­ing bub­bly and in a great mood. Opti­mism is high; we are invin­ci­ble. Then he comes here and trash­es every­thing. Who does he think he is? ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#michael-liebreich)Michael Liebreich [Michael Liebre­ich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Liebreich) is a Lon­don­er and an Olympian. But it’s not in these qual­i­ties that he hangs out in the hydro­gen space. He is known for his deep under­stand­ing of how ener­gy mar­kets work, includ­ing clean ener­gy and its impact on the envi­ron­ment. Exper­tise that builds on his expe­ri­ence as a con­sul­tant at McK­in­sey, ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist at Groupe Arnault, and espe­cial­ly as founder of Bloomberg New Ener­gy Finance, a lead­ing source of insights on clean ener­gy, trans­porta­tion and tech­nol­o­gy. Today he runs his own con­sult­ing business. It is worth not­ing that Michael Liebre­ich is not anti-hydro­gen. On the con­trary! He is also excit­ed about the future of hydro­gen. After all, that’s why he’s at the same par­ty as us. But unlike the par­ty prizes, he has only sipped his bub­bly. He is sim­ply the sober one among us. Maybe we should lis­ten to what he has to say about clean hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#short-interruption-for-important-message)Short interruption for important message Dear share­hold­ers and investors, You may won­der why I have dragged you to this par­ty. Of course, you have noth­ing against hydro­gen, and are as keen as any­one to reduce green­house gas emis­sions. But you are pri­mar­i­ly inter­est­ed in see­ing Smoltek’s shares increase in value. Of course you know why I’ve invit­ed you to the par­ty: Smoltek devel­ops car­bon nanofibers that can be used for a lot of good things. For a start, we have focused on two busi­ness areas: Smoltek Semi and Smoltek Hydro­gen. The lat­ter has devel­oped a unique *cell mate­r­i­al* for PEM elec­trolyz­ers; it can sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the amount of the nec­es­sary but ridicu­lous­ly expen­sive cat­a­lyst met­al irid­i­um. This will save gigan­tic amounts of mon­ey for elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers and, by exten­sion, all their customers. Their cus­tomers? Yes, all the ones you see here at the par­ty. They all need PEM elec­trolyz­ers. And all will want to save big by choos­ing elec­trolyz­ers with Smoltek cell mate­r­i­al. You see? This makes Smoltek such a damn good invest­ment. Both cha-ching and social ben­e­fit at the same time. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#but)But… (I’ve said it before, there’s always a *but* in every good story). The rub is that there won’t be enough PEM elec­trolyz­ers and green elec­tric­i­ty for every­one at the par­ty. At least that’s the mes­sage Michael Liebre­ich is try­ing to get across to every­one at the party. But no one wants to lis­ten to him. Every­one is pre­oc­cu­pied with boast­ing about their antic­i­pat­ed suc­cess to their peers instead of pay­ing atten­tion to Liebre­ich’s warnings. But we have lis­tened and will now explain what Michael Liebre­ich is try­ing to say. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrogen-ladder)**Hydrogen Ladder** The Hydro­gen Lad­der looks like the Euro­pean Union ener­gy label. (You know that col­or­ful stick­er on white goods, light bulb pack­ag­ing and cars you buy that shows how ener­gy effi­cient it is on a scale from A to G – from best to worst). How­ev­er, instead of grad­ing the ener­gy effi­cien­cy of white goods, light bulbs and cars, Michael Liebre­ich uses the same col­or and let­ter scale to grade the like­li­hood that hydro­gen will be direct­ly or indi­rect­ly used on a large scale by an appli­ca­tion a decade from now. ![Hydrogen Ladder Rungs](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/hydrogen-ladder-rungs-600x389.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-a-decade)**Why a decade?** Right now the gov­ern­ment is throw­ing mon­ey at all clean hydro­gen appli­ca­tions. Any­one with ideas for how clean hydro­gen can be used is run­ning after this money. In ten years, when the sub­si­dies start to dry up and the tough com­mer­cial con­di­tions kick in, the wheat will be sep­a­rat­ed from the chaff. In the mean­time, the tech­nol­o­gy will be fine-tuned and the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture will emerge. So in ten years – give or take a few years – we will see which appli­ca­tions can real­ly stand on their own. While we wait for the ver­dict, we can spec­u­late on what will work and what won’t. This is what Michael Liebre­ich does with his Hydro­gen Ladder. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-the-hydrogen-ladder-is-and-isnt)What the Hydrogen Ladder is and isn’t It is impor­tant to under­stand that the Hydro­gen Lad­der is only a clas­si­fi­ca­tion based on Michael Liebre­ich’s assess­ment of the like­li­hood of a clean hydro­gen appli­ca­tion being com­mer­cial­ly viable at scale around 2035. In his assess­ment, Michael Liebre­ich has weighed - **sci­en­tif­ic fac­tors** such as ther­mo­dy­nam­ics, physics, and chemistry, - **eco­nom­ic fac­tors** such as cost, crit­i­cal min­er­al avail­abil­i­ty, and co-ben­e­fits, and - **envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors** such as air pol­lu­tion, geopol­i­tics, and human behavior. The mod­el is about noth­ing else. It is not an assess­ment of ener­gy effi­cien­cy. It is not an assess­ment of the speed of the tran­si­tion to hydro­gen. It is not an assess­ment of mar­ket size. It is not an assess­ment of how much car­bon diox­ide the atmos­phere can be saved from. That said, we are now ready to look at Michael Liebre­ich’s rank­ing of 35 can­di­dates for clean hydro­gen use. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#no-alternative)**No alternative** Rung A sig­ni­fies use cas­es where hydro­gen is the only option, with no alter­na­tive ener­gy car­ri­ers or process­es avail­able. These appli­ca­tions may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be grow­ing mar­kets, but hydro­gen’s role is indis­pens­able due to its unique prop­er­ties or require­ments of the process. Hydro­gen Lad­der lists fol­low­ing appli­ca­tion areas in this category: - **Fer­til­iz­er:** Hydro­gen is crit­i­cal for pro­duc­ing ammo­nia, a key ingre­di­ent in [fer­til­iz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen-feeds-the-world/6691/), through the Haber-Bosch process. - **Hydro­gena­tion:** Essen­tial in pro­cess­ing fats and oils, hydro­gena­tion con­verts unsat­u­rat­ed fats to sat­u­rat­ed fats by adding hydrogen. - **Methanol:** Hydro­gen is used to pro­duce [methanol](https://www.smoltek.com/e-fuel-made-of-hydrogen/6622/), a fun­da­men­tal build­ing block in the pro­duc­tion of var­i­ous chem­i­cals and fuels. - **Hydro­c­rack­ing:** In refin­ing, hydro­gen is used to break down heavy crude oil frac­tions into lighter, more valu­able products. - **Desul­phuri­sa­tion:** Hydro­gen plays a cru­cial role in remov­ing sul­fur from fos­sil fuels, reduc­ing pol­lu­tion from their combustion. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#decent-market-share)**Decent market share** Rung B iden­ti­fies areas where hydro­gen has a strong chance of cap­tur­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket share. This is due to advan­tages it offers over oth­er ener­gy car­ri­ers in terms of cost, safe­ty, con­ve­nience, or oth­er factors. Hydro­gen Lad­der lists fol­low­ing appli­ca­tion areas in this category: - **Ship­ping:** Hydro­gen serves as a clean ener­gy source when used as [clean ammo­nia or e‑methanol](https://www.smoltek.com/e-fuel-made-of-hydrogen/6622/), reduc­ing emis­sions in marine transport. - **Jet avi­a­tion:** As [e‑fuel](https://www.smoltek.com/e-fuel-made-of-hydrogen/6622/), hydro­gen pro­vides a sus­tain­able alter­na­tive to con­ven­tion­al jet fuels, promis­ing low­er car­bon emissions. - **Chem­i­cal feed­stock:** Hydro­gen is piv­otal in syn­the­siz­ing a wide range of chem­i­cals, sup­port­ing var­i­ous indus­tri­al processes. - **Steel:** Employ­ing hydro­gen as a reduc­ing agent in steel­mak­ing process­es reduces car­bon emis­sions, mak­ing pro­duc­tion greener. - **Long dura­tion grid bal­anc­ing:** Hydro­gen can be stored and con­vert­ed back to elec­tric­i­ty, offer­ing a solu­tion for bal­anc­ing ener­gy sup­ply and demand over extend­ed periods. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#some-market-share)**Some market share** Rung C sug­gests that hydro­gen will like­ly cap­ture some mar­ket share, though not dom­i­nant­ly. This could be in sec­tors where hydro­gen com­petes with oth­er clean tech­nolo­gies or where its adop­tion is dri­ven by spe­cif­ic local advan­tages, such as avail­abil­i­ty of renew­able resources or infra­struc­ture readiness. Hydro­gen Lad­der lists fol­low­ing appli­ca­tion areas in this category: - **Coastal and riv­er ves­sels:** Hydro­gen offers a clean­er fuel alter­na­tive, reduc­ing emis­sions for marine ves­sels in sen­si­tive ecosystems. - **Non-road mobile machin­ery:** In con­struc­tion and agri­cul­ture, hydro­gen-pow­ered machin­ery can reduce car­bon foot­print and noise pollution. - **Vin­tage and mus­cle cars:** As [e‑fuel](https://www.smoltek.com/e-fuel-made-of-hydrogen/6622/), hydro­gen pro­vides a sus­tain­able path to keep these cars run­ning with­out tra­di­tion­al gasoline. - **Bio­gas upgrad­ing:** Hydro­gen can enhance the qual­i­ty of bio­gas, increas­ing its ener­gy con­tent and mak­ing it a more effec­tive fuel source. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#small-market-share)**Small market share** Rung D implies that hydro­gen could plau­si­bly secure a small slice of the mar­ket. These are areas where hydro­gen’s use is fea­si­ble but faces strong com­pe­ti­tion from oth­er tech­nolo­gies or where its advan­tages are not as pronounced. Hydro­gen Lad­der lists fol­low­ing appli­ca­tion areas in this category: - **Long dis­tance trucks and coach­es:** Hydro­gen may offer a viable alter­na­tive for long-haul trans­port, where bat­tery weight and charg­ing times are lim­it­ing factors. - **High-tem­per­a­ture indus­tri­al heat:** In indus­tries requir­ing high tem­per­a­tures, hydro­gen can pro­vide a clean source of heat. - **Gen­er­a­tors:** Hydro­gen-fueled gen­er­a­tors can serve as a clean back­up pow­er source, espe­cial­ly in remote or sen­si­tive locations. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#niche-market-share)**Niche market share** Rung E envi­sions sce­nar­ios where hydro­gen could find a foothold in niche mar­kets. These are appli­ca­tions where hydro­gen offers unique ben­e­fits to small, spe­cial­ized sec­tors, pos­si­bly dri­ven by spe­cif­ic tech­no­log­i­cal, safe­ty, or envi­ron­men­tal considerations. Hydro­gen Lad­der lists fol­low­ing appli­ca­tion areas in this category: - **Region­al trucks:** Hydro­gen could serve spe­cial­ized trans­port needs where elec­tric alter­na­tives are not viable. - **Com­mer­cial heat­ing:** As part of a hybrid sys­tem, hydro­gen can sup­ple­ment heat­ing solu­tions, reduc­ing car­bon emissions. - **Island grids:** Hydro­gen can offer a resilient and sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tion for remote island communities. - **Short dura­tion grid bal­anc­ing:** For man­ag­ing short-term fluc­tu­a­tions in the elec­tric­i­ty grid, hydro­gen can play a cru­cial role. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#niche-market-share-in-some-geographies)**Niche market share in some geographies** Rung F high­lights the poten­tial for hydro­gen to cap­ture niche mar­ket shares in spe­cif­ic geo­gra­phies. This reflects the influ­ence of local factors—such as the avail­abil­i­ty of renew­able ener­gy sources for hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, local pol­i­cy sup­port, or spe­cif­ic envi­ron­men­tal or logis­ti­cal challenges—that might make hydro­gen an attrac­tive option in cer­tain regions but not universally. Hydro­gen Lad­der lists fol­low­ing appli­ca­tion areas in this category: - **Light avi­a­tion:** In remote areas, hydro­gen-pow­ered avi­a­tion could offer a clean­er alter­na­tive to con­ven­tion­al fuels. - **Remote and rur­al trains:** Where elec­tri­fi­ca­tion is not fea­si­ble, hydro­gen trains can reduce emis­sions and reliance on diesel. - **Local fer­ries:** For short sea routes, hydro­gen fer­ries can offer a sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion solution. - **Light trucks:** In spe­cif­ic regions, hydro­gen light trucks could meet deliv­ery needs with low­er emissions. - **Bulk pow­er imports:** Hydro­gen could facil­i­tate the import of renew­able ener­gy across borders. - **UPS:** Unin­ter­rupt­ible Pow­er Sup­plies (UPS) pow­ered by hydro­gen can pro­vide reli­able back­up pow­er in crit­i­cal applications. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#row-of-doom)**Row of doom** Final­ly, rung G rep­re­sents use cas­es where hydro­gen’s prospects are the most chal­leng­ing. These are sce­nar­ios where the com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal, eco­nom­ic, and prac­ti­cal bar­ri­ers makes the wide­spread adop­tion of hydro­gen unlike­ly or where its use is out­per­formed by oth­er alter­na­tives across most or all con­sid­er­a­tions. This could reflect sit­u­a­tions where the ener­gy required to pro­duce, trans­port, and use hydro­gen out­weighs its ben­e­fits, or where oth­er solu­tions are more effi­cient, cost-effec­tive, or practical. Hydro­gen Lad­der lists fol­low­ing appli­ca­tion areas in this category: - **Metro trains and bus­es:** In urban set­tings, elec­tric alter­na­tives are typ­i­cal­ly more effi­cient and cost-effective. - **Urban deliv­ery and taxis:** Elec­tric vehi­cles offer a more prac­ti­cal and eco­nom­i­cal solu­tion for urban deliv­ery and taxi services. - **2 and 3‑wheelers:** Elec­tric bikes and scoot­ers are more viable due to their low­er ener­gy require­ments and sim­pler infrastructure. - **Cars:** Bat­tery elec­tric vehi­cles (BEVs) pro­vide a more direct and effi­cient use of elec­tric­i­ty for per­son­al transportation. - **Bulk e‑fuels:** Pro­duc­ing e‑fuels on a large scale is ener­gy-inten­sive and less effi­cient com­pared to direct electrification. - **Mid/low-tem­per­a­ture indus­tri­al heat:** Elec­tric heat­ing solu­tions are gen­er­al­ly more effi­cient for these applications. - **Domes­tic heat­ing:** Elec­tric heat pumps offer a more effi­cient and sus­tain­able option for res­i­den­tial heating. - **Pow­er gen­er­a­tion using non-stored hydro­gen:** Direct use of renew­able elec­tric­i­ty is more effi­cient than con­vert­ing it to hydro­gen for pow­er generation. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrogen-ladder-5-0)**Hydrogen Ladder 5.0** From time to time, Michael Liebre­ich updates his Hydro­gen Lad­der. [Hydro­gen Lad­der Ver­sion 5.0](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-michael-liebreich/) is the lat­est ver­sion at the time of writ­ing. It was pub­lished in Octo­ber 2023 on LinkedIn. ![Hydrogen Ladder 5.0](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/hydrogen-ladder-50-1200x495.webp) [Hydro­gen Lad­der 5.0](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-michael-liebreich/) by Michael Liebre­ich. The illus­tra­tion is slight­ly sim­pli­fied com­pared to the orig­i­nal. [CC-BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en) Note the col­or codes. - **Red** means that there are no real­is­tic alter­na­tives to hydro­gen for this application. - **Green** means that hydro­gen com­petes with bio­mass or biogas. - **Yel­low** means that hydro­gen com­petes with elec­tric­i­ty and bat­ter­ies. Gray means there are oth­er com­pet­ing solutions. Note that just because some­thing com­petes with hydro­gen does not mean that the com­pet­ing prod­uct is a cli­mate-neu­tral choice. For exam­ple, Michael Liebre­ich has used yel­low for the steel indus­try, because elec­tric­i­ty can be used instead of coal, oil or gas to heat blast fur­naces. But this does not make the steel indus­try cli­mate neu­tral. Because, even if you heat the blast fur­nace with elec­tric­i­ty, coal needs to be added in the chem­i­cal process that con­verts iron ore into pig iron, result­ing in huge amounts of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. To make steel com­plete­ly fos­sil-free, hydro­gen must also be used. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-create-the-hydrogen-ladder)**Why create the Hydrogen Ladder?** Michael Liebre­ich seems to see him­self as one of the few adults in a room filled with overex­cit­ed hydro­gen entre­pre­neurs, mon­eyed investors spray­ing cash over all sorts of hydro­gen projects, and politi­cians and oth­er stake­hold­ers with inflat­ed expec­ta­tions. With that in mind, it is rea­son­able to describe the Hydro­gen Lad­der as a means to achieve three things: - **Cut­ting through hype:** There’s a lot of excite­ment about hydro­gen, but also con­fu­sion about where it makes prac­ti­cal sense. The lad­der helps cut through the noise. - **Focus­ing invest­ment:** By high­light­ing the most promis­ing appli­ca­tions of hydro­gen, it guides invest­ment in research and infra­struc­ture towards the areas with the most poten­tial impact. - **Man­ag­ing expec­ta­tions:** The lad­der shows where we should­n’t expect hydro­gen to be the mir­a­cle solu­tion. It pro­motes real­is­tic expec­ta­tions about hydro­gen’s role in the clean ener­gy mix. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conclusions-of-the-hydrogen-ladder)Conclusions of the Hydrogen Ladder Michael Liebre­ich’s main point is that entre­pre­neurs, investors, politi­cians and oth­er stake­hold­ers should focus on the top two rungs (A and B) and wait with the rest. He argues that just sup­ply­ing the appli­ca­tions in the top step (A) with clean hydro­gen would require more green ener­gy than what is pro­duced today. And togeth­er with the sec­ond top rung (B), the pro­duc­tion of renew­able elec­tric­i­ty would have to increase five times com­pared to today. This video record­ing of Michael Liebre­ich’s keynote speech at the World Hydro­gen Con­gress 2022 gives a good idea of what his mes­sage is. Note that the Hydro­gen Lad­der in the pre­sen­ta­tion is an old­er version. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#criticisms)**Criticisms** Far from every­one appre­ci­ates Michael Liebre­ich’s attempt to pro­vide his view of hydro­gen. Sup­port­ers of hydro­gen some­times per­ceive him as over­ly skep­ti­cal, argu­ing that the Hydro­gen Lad­der down­play hydro­gen’s poten­tial in the tran­si­tion away from coal, oil and nat­ur­al gas towards green solutions. At the same time, the Hydro­gen Lad­der is crit­i­cized by the oth­er side for giv­ing hydro­gen a more sig­nif­i­cant role than warranted. Per­haps this dichoto­my proves that Michael Liebre­ich is on the right track? But there are also more nuanced criticisms: - **Con­flict of inter­est:** Some crit­ics point to Liebre­ich’s vest­ed inter­ests in cer­tain ener­gy sec­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly his involve­ment with Charge­Point, a com­pa­ny focused on elec­tric vehi­cle charg­ing infra­struc­ture. This rais­es ques­tions about poten­tial bias towards elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and away from hydro­gen solu­tions, even where hydro­gen may have advantages. - **Over­ly focused per­spec­tive:** Liebre­ich’s back­ground pri­mar­i­ly lies in finance and clean ener­gy con­sult­ing. While this pro­vides exper­tise, some argue it can lead to an overem­pha­sis on eco­nom­ic fac­tors while poten­tial­ly under­es­ti­mat­ing the role of tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs or shifts in geopo­lit­i­cal pri­or­i­ties that could reshape the hydro­gen landscape. - **Arbi­trary time­line:** The focus on a ten-year time­frame is some­what restric­tive. While it aims to look beyond imme­di­ate hype, tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion can occur at unpre­dictable rates. Break­throughs in hydro­gen pro­duc­tion or stor­age could dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate the via­bil­i­ty of cer­tain use cas­es well before the decade mark, while oth­ers might require more extend­ed devel­op­ment periods. - **Lim­it­ed scope:** The Hydro­gen Lad­der, by its own def­i­n­i­tion, is pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with the like­li­hood of large-scale adop­tion and does­n’t ful­ly encom­pass all facets of the hydro­gen dis­cus­sion. It does­n’t deeply address poten­tial niche appli­ca­tions where hydro­gen might excel even in small­er mar­kets, nor does it ful­ly account for the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits of spe­cif­ic use cas­es in off­set­ting emis­sions, regard­less of ulti­mate mar­ket size. - **Sub­jec­tiv­i­ty:** While Liebre­ich attempts to ground his assess­ment in sci­en­tif­ic and eco­nom­ic prin­ci­ples, there remains an inher­ent degree of sub­jec­tiv­i­ty in the weight­ing of var­i­ous fac­tors with­in the frame­work. Crit­ics may dis­agree on the empha­sis he places on ther­mo­dy­nam­ics, cur­rent costs, or behav­ioral trends, lead­ing to alter­na­tive inter­pre­ta­tions of the lad­der’s rankings. - **Lack of nuance:** The Hydro­gen Lad­der’s col­or-cod­ed sys­tem, while visu­al­ly appeal­ing, can some­times over­sim­pli­fy com­plex issues. Lump­ing diverse use cas­es into broad cat­e­gories risks obscur­ing impor­tant distinctions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nevertheless)**Nevertheless** Nev­er­the­less, the Hydro­gen Lad­der has its mer­its as a frame­work for talk­ing about the role of clean hydro­gen in the near future. The debate is not about whether or not clean hydro­gen has a future, but where it will be most useful. What­ev­er the out­come of the con­ver­sa­tion, we can be sure of one thing: There will be a heck of a lot of PEM elec­trolyz­ers built in the next ten years and well beyond to meet the surge in demand for clean hydro­gen that every­one sees. The true winners? Human­i­ty, avoid­ing a shit­load of car­bon emissions. Smoltek, enjoy­ing the sound of cha-ching as PEM elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers use Smoltek Hydro­gen’s patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy to reduce the need for scarce iridium. You, see­ing your invest­ment in Smoltek pay off. --- title: "Smoltek can reduce contact resistance in electrolyzers and fuel cells" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-can-reduce-contact-resistance-in-electrolyzer-and-fuel-cells/6774/" date: 2024-02-28 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek can reduce contact resistance in electrolyzers and fuel cells Smoltek has been award­ed three new patent grants. Each one of these relates to a new patent fam­i­ly, all of them describ­ing how we can use Smoltek’s core tech­nol­o­gy for reduc­ing con­tact resis­tance in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells. Elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells are found in wide­spread appli­ca­tions in mod­ern ener­gy sys­tems, such as bat­ter­ies, fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers. How­ev­er, exist­ing chem­i­cal cells pos­sess high con­tact resis­tance between dif­fer­ent com­po­nents of the cell which leads to low­er effi­cien­cy. This prob­lem may even be wors­ened by the for­ma­tion of non-con­duct­ing sur­face lay­ers on some com­po­nents due to the harsh envi­ron­ment of the cell. > With these three new patent fam­i­lies, we are real­ly strength­en­ing the scope our IP port­fo­lio with­in the field of increas­ing the effi­cien­cy in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells, both for elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells > > Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D at Smoltek Hydrogen **Inno­va­tion descrip­tion of the new patent fam­i­lies** [Con­tact Resis­tance patent fam­i­ly](https://www.smoltek.com/contact-resistance/6757/): The Inno­va­tion improve a sep­a­ra­tor plate arrange­ment for an elec­tro­chem­i­cal cell by com­pris­ing a nanos­truc­ture which offers low­ered con­tact resis­tance between the sep­a­ra­tor ele­ment and the dif­fu­sion layer. [Nano Vel­cro patent fam­i­ly](https://www.smoltek.com/nano-velcro/6768/): The Inno­va­tion improves the inter­lay­er con­nec­tions in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells by using elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures that are mechan­i­cal­ly entan­gled between the layers. [Ver­ti­cal Graphene patent fam­i­ly](https://www.smoltek.com/vertical-graphene/6770/): The Inno­va­tion offer low­ered con­tact resis­tance between sep­a­ra­tor ele­ments and adja­cent com­po­nents in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells and increase resis­tance to corrosion. > It is very valu­able for us to have a plat­form of patents that have wider areas of use than in just PEM elec­trolyz­ers, espe­cial­ly when we are talk­ing to dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies in the hydro­gen indus­try, who often work both with fuel cells and sev­er­al dif­fer­ent types of elec­trolyz­ers. This opens new oppor­tu­ni­ties for our business. > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 87 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Vertical Graphene" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/vertical-graphene/6770/" date: 2024-02-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/smoltek-patent-87-website-image.jpg" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Vertical Graphene The Inno­va­tion: A sep­a­ra­tor ele­ment for an electro­mechan­i­cal cell com­pris­ing a coat­ed con­duc­tive sub­strate. The coat­ing com­pris­es a first and a sec­ond part, where­in the first part com­pris­es a basal lay­er extend­ing along a sur­face of the con­duc­tive sub­strate and the sec­ond part com­pris­es a plu­ral­i­ty of nanos­truc­tures extend­ing out from the sur­face of the con­duc­tive substrate. [Link to patent/​patent file](https://tc.prv.se/spd/p/pdf/Ua205TcgmU7WS3oljenFlQ/SE545852.C2.pdf?token=03AFcWeA4C5rr1jPBTTF8LdTxEnw6-6Mrlkz3zPnDb0VRPoKto8rLcm7YFA5qnKD4D00gjChOI52AZGAg5k0Kguz41R_OqADAAjT9rZDRYIJbpB_dbUoH9CY44rlL70ZILm7hg8jHTCePu3SnYB_2U3V20TLxUcSBo71z3apjrc1SaYlBO881iyYLe6-waLedYOCrVV4gQOpkwbQLrecijHwcDpMWsdtlD0DZab6uPhIXkhgMXWRJiXZdTVlx8ExqmreM82eGQ2cb8JrtfBfaZAhugxAmvqwg2xcHssnLFxlfVKIDAHUnzGbicCcjKyS6fqU9rROhupcm_bZJVzz8WDIARPpnvehfuWDKTNeu98eVVrdKRbYjvX619bVA5DAI9cYfAfNV82jsHyWXNl4nupb7WhiFmc6py-kPsg6GhJ7frPxi_GGOZ8crNc9jbaYpmlE5PD3Lj3AKBvSrrnXsb3wr0Ls_lPVoEhtD7h8W0cgUWEtKQQIz2VVO1ZrUhONKIhp0VuGjlhl9Q6OD_A4wWIHkQTXOXN5n7XYQQDXkqmu9Is7EmWjPaRQnF-Gwz7MixcsD_tkd1vs9eCcTMHU52VZhdxBTvRa2g_sxNFHGeXZDat3X7SMorzuY_wgcEF9u3yzdO1Xm9kwwn7N-NZeqlGzlPnq7WGz1avo16cL1VuzVBGHEYvlQAHeoXz3hpKJDKJ6JG2DrpXA6V) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Swe­den | [SE 545 852 C2](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=my6U_8HpO5R7eM42P9NdVA&p2=2LVst7XEik8&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=3) | --- title: "Nano Velcro" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/nano-velcro/6768/" date: 2024-02-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/smoltek-patent-86-website-image.jpg" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Nano Velcro The Inno­va­tion: An elec­tro­chem­i­cal sell com­pris­ing a lay­ered struc­ture, which com­prise at least a first and a sec­ond lay­er. These lay­ers are arranged adja­cent to each oth­er and form a first inter­face. This, the first inter­face com­pris­es a first plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures con­nect­ed to a first sur­face of the first lay­er that is fac­ing the sec­ond lay­er, and a sec­ond plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures con­nect­ed to a sec­ond sur­face of the sec­ond lay­er fac­ing the first lay­er. The first plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures and the sec­ond plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures are mechan­i­cal­ly entangled. [Link to patent/​patent file](https://tc.prv.se/spd/p/pdf/SV86wc8aSH3WS3oljenFlQ/SE545846.C2.pdf?token=03AFcWeA5ZjTt_RRhBicf9rlT87gYqHFrOJg_HP5UdqFbjiQYI7Nj_bCS4tfvIOBa21XxiNkCMs68v0ZGf70AZ8MkyOpC1dCiqqYlreC3CK3sCgVCQwTdd07ae34Pwhu-_k__2CiSWeR1lhBqpufs9O7n1_jw9S5UAKvgYRW3EXGaNC8ixV05abBwHZk7fRF8Esmw9AEucPX48J5oIOkaVED0gLh3EyxCLAmQdQyAAzRs-ulCT-8AhSPFQZFylNTTu0hvk91BeCw6DIKXUz7q2TNyTAWA2A0EPJ9qRrHTbUD4W4O1wGjexiNwqhrNbZx30lULdZfTI_WINwi38wN1hRu6WU3jdu7C_ZE3yYHc_p0rnxnMh2MH510x4n7U14USZ2ogEq-qXgS7UcRB7dPPCKmO6nfyA0HmVDDak3bZkKyQ8YlkWxKdWKu9o3QpkrE6c8y5F_BpwMQBjvkSLskFwSl7pxs0y4JkZmL2d9romnH4BOrRbc8ACvJIYo9LFGGPCQU9ezVpSX9VqLf_UPmXsWIVDHuCurCAZsBv1jKQyLD-_t_60npep-QHIeA9kN2M8M3rodJerv1qNRvqlUpdgnjt2D1xv3mA2C1fRIJoEDXbBgB_xC6uvCJt-nX0_WdnkxQcGFXARGL-WwJxULBM-9H8r0Mbnd9VDQ1Fh2rhAwHx3BAt76ib3hYk) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Swe­den | [SE 545 846 C2](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=8AULk2bpqxl7eM42P9NdVA&p2=CetGqpOTExI&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=7) | --- title: "Contact Resistance" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/contact-resistance/6757/" date: 2024-02-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/smoltek-patent-85-website-image.jpg" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "deeptech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/deeptech.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Contact Resistance The Inno­va­tion: An elec­trolyz­er com­pris­ing a first and a sec­ond elec­trode and an ion exchange mem­brane arranged in-between the first and the sec­ond elec­trode is dis­closed. Each elec­trode com­pris­es a con­duc­tive ele­ment. At least one of the elec­trodes com­pris­es a cat­a­lyst struc­ture, the cat­a­lyst struc­ture com­pris­ing a plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures arranged to con­nect the con­duc­tive ele­ment to a cor­re­spond­ing plu­ral­i­ty of cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles. Each cat­a­lyst par­ti­cle is local­ized at the end of a respec­tive elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­ture oppo­site from the con­duc­tive element. [Link to patent/​patent file](https://tc.prv.se/spd/p/pdf/34hEHJ5DuibWS3oljenFlQ/SE545845.C2.pdf?token=03AFcWeA5gI3XPQgA1N5xEyLszYSP986qZcO-inBwiKJxETJE64ybIw6X4VjKCkaiThAqRg6fqRqh4D-ft9O-ESprbrcjY4bK-AroeJB10QcLdzwZeSFZTFSp7UHXi01GCLJxc2wyxH9mAiL7odPnezqOEaM6bKJGD9vZwOYEiAVOYQ1-YtuoVAF9chYPVQsiaX_UsrXq1BQg855AoQXzb0Y3_kP-lR--cAXqcJSkjHCAJ2kDoFauBlPcBPHNN-JQ91u49dsFKPP_9dLrU5gAhduW_l3qWf4bTOhHCcWbN5NOE1cTpiLPrmABRlJFPkP05PiKa-2E1ksP8TABIt6izwFlgZbooKWH48xvDF3t2VBd-MmXYJZHlzwFVLt0fp6Av-Kd-qNnGvxnwplgzjWjetJidPU2QVOZO1NB6AS-q7T064R_uwslHtH0H1X-K_g01gg_Lu4KqnpRh23rsQDY4g3BAtVzFNitTtaxDtuqpAXEgDd--PsmLF2uM9lSLtKOvILwinuA1IaIE3TiW1EDBinlSZPlVEiATDN1GRj1c9498fiWu2PaHFpIKzXzq4_PWcUmRTjcCDWXbw6kKmjSIeV-6AwRIfjIP9cuFKlpRAhyeokz5mMxWmgmRBYmkW9-BhX98Qd8nLg_Ppk2niT0srXe4LT7MWKQHVYF1zNY8fJtRM_ZbzYxa_jKQaueuBI3iNxU45UFfQJiR) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Swe­den | [SE 545 845 C2](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=2zyYMQWHYU17eM42P9NdVA&p2=B6nO4qqwBBw&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=4) | --- title: "Hydrogen is used for more than you think" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen-is-used-for-more-than-you-think/6739/" date: 2024-02-21 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mischievous-boy-looks-in-toy-catalog.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "cement" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cement.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "steel" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/steel.md" --- # Hydrogen is used for more than you think The title of this post, *Hydro­gen is used for more than you think*, is per­haps too pre­sump­tu­ous. Per­haps you know all the uses of hydro­gen. But the fact is that if you take what is writ­ten in news­pa­pers and said on the radio and tele­vi­sion as any reflec­tion of the uses of hydro­gen, you are miss­ing out on sig­nif­i­cant appli­ca­tions. In this arti­cle, we go through known and less-known uses of hydro­gen. You may dis­cov­er a new area that you didn’t already know about. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#catalog-of-uses)**Catalog of uses** To avoid this blog post degen­er­at­ing into an ency­clo­pe­dia, where every appli­ca­tion is explained in length and breadth, I must curb my desire to delve into the topic. There­fore, this text doesn’t dis­cuss dif­fer­ent uses and appli­ca­tions, explain the pros and cons, or dis­cuss his­to­ry, tech­nol­o­gy, and exam­ples. All of which could make for many inter­est­ing blog posts in the future. (Feel free to com­ment on LinkedIn about what you want to know more about). Instead, this is an incom­plete cat­a­log of more or less known uses of hydrogen. But… (This is impor­tant to keep in mind.) I only men­tion appli­ca­tion areas that are already com­mer­cial­ly viable (e.g., fer­til­iz­ers) or on the verge of com­mer­cial­iza­tion with sol­id finan­cial back­ing (e.g., e‑fuel). I omit any odd, eso­teric, or futur­is­tic uses. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gold-rush)**Gold rush** Right now, there is a gold rush in the hydro­gen field. Every­one wants to strike gold with hydro­gen. Of course, not every­one will suc­ceed. But frankly, that’s not a threat to the ambi­tion to reduce CO2. On the con­trary, the more peo­ple try, the more like­ly the goal of keep­ing glob­al warm­ing below 2 °C will be achieved. Only time will tell who suc­ceeds and who fails. But we can be sure of one thing: Just like the 19th-cen­tu­ry gold rush in the US, only com­pa­nies sell­ing the nec­es­sary equip­ment can be sure of mak­ing a for­tune. So, what equip­ment are we talk­ing about when it comes to hydrogen? Exact­ly! PEM elec­trolyz­ers. And what do they depend on to work? Pre­cise­ly! Irid­i­um. And what’s the prob­lem with that? Cor­rect! Irid­i­um is scarce and can­not be extract­ed in much greater quan­ti­ties than today. So, with the demand for PEM elec­trolyz­ers sky­rock­et­ing, the avail­abil­i­ty of irid­i­um is becom­ing a headache. The only viable solu­tion is to reduce the amount of irid­i­um need­ed in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. And who has the tech­nol­o­gy for that? Bin­go! Smoltek has both the know-how and patents for the tech­nol­o­gy, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to come down to as lit­tle as one-twen­ti­eth of today’s use of irid­i­um while main­tain­ing efficiency. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cards-on-the-table)**Cards on the table** This is, of course, a biased piece. I want you to under­stand that the mar­ket for Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy is big­ger than it first appears. Much big­ger. That’s my motive for com­pil­ing this cat­a­log of applications. Enough about that. Let’s get down to business. Ini­tial­ly, we’ll embark on a high-alti­tude fly­over to gain an overview of the land of clean hydro­gen. We will then descend to a low­er alti­tude to cir­cle over each of the five key areas of hydro­gen appli­ca­tions. Final­ly, we will exe­cute pre­ci­sion low-lev­el fly­bys over select­ed appli­ca­tions that stand out as par­tic­u­lar­ly intriguing. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#clean-hydrogen-swiss-army-knife)**Clean hydrogen Swiss army knife** We make our first fly­over at a real­ly high alti­tude. What do we see? A huge Swiss army knife?! Yes, it’s called the *clean hydro­gen Swiss army knife*. A cliché, of course. But it is an apt descrip­tion of how use­ful clean hydro­gen is. Notice the five key areas for hydro­gen appli­ca­tions: heat, pow­er sys­tems, chem­i­cals and process­es, avi­a­tion and ship­ping, and land transport. Sat­is­fied? Let’s descend to a low­er alti­tude and fly a lap over each key area. ![Clean Hydrogen Swiss Army Knife](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/clean-hydrogen-swiss-army-knife-1200x495.webp) Clean Hydro­gen Swiss Army Knife. Source: Michael Liebreich/​Liebreich Asso­ciates, Clean Hydro­gen Lad­der, Ver­sion 5.0, 2023. Con­cept cred­it: Adri­an Hiel, Ener­gy Cities. Image: Wenger (con­cept cred­it: Paul Mar­tin). CC-BY 4.0 ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#heat)**Heat** We are approach­ing the hydro­gen appli­ca­tion area of heat at a low­er altitude. Hydro­gen both com­busts quick­ly and gives off a lot of heat in the process. This can be used every­where where heat is required: indus­try, com­mer­cial build­ings and spaces, and homes. High-tem­per­a­ture heat, above 500 °C, is used in process­es such as steel mak­ing, glass mak­ing, and some chem­i­cal processes. Mid-tem­per­a­ture heat, between 150 and 500 °C, is used for var­i­ous indus­tri­al process­es, includ­ing dry­ing, steam pro­duc­tion, and some chem­i­cal reactions. Low-tem­per­a­ture heat, below 150 °C, is often used for heat­ing in build­ings and green­hous­es and for process­es such as cook­ing, pas­teur­iza­tion, and some drying. Sim­ply put, clean hydro­gen can be used as a fos­sil-free fuel in indus­tri­al fur­naces instead of nat­ur­al gas, coal, or oil. ![Mischievous Boy Plays Toy Model Steel Mill](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mischievous-boy-plays-toy-model-steel-mill-1200x686.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#power-system)**Power system** Our flight con­tin­ues to pow­er sys­tems, an inter­est­ing appli­ca­tion area for hydrogen. As a Smoltek investor (or soon to be, I hope), you know that elec­tric­i­ty can be turned into hydro­gen through [elec­trolyz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/how-a-pem-electrolyser-works/6720/). You also prob­a­bly know that hydro­gen can be con­vert­ed back into elec­tric­i­ty. There are two main ways to do this. The most well-known way is via fuel cells. This process essen­tial­ly revers­es what hap­pens in a PEM elec­trolyz­er. Hydro­gen gas splits at the PEM; pro­tons pass through while elec­trons are forced to take a detour through an exter­nal cir­cuit, gen­er­at­ing elec­tric­i­ty. On the oth­er side, they recom­bine with oxy­gen to form water. Pret­ty clever, right? But there is a much sim­pler way: a reg­u­lar gas tur­bine. In sim­ple terms, a gas tur­bine can be described as a jet engine where fuel (hydro­gen in our case) is burned, and the jet stream caus­es a pow­er tur­bine to spin. The rota­tion of the tur­bine is prop­a­gat­ed via a shaft to an elec­tric gen­er­a­tor. Out comes elec­tric­i­ty. Ta-da! The abil­i­ty to con­vert elec­tric­i­ty to hydro­gen and back to elec­tric­i­ty opens up many excit­ing appli­ca­tions. Basi­cal­ly, they all involve stor­ing elec­tri­cal ener­gy as clean hydro­gen for a short or long peri­od. Short-term stor­age can be used to bal­ance the elec­tric­i­ty grid. Longer-term stor­age can be used to cap­ture excess ener­gy from sun­ny or windy days to feed into the grid when the sun is not shin­ing and the wind is not blow­ing. Alter­na­tive­ly, hydro­gen can be used as a fos­sil-free fuel in back­up pow­er plants dur­ing cold win­ter days. ![Mischievous Boy Plays Toy Model Power Plant](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mischievous-boy-plays-toy-model-power-plant-1200x686.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#chemicals-processes)**Chemicals & processes** Our flight has now reached the per­haps least known and least talked about appli­ca­tion area for clean hydro­gen: Replac­ing the dirty hydro­gen, known as gray, brown, and black hydro­gen, with clean hydro­gen, known as green hydro­gen. (Won­der­ing about the col­ors? See our [tech­ni­cal brief on the col­ors of hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/hydrogen-classification-systems/6529/).) Chem­i­cal and process indus­tries use huge amounts of hydro­gen every day. One of the biggest uses is the pro­duc­tion of life-sav­ing [fer­til­iz­er](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/hydrogen-feeds-the-world/6691/), but there are many more. More than 95 per­cent of the hydro­gen used in the indus­try comes from nat­ur­al gas con­vert­ed into hydro­gen with huge amounts of CO2 as a by-prod­uct. A small frac­tion of this CO2 is cap­tured and tucked away in the ground or used for some­thing bet­ter. How­ev­er, an over­whelm­ing amount is emit­ted direct­ly into the atmos­phere, where it con­tributes to the green­house effect. To meet the goal of stop­ping glob­al warm­ing at 2° C, vir­tu­al­ly all of this hydro­gen must be pro­duced by elec­trolyz­ers fed with fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty. This is a huge but often for­got­ten mar­ket for clean hydrogen. The icing on the cake, if the expres­sion is allowed in this dire con­text, is the emer­gence of new indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions for clean hydro­gen. Most notable are steel mills, whose pol­lut­ing process­es can be replaced by new­er and clean­er ones using green hydrogen. ![Mischievous Boy Plays Toy Model Chemical Industry Plant](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mischievous-boy-plays-toy-model-chemical-industry-plant-1200x686.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#aviation-shipping)**Aviation & shipping** With a sense of hope, we leave the indus­try behind and approach our own air­space: trans­porta­tion by air and sea. When it comes to light air­craft and small boats, bat­ter­ies may have a future. But as soon as we talk about planes for more than one or two peo­ple and boats that trans­port peo­ple and goods over long dis­tances, bat­ter­ies become imprac­ti­cal. These appli­ca­tions would require bat­ter­ies that take up far too much valu­able space and weigh way too much. Since I am singing the prais­es of hydro­gen (obvi­ous­ly), you now antic­i­pate that I will say that clean hydro­gen is the solu­tion to all pol­lu­tion from avi­a­tion and ship­ping. Right? Gotcha! Clean hydro­gen is *not* the solu­tion. Not direct­ly, that is. Although hydro­gen has a very high ener­gy den­si­ty by weight (approx­i­mate­ly three times the ener­gy of jet fuel or diesel), it has a very low ener­gy den­si­ty by vol­ume (approx­i­mate­ly one-sixth the ener­gy of jet fuel or diesel at 200 bar pres­sure). This means that gas tanks to pro­pel air­planes and ships would take up far too much space. The vol­ume can be reduced by cool­ing the hydro­gen to a liq­uid state. How­ev­er, hydro­gen only becomes liq­uid at −253 °C. That’s only 20 °C above absolute zero! Safe­ly keep­ing the gas that cold is tricky. More­over, it would require a lot of ener­gy, which means that even more fuel would have to be trans­port­ed. In the end, the reward for all the trou­ble is lim­it­ed. Liq­uid hydro­gen still has a very low ener­gy den­si­ty per vol­ume (about a quar­ter of the ener­gy in jet fuel or diesel). So, what’s the solution? Marine engines are tough bug­gers that can run on almost any­thing that burns. So, the best solu­tion for them is to replace diesel or crude oil with e‑fuel or clean ammo­nia. As you can read in the arti­cle on [e‑fuel](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/e-fuel-made-of-hydrogen/6622/) and [fer­til­iz­ers](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/hydrogen-feeds-the-world/6691/), these fuels can be pro­duced from clean hydrogen. Air­craft engines are more del­i­cate crea­tures. But again, e‑fuel is the solu­tion in the form of e‑jetfuel. ![Mischievous Boy Plays Toy Airplane](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mischievous-boy-plays-toy-airplane-1200x686.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#land-transportation)**Land transportation** Final­ly, we have arrived at the last appli­ca­tion area for clean hydro­gen: land transportation. It is a vast field span­ning every­thing from exca­va­tors, bull­doz­ers, and back­hoe load­ers through taxis, par­cel deliv­ery, and ser­vice vans to bus­es, trains, and trucks. But none of this is like­ly to be what the Jone­ses think of when talk­ing about uses of hydro­gen for land transportation. Ask any­one around you, and the chances are pret­ty good that they will men­tion hydro­gen-fueled cars. If they can spec­i­fy what they mean, they are almost cer­tain­ly talk­ing about fuel-cell cars. I think it’s safe to say that the fuel cell car is the poster child for hydro­gen. Don’t you agree? A fuel cell con­verts hydro­gen from a tank and oxy­gen from an air intake into elec­tric­i­ty and water. In a fuel cell car, this elec­tric­i­ty pow­ers elec­tric motors. So, a fuel cell car is actu­al­ly an elec­tric car where the bat­tery has been replaced by fuel cells. The biggest pro­po­nents of this approach are Toy­ota, BMW, Hyundai, Hon­da, Jaguar Land Rover, Pin­in­fa­ri­na, River­sim­ple, and Hype­r­i­on Motors. (I hope I didn’t for­get anyone.) But why over­com­pli­cate things? Why not direct­ly fuel the good old inter­nal com­bus­tion engine, found in all gaso­line and diesel vehi­cles, with hydro­gen? After all, hydro­gen is high­ly com­bustible, as evi­denced by the infa­mous Hin­den­burg dis­as­ter. The only thing that needs to be done is to make the engine more resis­tant to high­er tem­per­a­tures and greater forces. Some car man­u­fac­tur­ers seem to agree. Hon­da, Kawasa­ki, Suzu­ki, Toy­ota, and Yama­ha are all explor­ing this route. ![Mischievous Boy Plays Toy Steam Locomotive](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/mischievous-boy-plays-toy-steam-locomotive-1200x686.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#circling-back)**Circling back** We have now com­plet­ed two over­flights of the land­scape with clean hydro­gen appli­ca­tions. The first was a quick overview at a high alti­tude. The sec­ond flight was at a low­er alti­tude and gave us a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to see all pos­si­ble areas of use for clean hydro­gen. Now it’s time for some fly­bys. We can’t take a clos­er look at all the appli­ca­tions; there are too many. But we’ll have time for a few any­way. So let’s begin one last lap to fly­by some of the more intrigu­ing appli­ca­tion areas. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cement)**Cement** We start with the cement indus­try, which is an exam­ple of high-tem­per­a­ture indus­tri­al heat. To pro­duce cement, the cement indus­try heats lime­stone, clay, and min­er­als in rotary kilns to 1,450 °C. The result­ing *clink­er* is then ground into a fine pow­der and mixed with gypsum. The heat­ing comes at a high cli­mate toll. Approx­i­mate­ly 1 bil­lion tons of CO2 are emit­ted annu­al­ly when the kilns are heat­ed with coal, oil, and nat­ur­al gas. On top of that, comes addi­tion­al 1.5 bil­lion tons of car­bon diox­ide inevitably pro­duced by the chem­i­cal reac­tion that occurs when lime­stone (CaCO3) is reduced to cal­ci­um oxide (CaO) in the kilns. Togeth­er, the cement indus­try’s car­bon foot­print accounts for almost 7% of the world’s car­bon emissions. Clean hydro­gen can be used togeth­er with bio­mass to com­plete­ly decar­bonize the heat­ing. The rea­son why they want to mix bio­mass has some­thing to do with the shape of the flames. Don’t ask. But what to do with 1.5 bil­lion cap­tured CO2? One idea the cement indus­try is con­sid­er­ing is to use it in the pro­duc­tion of e‑fuel – which, as you know, also requires clean hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#grid-balancing)**Grid balancing** As we head towards the next fly­by, we ask our­selves how dif­fi­cult it can be to main­tain a pow­er sys­tem? Damn hard if you ask any­one with knowl­edge about it. The dif­fi­cul­ty lies in ensur­ing that elec­tric pow­er plants feed into the grid exact­ly as many elec­trons as busi­ness­es and house­holds take out of the grid – at any giv­en moment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Keep­ing this bal­ance is called grid balancing. If there is an imbal­ance between sup­ply and demand, gen­er­a­tors absorb extra ener­gy by spin­ning faster or pro­duce more ener­gy by spin­ning slow­er. How­ev­er, since the rota­tion speed also con­trols the fre­quen­cy of the grid (ide­al­ly 50 HZ or 60 Hz), this reg­u­la­tion leads to an increase or decrease in frequency. Only minor devi­a­tions are allowed to pro­tect elec­tri­cal equip­ment from being dam­aged. There­fore, elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion must also be planned so that more elec­tric­i­ty is pro­duced when demand is expect­ed to be high (for instance, dur­ing the day), and less elec­tric­i­ty is pro­duced when demand is expect­ed to be low (for instance, at night). But renew­able elec­tric­i­ty is not so easy to plan. The sun ris­es and sets every day and plays peek-a-boo behind clouds in between. And the only con­stant about the wind is that its strength is ever-chang­ing. That’s why it’s com­mon for wind farm own­ers, for exam­ple, to be paid to shut down their wind tur­bines when the wind blows. Not what you expect­ed, huh? A more effi­cient approach is to have solar pan­els, or wind tur­bines gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty when pos­si­ble and use any excess elec­tric­i­ty to cre­ate hydro­gen using a PEM elec­trolyz­er. This hydro­gen is stored until there’s a high­er demand for elec­tric­i­ty than what the solar or wind farm can sup­ply. At that point, the stored hydro­gen is turned back into elec­tric­i­ty using fuel cells or gas turbines. A relat­ed use for clean hydro­gen is as fuel for peak­ing pow­er plants. You know, the ones that are dor­mant most of the time but are start­ed up on peak demand, like cold win­ter morn­ings, for exam­ple. These plants often run on coal, oil, or nat­ur­al gas, lead­ing to car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. An alter­na­tive is to use clean hydro­gen as fuel. This hydro­gen can be pro­duced by an on-site PEM elec­trolyz­er that gets its elec­tric­i­ty from solar cells or a wind tur­bine on the roof. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#steel)**Steel** Next, we set the course for areas of appli­ca­tion in chem­i­cals and process­es, where one of the more notable and promis­ing appli­ca­tions is steel production. Glob­al steel pro­duc­tion results in the release of 3.7 bil­lion tons of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere. This is more than 10% of all car­bon diox­ide emit­ted by human activ­i­ty. A fig­ure that def­i­nite­ly needs to come down if we are to meet the 2 °C cli­mate target. Car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in steel pro­duc­tion main­ly come from two sources. First, coal, oil, and nat­ur­al gas are used to heat blast fur­naces. Sec­ond, and more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, coal is added to the fur­naces to cre­ate car­bon monox­ide, which reacts with iron ore, specif­i­cal­ly hematite (Fe2O3) and mag­netite (Fe3O4), con­vert­ing it into pig iron. The good news is that hydro­gen can replace coal in the process of reduc­ing iron ore to pig iron. It’s cur­rent­ly being test­ed in sev­er­al sites inSwe­den, Ger­many, Spain, South Korea, UK, Nor­way, and Austria. By using clean hydro­gen both to heat­en the fur­naces and to replace coal in the reduc­tion process, it is pos­si­ble to com­plete­ly reduce the car­bon diox­ide emis­sions from steel mak­ing and thus pro­duce green steel. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#long-distance-cargo-shipping)**Long-distance cargo shipping** We steer our flight towards the ocean. On the hori­zon, we see car­go ships with sooty diesel exhaust trail­ing behind them like long, dirty tails. The mar­itime indus­try is a sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor to car­bon emis­sions, with long-dis­tance car­go ships releas­ing about 1 bil­lion tons of CO2 annu­al­ly. For these ves­sels, bat­ter­ies are imprac­ti­cal due to their size and weight, mak­ing green hydro­gen a key part of the solution. How­ev­er, using hydro­gen direct­ly in inter­nal com­bus­tion engines pos­es chal­lenges due to its low vol­u­met­ric ener­gy den­si­ty, mean­ing it requires too much space. This makes it unlike­ly for large ocean-going ships to adopt hydro­gen com­bus­tion engines or fuel cell-pow­ered elec­tric motors. The most promis­ing alter­na­tives are syn­thet­ic fuels. The con­tenders are e‑methanol, e‑methane, and clean ammonia. E‑methanol and e‑methane, on the one hand, are pro­duced by com­bin­ing car­bon diox­ide and clean hydro­gen. In the best case, the car­bon diox­ide is cap­tured from the air, which is cli­mate neu­tral; in the worst case, car­bon diox­ide is cap­tured on its way to be released, which only post­pones the release. Clean ammo­nia, on the oth­er hand, is pro­duced by com­bin­ing nitro­gen tak­en direct­ly from the air with clean hydrogen. So far, e‑methanol has tak­en the lead. Both e‑methanol pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties are being built, such as Flag­shipONE, which I talked about in [the post on e‑fuel](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/e-fuel-made-of-hydrogen/6622/), and e‑methanol-pow­ered ships, such as the Lau­ra Maer­sk, which will be launched in 2023. How­ev­er, clean ammo­nia is the new and cool kid on the block. It has recent­ly gained a lot of trac­tion in mar­itime cir­cles and is being active­ly pro­mot­ed around the globe. The con­struc­tion of clean ammo­nia pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties is under­way in sev­er­al coun­tries, includ­ing Nor­way, the Nether­lands, South Korea, Chile, and Japan. Com­pa­nies like MAN Ener­gy Solu­tions and Mit­subishi Heavy Indus­tries are lead­ing the devel­op­ment of inno­v­a­tive ammo­nia-pow­ered engines. In Nor­way, the first con­tain­er ship pow­ered by clean ammo­nia, Yara Eyde, will be launched in 2026. # **Coastal and river shipping** E‑methanol, e‑methane, and clean ammo­nia can all be used by fer­ries, coastal freighters, river­boats, tugs, barges, and oth­er ves­sels oper­at­ing over short­er dis­tances and time. But for these ves­sels, it’s per­fect­ly rea­son­able to use hydro­gen direct­ly to pro­pel them. The pre­dom­i­nant approach is fuel cells that con­vert hydro­gen into elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er elec­tric motors. An exam­ple of this approach is HEAVENN in the North­ern Nether­lands, which aims to build a ded­i­cat­ed hydro­gen trans­port infra­struc­ture includ­ing pipelines, stor­age facil­i­ties, and refueling/​bunkering points for var­i­ous appli­ca­tions, includ­ing mar­itime shipping. On the ves­sel side, MF Hydra serves as a notable exam­ple, being the world’s first fer­ry pow­ered by hydro­gen. Deliv­ered in 2021, this 82.4‑meter-long fer­ry can car­ry up to 80 vehi­cles and 300 pas­sen­gers, cruis­ing at a speed of 9 knots. It’s oper­at­ed by the Nor­we­gian com­pa­ny Norled. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#public-transport-buses)**Public transport buses** We fly in over land again and come to the last appli­ca­tion area for hydro­gen: land trans­porta­tion and non-road mobile machin­ery. There are var­i­ous appli­ca­tions here. Let’s fly­by some of them. Hydro­gen-pow­ered bus­es, main­ly dri­ven by elec­tric motors using elec­tric­i­ty from fuel cells but also inter­nal com­bus­tion engines run­ning on hydro­gen, have been on the agen­da for decades. Many cities, includ­ing Lon­don, Tokyo, and Los Ange­les, have inte­grat­ed hydro­gen-pow­ered bus­es for pub­lic trans­porta­tion into their fleets. The appeal lies in their zero emis­sions, longer range, and quick refu­el­ing times com­pared to bat­tery elec­tric buses. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#passenger-trains)**Passenger trains** The French train man­u­fac­tur­er Alstom is invest­ing heav­i­ly in hydro­gen trains. They devel­op, man­u­fac­ture, and sell hydro­gen-pow­ered trains for inter­ci­ty and region­al ser­vice. The trains are called Cora­dia iLint and have been eval­u­at­ed in sev­er­al countries. Alstrom is far from alone. Close behind are Siemens, CRRC, Toy­ota, Hyundai Rotem, Bal­lard Pow­er Sys­tems, and Stadler Rail. There are sev­er­al coun­tries and rail­way com­pa­nies that are hot on their heels, includ­ing the USA, Japan, Unit­ed King­dom, Japan, and India, and even more are think­ing about get­ting hydro­gen-pow­ered trains. But when it comes to adopt­ing hydro­gen-pow­ered trains, Ger­many has tak­en the lead. In Sep­tem­ber 2018, Germany’s Low­er Sax­ony launched the world’s first hydro­gen-pow­ered pas­sen­ger train for com­mer­cial use. Then, in August 2022, Low­er Sax­ony intro­duced the first rail­way line run entire­ly by hydro­gen-pow­ered trains in Bremervörde. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#taxi)**Taxi** Dri­ving a car in Paris requires a *Crit’Air vignette* – a wind­shield stick­er show­ing how envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly the car is with num­bers from 0 (zero emis­sions) to 5 (most pol­lut­ing). From 2024, only vehi­cles with Crit’Air 0 or 1 vignettes are allowed in Paris. From 2030, Crit’Air 0 will be required. These tough require­ments have spurred the Parisian taxi sector’s inter­est in hydro­gen cars. Hype describes itself as the first zero-emis­sion mobil­i­ty plat­form. We mere mor­tals call them a taxi com­pa­ny. In 2023, they had 550 hydro­gen taxis oper­at­ing in Paris. By the end of 2024, they plan to have 1,500 hydro­gen taxis. In 2019, Hype, Toy­ota, Air Liq­uide, and Idex joined forces to form Hyst­Co with the aim of build­ing a net­work of fill­ing sta­tions for hydro­gen and mobil­i­ty-relat­ed appli­ca­tions. The lat­ter has so far man­i­fest­ed itself in the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pro­fes­sion­als leas­ing a car or van run­ning on hydro­gen. Since its cre­ation, more com­pa­nies have joined and pumped mil­lions of euros into the com­pa­ny. By the end of 2023, Hyset­Co will dis­trib­ute more than 23 tons of hydro­gen per month to its cus­tomers and man­age a fleet of more than 550 hydro­gen vehicles. Both Hype and Hyset­Co have ambi­tions to rapid­ly expand their oper­a­tions through­out France. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#parcel-delivery-pickups-and-service-vans)**Parcel delivery pickups and service vans** From taxis to par­cel deliv­ery, it’s a short step. From an oper­a­tional per­spec­tive, they are very sim­i­lar. In both cas­es, the vehi­cles typ­i­cal­ly dri­ve 400–600 kilo­me­ters per day and need to count the time to refu­el in min­utes instead of hours. There­fore, hydro­gen is an inter­est­ing alter­na­tive to bat­ter­ies as these sec­tors move away from gaso­line and diesel to car­bon-free alternatives. But unlike taxis, which are well on their way, most par­cel deliv­ery com­pa­nies are still in the park­ing lot, with only a few small-scale pilots run­ning in the field. One exam­ple is FedEx, which has start­ed a tri­al of a hydro­gen-pow­ered vehi­cle in its pick­up and deliv­ery oper­a­tions in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The same is true for ser­vice vans. But it is only a mat­ter of time before green hydro­gen fuels every van or light com­mer­cial vehi­cle (LCV), as it is called in indus­try lin­go. At least that’s the belief of First Hydro­gen – a Cana­di­an-British start-up that is devel­op­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing its own light com­mer­cial vehi­cle and set­ting up a net­work of refu­el­ing stations. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#line-haul-and-long-haul-transport)**Line-haul and long-haul transport** From the many but short dis­tances cov­ered by par­cel deliv­ery pick­ups, we enter the realm of heavy trucks. They can be divid­ed into line-haul and long-haul. The dif­fer­ence lies in how far they dri­ve. Line-haul refers to trans­port to des­ti­na­tions such as ports or logis­tics cen­ters, usu­al­ly with­in one day, while long-haul refers to longer trans­ports that take days or weeks to com­plete. For both appli­ca­tions, hydro­gen is on the rise. In Switzer­land, for exam­ple, 47 heavy trucks by Hyundai are in use by logis­tics, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and retail fleet oper­a­tors. These trucks are named XCIENT Fuel Cell. As the name sug­gests, they have elec­tric motors pow­ered by hydro­gen fuel cells. H2Haul is an EU-fund­ed project that aims to run 16 long-haul heavy-duty fuel cell trucks for more than one mil­lion kilo­me­ters under nor­mal com­mer­cial con­di­tions to demon­strate high reli­a­bil­i­ty. The project also includes hydro­gen refu­el­ing infra­struc­ture. Users include BMW in Ger­many, Car­refour in France, Coop in Switzer­land, and Col­ruyt Group in Belgium. HyTrucks is a con­sor­tium start­ed by Air Liq­uide, DATS 24, and the ports of Rot­ter­dam, Antwerp, and Duis­burg. Today, it con­sists of over 70 com­pa­nies and coun­tries. The con­sor­tium is based on two sim­ple ideas: First, the tran­si­tion from a diesel ecosys­tem to a hydro­gen ecosys­tem can only suc­ceed if all rel­e­vant par­ties are involved. Sec­ond, hydro­gen is very suit­able as an ener­gy car­ri­er for heavy-duty trans­porta­tion. HyTrucks wants at least a thou­sand heavy-duty hydro­gen trucks on the road by 2025. At the same time, they also want to have at least 25 oper­a­tional hydro­gen refu­el­ing sta­tions. The trucks will be deployed main­ly in the tri­an­gle between three of the major logis­tics hotspots in West­ern Europe – the ports of Rot­ter­dam, Antwerp, and Duis­burg – as well as in Ger­many, Lux­em­bourg, and France. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#non-road-mobile-machinery)**Non-road mobile machinery** *Non-road mobile machin­ery (NRMM)* is a bit of a mouth­ful. The term cov­ers all types of work machines, includ­ing exca­va­tors, cranes, fork­lifts, bull­doz­ers, har­vesters, back­hoe load­ers, trac­tors, and plow trucks. Hydro­gen for direct com­bus­tion, fuel cells, or in the form of e‑fuel is very attrac­tive to use in NRMM for sev­er­al rea­sons. Beyond the obvi­ous one that they don’t con­tribute to the green­house effect and have quick refu­el­ing times com­pared to a bat­tery, there are two major ben­e­fits spe­cif­ic to this cat­e­go­ry of vehicles. First of all, they don’t pol­lute where they oper­ate. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly desir­able when used in con­fined spaces, such as ware­hous­es or mines, but is also desir­able in agri­cul­ture and sen­si­tive nat­ur­al areas. (Notice that e‑fuel doesn’t have this ben­e­fit; the com­bus­tion of e‑fuel releas­es the CO2 cap­tured dur­ing production.) Sec­ond, with its abil­i­ty to be trans­port­ed and stored, hydro­gen is a viable option for remote and off-grid oper­a­tions where elec­tric­i­ty is not avail­able to charge batteries. Sev­er­al well-known con­struc­tion equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers, includ­ing Vol­vo Con­struc­tion Equip­ment, Hyzon Motors, and Lieb­herr, are invest­ing heav­i­ly in hydro­gen, either in the form of fuel cells or hydro­gen-pow­ered inter­nal com­bus­tion engines. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny that has made the most head­lines is JCB, one of the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­ers of con­struc­tion equip­ment. They have devel­oped a back­hoe loader with a hydro­gen com­bus­tion engine and a fuel cell-pow­ered forklift. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#landing)**Landing** Oh boy. It was a long flight, but now we have land­ed. It was excit­ing, wasn’t it? Clean hydro­gen is indeed on its way. So many appli­ca­tions! And they all need PEM elec­trolyz­ers galore. And since we’re sit­ting on a key tech­nol­o­gy to enable this growth at a rea­son­able price, it’s hard not to think that Smoltek Hydro­gen will be a suc­cess. Don’t you agree? --- title: "Hydrogen feeds the world" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen-feeds-the-world/6691/" date: 2024-02-08 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/japanese-bathhouse.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "ammonia" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ammonia.md" - name: "fertilizer" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fertilizer.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" --- # Hydrogen feeds the world Which mod­ern inven­tion has meant the most to human­i­ty? The steam engine, train, air­plane, car, space rock­et, nuclear pow­er, radio, tele­vi­sion, com­put­er, AI, …? The list of con­tenders is long. But none of them can match… Sound a fan­fare, please! …the Haber-Bosch process. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#haber-bosch)**Haber & Bosch** Haber and Bosch!? What have Peter Haber and Har­ry Bosch done for human­i­ty? you ask in disbelief. Well, they have enter­tained us. At least a few of us. Peter Haber is a Swedish actor best known for play­ing Mar­tin Beck, and Har­ry Bosch is a fic­tion­al char­ac­ter in Michael Connelly’s nov­els. But they are, of course, not the Haber and Bosch behind the mod­ern inven­tion that has meant the most to humanity. The Haber and Bosch I am talk­ing about are the Ger­man chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. They devel­oped a chem­i­cal process in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry that now car­ries their name. This process has been jus­ti­fi­ably described as “the most impor­tant inven­tion of the twen­ti­eth century.” But before we dig into what the process does and why it deserves the first spot above all oth­er con­tenders, we need to take a deep breath and get some context. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nitrogen)**Nitrogen** The breath we just took con­tained 78 per­cent nitro­gen gas (N2). 78.1 per­cent, to be exact. That makes nitro­gen (N), by far, the most com­mon ele­ment in the air we breathe. It is also one of the most com­mon  ele­ments in the whole universe. Nitro­gen is also one of the build­ing blocks of life. Lit­er­al­ly. It’s in amino acids, pro­teins, DNA, RNA and ATP. (The lat­ter is the fuel that our cells run on.) But it’s not by breath­ing air that your body gets the nitro­gen it needs. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-nutrient-source-of-nitrogen)**The nutrient source of nitrogen** You get nitro­gen by eat­ing plants, or by eat­ing ani­mals that have pre­vi­ous­ly eat­en plants, or by eat­ing ani­mals that have pre­vi­ous­ly eat­en oth­er ani­mals that have pre­vi­ous­ly eaten… Ok, you get the pic­ture. The food chain. The point is that plants are ulti­mate­ly our source of nitro­gen intake. But how does the nitro­gen get into the plants? Sim­ple: their roots absorb it from the soil they grow in. But how does the nitro­gen end up in the soil? you ask relentlessly. Today, the pri­ma­ry source is nitro­gen fer­til­iz­er that farm­ers spread on fields. But let’s hold off on that. We start by look­ing at how nature does it with­out the help of humans. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nitrogen-fixation)**Nitrogen fixation** Enter the scene: Diazotrophs. What? *Dia­zotrophs* is a col­lec­tive name for bac­te­ria and oth­er microor­gan­isms that con­vert nitro­gen in the air into nitro­gen com­pounds, main­ly ammo­nia (NH3), which plants can take up. This process is called *nitro­gen fix­a­tion*. Despite all the excit­ing infor­ma­tion about nitro­gen, you may won­der when we will get to hydro­gen. After all, that’s what you’re inter­est­ed in. Look no fur­ther than the chem­i­cal for­mu­la for ammo­nia – NH3 – and you might see where I’m going. There are three hydro­gen atoms per nitro­gen atom. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nitrogens-circle-of-life)**Nitrogen’s circle of life** When plants die, bac­te­ria and fun­gi sink their teeth into the remains. (Fig­u­ra­tive­ly speak­ing, of course; bac­te­ria and fun­gi have no teeth.) The same thing even­tu­al­ly hap­pens to ani­mals and humans as well. Their remains con­tain nitro­gen com­pounds (pro­teins, DNA, RNA, and so on). Some microbes can break these down, releas­ing nitro­gen into the atmos­phere. This process is called *den­i­tri­fi­ca­tion*.Nitro­gen fix­a­tion and den­i­tri­fi­ca­tion are thus part of the great cir­cle of life, which Mufasa teach­es young Sim­ba in the movie The Lion King. This cycle is known in sci­ence as the *nitro­gen cycle*. Lis­ten to the song *Cir­cle Of Life* from the movie The Lion King. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#need-for-fertilizers)**Need for fertilizers** Does the nitro­gen cycle go by itself? If nature is left to take care of itself, the nitro­gen cycle ticks along with­out any prob­lems. But as soon as human­i­ty put the plow in the ground and start­ed farm­ing, the bal­ance was disturbed. If crops are grown in the same place over a few years, the plants take up more nitro­gen from the soil than nat­ur­al process­es can restore. This is why humans have come up with strate­gies such as slash-and-burn agri­cul­ture, crop rota­tion, and fertilization. The prac­tice of fer­til­iza­tion dates back to ancient times, with ear­ly civ­i­liza­tions such as the Sume­ri­ans and Egyp­tians using manure to enrich soil around 2000 BCE. This ear­ly form of fer­til­iza­tion helped improve crop yields, show­cas­ing human­i­ty’s ini­tial under­stand­ing of enhanc­ing soil fer­til­i­ty for agri­cul­tur­al purposes. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#father-of-the-fertilizer-industry)**Father of the fertilizer industry** Manure and humus have been used as fer­til­iz­ers since the time of the Sume­ri­ans and the Egyp­tians. How­ev­er, the idea of cre­at­ing a syn­thet­ic fer­til­iz­er was not born until the 19th century. In his ground­break­ing book *Die organ­is­che Chemie in ihrer Anwen­dung auf Agri­cul­tur und Phys­i­olo­gie*, first pub­lished in 1840, the Ger­man chemist Jus­tus von Liebig argued that nitro­gen com­pounds, such as ammo­nia, were need­ed to grow the health­i­est crops pos­si­ble. This earned him the epi­thet “father of the fer­til­iz­er industry.” Jus­tus von Liebig’s the­o­ry led to a rush for nitro­gen at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry. Salt­peter was mined with an unprece­dent­ed fren­zy, and trop­i­cal rocks were scraped for guano. Watch the video to learn about how the demand for guano led the U.S. to pass a law giv­ing Amer­i­can cit­i­zens exclu­sive rights to guano on unclaimed islands. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#sources-of-nitrogen-fertilizers)**Sources of nitrogen fertilizers** But salt­peter mines and bird poop only went so far. At the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry, it was real­ized that nat­ur­al sources were not suf­fi­cient to meet future needs. This sparked the idea of some­how extract­ing nitro­gen direct­ly from thin air. Sev­er­al meth­ods were devel­oped to fix the nitro­gen in the air. But it was not until the begin­ning of the next cen­tu­ry that the real break­through came, albeit with a hum­ble beginning. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ammonia-from-thin-air)**Ammonia from thin air** In 1905, Fritz Haber pro­duced a small amount of ammo­nia by mix­ing nitro­gen and hydro­gen at 1,000 °C in the pres­ence of an iron cat­a­lyst. How­ev­er, the high tem­per­a­ture made the method impractical. Over the next few years, Fritz Haber refined his tech­nique. In March 1909, he pre­sent­ed a method in which the tem­per­a­ture had been reduced to the more man­age­able range of 500–600 °C. This was accom­plished with high pres­sure. The process requires almost 200 times the air pres­sure (20 MPa). But there was a caveat. The ammo­nia was pro­duced drop by drop; it took 8 hours to pro­duce a sin­gle liter of ammo­nia. Nev­er­the­less, Fritz Haber had demon­strat­ed a viable solu­tion for extract­ing nitro­gen from the air and fix­ing it as ammonia. Watch the video for more infor­ma­tion on Fritz Haber. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#haber-bosch-process)**Haber-Bosch process** The Ger­man chem­i­cal com­pa­ny BASF pur­chased the rights to the process and tasked Carl Bosch with scal­ing up Haber’s table­top machine to indus­tri­al scale. Four years lat­er, the BASF fac­to­ry in Oppau pro­duced five tons of ammo­nia – per day. This is why the process is named after the two men: *The Haber-Bosch process*. Haber and Bosch were award­ed the Nobel Prize in 1918 and 1931, respec­tive­ly, for their work in solv­ing the chem­i­cal and engi­neer­ing prob­lems of large-scale, con­tin­u­ous flow and high-pres­sure technology. ![Fritz Haber Carl Bosch](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/fritz-haber-carl-bosch-600x400.webp) Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#telling-correlation)**Telling correlation** Ini­tial­ly, Haber-Bosch process was main­ly used to pro­duce ammo­nia for the mil­i­tary and indus­try, but after the Sec­ond World War, the use of ammo­nia as a nitro­gen fer­til­iz­er in agri­cul­ture exploded. The increased use of syn­thet­ic nitro­gen fer­til­iz­er led to high­er yields that sup­port­ed a rapid­ly grow­ing pop­u­la­tion. That’s why Pro­fes­sor Vaclav Smil [wrote](https://www.nature.com/articles/22672) in the pres­ti­gious sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Nature that the Haber-Bosch process ”is the most impor­tant inven­tion of the twen­ti­eth century.” ![Global World Population And Fertiliser Use ](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/global-world-population-and-fertiliser-use-600x400.webp) Source: N. Alexan­dratos and J. Bru­ins­ma, *World Agri­cul­ture Towards 2030⁄2050: The 2012 Revi­sion*, Food and Agri­cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tion of the Unit­ed Nations, ESA Work­ing Paper No. 12–03, June 2012. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#high-cost-for-feeding-the-world)**High cost for feeding the world** An often-quot­ed sta­tis­tic is that nitro­gen fer­til­iz­ers are respon­si­ble for feed­ing half the world’s population. Since this fer­til­iz­er is pro­duced through the Haber-Bosch process by con­vert­ing hydro­gen, I think it’s fair to say that hydro­gen feeds the world. Don’t you agree? But the mass adop­tion of syn­thet­ic fer­til­iz­ers has come at a high cost to the envi­ron­ment: harm­ful algal blooms, soil acid­i­fi­ca­tion, and mas­sive green­house gas emissions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#greenhouse-effect)**Greenhouse effect** A [study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2780-0) esti­mates that the pro­duc­tion and use of nitro­gen fer­til­iz­ers, both organ­ic and syn­thet­ic, in food-grow­ing accounts for around 5 per­cent of glob­al green­house gas emis­sions and that this could threat­en efforts to keep glob­al warm­ing below 2 °C. Nitro­gen fer­til­iz­ers con­tribute to the green­house effect in many ways. One issue is that far from all fer­til­iz­er is absorbed by plants, and what remains is bro­ken down by microbes in the soil, pro­duc­ing laugh­ing gas (N2O). That’s not fun­ny at all. (Pun intend­ed, of course.) Laugh­ing gas, or nitrous oxide, which is its chem­i­cal name, is a green­house gas almost 300 times more potent than car­bon diox­ide (CO2). But anoth­er major source is the pro­duc­tion itself. The man­u­fac­ture of arti­fi­cial fer­til­iz­ers is respon­si­ble for almost 1.5 per­cent of total glob­al CO2 emissions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#energy-hungry-monster)**Energy-hungry monster** The Haber-Bosch process is car­ried out at high tem­per­a­tures and pres­sure, turn­ing the pro­duc­tion plants into ener­gy-hun­gry mon­sters. The ener­gy comes from burn­ing nat­ur­al gas. Nat­ur­al gas is also used to pro­duce gray hydro­gen, which is the feed­stock in the Haber-Bosch process. Much hydro­gen is need­ed. Remem­ber that form­ing ammo­nia takes three hydro­gen atoms per nitro­gen atom (NH3). About 40 per­cent of the fos­sil gas input into the process is burned to fuel the reac­tion, with the remain­ing 60 per­cent being used as feedstock. Pro­duc­ing ammo­nia fer­til­iz­ers is respon­si­ble for about 1 per­cent of all glob­al ener­gy use and 1.4 per­cent of CO2 emissions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-dioxide-polluter)**Carbon dioxide polluter** More than 180 mil­lion met­ric tons of ammo­nia are pro­duced annu­al­ly. Near­ly 90 per­cent of ammo­nia is used to pro­duce syn­thet­ic nitro­gen fer­til­iz­ers (includ­ing urea, ammo­ni­um nitrate, and ammo­ni­um phosphate). Pro­duc­ing this mas­sive amount of ammo­nia requires more than 32 mil­lion met­ric tons of hydro­gen. Today, more than 95 per­cent of this hydro­gen is pro­duced from nat­ur­al gas and coal. To pro­duce 32 mil­lion tons of hydro­gen by steam methane reform­ing (SMR), the most com­mon method, approx­i­mate­ly 80 mil­lion tons of nat­ur­al gas are required, assum­ing an effi­cien­cy rate of 80 per­cent for the SMR process. Thus, we can cal­cu­late that 68 mil­lion tons of nat­ur­al gas are need­ed just as a feed­stock in the pro­duc­tion of nitrite fer­til­iz­er. The Haber-Bosch process con­sumes an addi­tion­al 45 mil­lion tons of nat­ur­al gas as fuel. In total, 113 mil­lion tons of nat­ur­al gas are need­ed annu­al­ly to pro­duce syn­thet­ic nitro­gen fertilizers. When all this nat­ur­al gas is used, more than a stag­ger­ing 310 mil­lion met­ric tons of car­bon diox­ide (CO2) are released into the atmosphere. Oops! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#need-for-pem-electrolyzers)**Need for PEM-electrolyzers** For hydro­gen to con­tin­ue to feed half the world while keep­ing glob­al warm­ing below 2 °C, the pro­duc­tion of syn­thet­ic nitro­gen fer­til­iz­ers must switch from fos­sil-based hydro­gen to fos­sil-free hydro­gen rather quickly. How­ev­er, this requires many PEM-elec­trolyz­ers to pro­duce the fos­sil-free hydrogen. Now you under­stand the con­nec­tion between fer­til­iz­ers and Smoltek. You were prob­a­bly wor­ried for a while, as the arti­cle took you on a seem­ing­ly out­landish jour­ney through the his­to­ry of fer­til­iz­ers – from Sume­ri­ans through 1910s Ger­many to today. But as you now under­stand, there is a purpose. Many think hydro­gen will be used main­ly to pow­er cars and oth­er vehi­cles. Some know there are oth­er appli­ca­tions, such as stor­ing excess elec­tric­i­ty from solar and wind tur­bines. But most peo­ple miss the real­ly big appli­ca­tions for elec­trolyz­ers, and one of them is replac­ing nat­ur­al gas used by Haber-Bosch process plants. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-role)**Smoltek’s role** Whether an elec­trolyz­er pro­duces hydro­gen to feed the world or pow­er a sports car, there is a problem. The cell mate­r­i­al in a PEM-elec­trolyz­er con­tains irid­i­um. Today, 2.0 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um are used per square cen­time­ter. That doesn’t sound like much, but it is a lot, giv­en that irid­i­um is a scarce met­al prac­ti­cal­ly only mined in South Africa. (Some are also mined in Cana­da and Russia.) The price of irid­i­um is sky-high and expect­ed to rise sharply with the increased demand, as it is prac­ti­cal­ly impos­si­ble to extract more per year than already done. This is why all man­u­fac­tur­ers and buy­ers of PEM elec­trolyz­ers want to reduce the amount of irid­i­um from the cur­rent 2.0 to an ambi­tious 0.1 mil­ligrams per square centimeter. Researchers and devel­op­ers world­wide are work­ing fran­ti­cal­ly to reach this dream goal. So are we. And I would say that we are [ahead of the game](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/smoltek-pem-cell-material-benchmarked-at-ecs-244th-meeting/6380/) thanks to our [unfair advan­tage](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/smolteks-unfair-advantage/6582/).So, if you ever had doubts about the deci­sion to pur­sue the [hydro­gen mar­ket](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/) in par­al­lel with the [semi­con­duc­tor mar­ket](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/), it’s time to stop doubt­ing. Don’t you agree? ### Read about the top image The top image sym­bol­izes the purifi­ca­tion bath that arti­fi­cial fer­til­iz­er goes through. The crea­ture being washed rep­re­sents arti­fi­cial nitro­gen fer­til­iz­er. It is cov­ered in dirty coal and oil and stinks of fos­sil gas­es. The girl rep­re­sents every­one invest­ing in green hydro­gen, wash­ing the crea­ture clean, and bring­ing forth a kind crea­ture that helps human­i­ty feed itself. The image is pro­duced using AI with the fol­low­ing prompt: *Craft an illus­tra­tion in the style of seinen ani­me, show­cas­ing a mag­i­cal moment with­in a tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese bath­house. An inno­cent-look­ing lit­tle girl is depict­ed wash­ing a large, gen­tle crea­ture. The crea­ture is designed to appear friend­ly and non-threat­en­ing, con­tribut­ing to the whim­si­cal atmos­phere of the scene. Half of the crea­ture has been cleaned, its skin a vibrant deep green, with ethe­re­al light blue bub­bles float­ing upwards, enhanc­ing the fairy­tale aspect of the illus­tra­tion. The oth­er half is still grimy, coat­ed with coal and oil, from which dark smoke bil­lows, cre­at­ing a stark con­trast between the crea­ture’s two halves. The back­ground fea­tures the bath­house, detailed with tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese archi­tec­ture, and is enveloped in a soft, mag­i­cal glow, sug­gest­ing a world where the ordi­nary blends with the fan­tas­ti­cal. The com­po­si­tion, light­ing, and col­or scheme are care­ful­ly cho­sen to evoke a sense of won­der, high­light­ing the mag­i­cal inter­ac­tion between the girl and the crea­ture, and immers­ing the view­er in a fairy­tale-like setting.* --- title: "E‑fuel made of hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/e-fuel-made-of-hydrogen/6622/" date: 2024-01-31 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/efuel.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "e-fuel" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/e-fuel.md" --- # E‑fuel made of hydrogen It’s evi­dent to every­one that we can’t keep pump­ing oil and gas to fuel our vehi­cles for much longer; every liter increas­es the amount of car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere and warms the Earth. But that doesn’t mean we must scrap or rebuild all vehi­cles. With hydro­gen pro­duced by elec­trolyz­ers pow­ered with fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty and cap­tured car­bon diox­ide, it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate car­bon-neu­tral equiv­a­lents to today’s fuel. These are called *elec­tro­fu­els*, or *e‑fuels*, and you can learn more about them in this post. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#hydrocarbons)Hydrocarbons Vir­tu­al­ly all motor vehi­cles – cars, trains, boats, planes, and rock­ets – are pow­ered by mix­tures of hydro­car­bons. These chem­i­cal com­pounds are chains and rings of dif­fer­ent num­bers of car­bon atoms from which hydro­gen atoms dan­gle like charms. The hydro­car­bons we use to pow­er vehi­cles come from fos­sils, main­ly algae and plank­ton, which have been trans­formed over hun­dreds of thou­sands of years into gas­es and the vis­cous yel­low-black liq­uid we call petro­le­um, crude oil, or sim­ply oil. These nat­ur­al resources are refined, cracked, and blend­ed into liq­uid nat­ur­al gas (LNG), liq­uid petro­le­um gas (LPG), methanol, jet fuel, gaso­line, kerosene, diesel, or oth­er petro­le­um prod­ucts we use to fuel our vehicles. ### Crash course on hydrocarbons The fos­sil fuel indus­tries use the term *hydro­car­bon* to refer to nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring petro­le­um, nat­ur­al gas, and coal, as well as their deriv­a­tives and puri­fied forms. Com­bus­tion of hydro­car­bons is the pri­ma­ry source of the world’s energy. Pure hydro­car­bon is an organ­ic com­pound con­sist­ing entire­ly of hydro­gen and car­bon. In sim­ple terms, a hydro­car­bon can be described as a chain or ring of car­bon atoms to which hydro­gen atoms are bonded. The num­ber of car­bon atoms and how hydro­gen atoms are bond­ed to the car­bon atoms give rise to many dif­fer­ent types of hydrocarbons. Nat­ur­al gas, LPG, jet fuel, gaso­line, kerosene, diesel, and oth­er petro­le­um prod­ucts con­sist of mix­tures of hydro­car­bons. Some examples: *Nat­ur­al gas* con­sists of hydro­car­bons with 1–2 car­bon atoms, pre­dom­i­nant­ly methane and then ethane. If nat­ur­al gas is cooled to ‑163 °C, it becomes a liq­uid and is then called *liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG)*. *Liq­ue­fied petro­le­um gas (LPG)* con­sists of hydro­car­bons with 3–4 car­bon atoms, main­ly propane, propy­lene, butane, isobu­tane, and buty­lene. It is nor­mal­ly han­dled under pres­sure which makes it liq­uid. When used in vehi­cles, LPG is often called *auto­gas* or just *gas*. *Jet fuel* con­sists of hydro­car­bons with 5–16 car­bon atoms. *Gaso­line* con­sists of hydro­car­bons with 10–15 car­bon atoms. *Kerosene* con­sists of hydro­car­bons with 11–18 car­bon atoms. *Diesel* con­sists of hydro­car­bons with 16 car­bon atoms or more. Hydro­car­bons should not be con­fused with car­bo­hy­drates; that would have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for both you and your car. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#unsustainable)Unsustainable As you know, we are extract­ing more gas and oil than nature can restore. This is not sus­tain­able, which the 1973 oil cri­sis made peo­ple painful­ly aware of. But this is a minor con­cern com­pared to the cli­mate cri­sis we are head­ing straight into. Burn­ing fos­sil fuels releas­es a lot of car­bon diox­ide (CO2) into the atmos­phere. This gas traps heat from the sun, like a seal, caus­ing the Earth­’s tem­per­a­ture to rise sim­i­lar to how it does in a green­house. This has been known since 1896. Yes, that’s right. Human­i­ty has known for over 120 years that our appetite for fos­sil fuels will cre­ate the green­house effect. Yet we went for fos­sil fuel vehi­cles instead of con­tin­u­ing the ear­ly devel­op­ment of alter­na­tives such as elec­tric cars and syn­thet­ic fuels. ### History of the greenhouse effect As ear­ly as 1824, Joseph Fouri­er sus­pect­ed that human activ­i­ties could affect the Earth’s cli­mate. This idea was explored fur­ther dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry. By 1896, Svante Arrhe­nius had cal­cu­lat­ed the first esti­mates of this impact, find­ing that a dou­bling of atmos­pher­ic car­bon diox­ide could raise tem­per­a­tures by 5–6 °C. In 1901, Nils Gustaf coined the term “green­house effect” to describe this phenomenon. How­ev­er, it wasn’t until 1960 that clear sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence emerged, through Charles David Keeling’s work, show­ing that human activ­i­ties were increas­ing car­bon diox­ide levels. By the late 20th cen­tu­ry, aware­ness of cli­mate change grew. The for­ma­tion of the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) in 1988 was a crit­i­cal inter­na­tion­al acknowl­edg­ment of this issue. The IPCC’s reports high­light­ed the urgent need for action against the increas­ing impact of green­house gases. The 21st cen­tu­ry has been about turn­ing knowl­edge into action. The Kyoto Pro­to­col and the Paris Agree­ment are sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones, rep­re­sent­ing a glob­al com­mit­ment to address­ing cli­mate change. Despite chal­lenges, these inter­na­tion­al agree­ments show a uni­fied effort to tack­le this glob­al issue. Today, the jour­ney from rec­og­niz­ing the green­house effect to cur­rent inter­na­tion­al agree­ments shows a slow but steady real­iza­tion of our respon­si­bil­i­ty to the plan­et. It high­lights the impor­tance of sci­ence and inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in fac­ing cli­mate change. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#renaissance-of-good-old-ideas)Renaissance of good old ideas Only under the increas­ing­ly immi­nent threat of melt­ing ice, over­flow­ing seas, water short­ages, and bar­ren farm­land have we begun to look at alter­na­tives. Many ideas from the late 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­turies are expe­ri­enc­ing a renais­sance. Most appar­ent is the res­ur­rec­tion of the bat­tery elec­tric vehi­cle (BEV). But that’s not the only option. Oth­er old ideas that have been revived are using hydro­gen as fuel, either direct­ly or via con­ver­sion to elec­tric­i­ty. But per­haps the most promis­ing short-term solu­tion is syn­thet­ic fuel made from green hydro­gen. So, let’s take a clos­er look at it. ### **Hydrogen as fuel** There are two ways to run vehi­cles on pure hydro­gen. Either hydro­gen is used direct­ly as fuel in an inter­nal com­bus­tion engine or con­vert­ed into elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er an elec­tric motor. Here is a brief pre­sen­ta­tion of the two options. #### Hydrogen combustion If you remem­ber the chem­istry les­son where the teacher made oxy­hy­dro­gen gas or think of the Hin­den­burg air­ship, you can see how hydro­gen can be used in an inter­nal com­bus­tion engine. An ordi­nary gaso­line engine is fine as long as the valves and oth­er parts exposed to the heat are made of mate­ri­als that can with­stand the high­er com­bus­tion tem­per­a­ture, and the crank­shafts and oth­er parts exposed to high­er forces are made more durable. The world’s first hydro­gen-pow­ered car was the Hip­po­mo­bile, designed in 1860 by Eti­enne Lenoir. Today, Hon­da, Kawasa­ki, Suzu­ki, Toy­ota, and Yama­ha are main­ly dri­ving the devel­op­ment of hydro­gen inter­nal com­bus­tion engine vehi­cles (HICEV). #### Fuel cells A much more hyped and talked-about use of hydro­gen to fuel vehi­cles is using *fuel cells* to con­vert hydro­gen to elec­tric­i­ty pow­er­ing an elec­tric motor. Fuel cells work like elec­trolyz­ers but in reverse. While an elec­trolyz­er splits water into hydro­gen and oxy­gen by pass­ing elec­tric­i­ty through water, a fuel cell com­bines hydro­gen from a tank with oxy­gen from the air to cre­ate elec­tric­i­ty with just water as its exhaust. In this way, the fuel cell can replace bat­ter­ies in an elec­tric car. The first fuel cell elec­tric vehi­cle (FCEV) was a mod­i­fied Allis-Chalmers farm trac­tor around 1959. Today, cars, trucks, bus­es, motor­cy­cles, bicy­cles, fork­lifts, trains, boats, air­planes, and even sub­marines are being devel­oped using fuel cells. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrofuel-e-fuel)Electrofuel (e‑fuel) *Elec­tro­fu­el*, or short­er *e‑fuel*, is an umbrel­la term for *e‑LNG*, *e‑LPG*, *e‑methanol*, *e‑jet fuel*, *e‑gasoline*, *e‑kerosene*, *e‑diesel* and oth­er syn­thet­ic fuels that can replace their non-pre­fixed coun­ter­parts with­out any mod­i­fi­ca­tion to the engines that use them. E‑fuels are pro­duced from car­bon diox­ide (CO2), cap­tured from the atmos­phere, and hydro­gen, pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis using fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty ([green hydro­gen or pink hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/hydrogen-classification-systems/6529/)). The first syn­thet­ic fuel was pro­duced in 1920s Ger­many by Franz Fis­ch­er and Hans Trop­sch. Their method has since been refined and fur­ther devel­oped. In the ear­ly 2000s, syn­thet­ic fuel got a renais­sance when the idea of e‑fuel began to take shape. Dri­vers today are car man­u­fac­tur­ers like Porsche and Maz­da, oil com­pa­nies like Exxon Mobile, Cir­cle K, Eni, and Rep­sol, and indus­tri­al groups like Siemens, Bosch, Mahle, and ZF. ![Schematic illustration showing the steps of e-fuel production.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/e-fuel-production-1200x800.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#recycling-of-co2)Recycling of CO2 E‑fuels con­tain essen­tial hydro­car­bons found in their con­ven­tion­al coun­ter­parts, enabling them to replace these fos­sil fuels seamlessly. How­ev­er, this rais­es a ques­tion: if both e‑fuel and its fos­sil fuel coun­ter­part emit the same amount of car­bon diox­ide when burned, what is the benefit? Sure, e‑fuel releas­es as much car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere when com­bust­ed as its fos­sil-based coun­ter­parts. How­ev­er, this amount is the same as either cap­tured before it got into the atmos­phere or tak­en from the atmos­phere dur­ing the pro­duc­tion. Thus, the net con­tri­bu­tion is zero. One could say that e‑fuels recy­cle car­bon dioxide. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-neutral)Carbon neutral So, can we say that syn­thet­ic fuel is car­bon neutral? To make such a bold claim, the process and the raw mate­r­i­al must be car­bon neu­tral. This means that the pro­duc­tion plant must be pow­ered by fos­sil-free ener­gy. It also rules out black, brown, and gray hydro­gen as a feed­stock; such hydro­gen is pro­duced from coal and nat­ur­al gas, which pro­duces huge car­bon diox­ide emissions. To be tru­ly cli­mate-neu­tral, green or pink hydro­gen must be used. Both are pro­duced by the elec­trol­y­sis of water. Green hydro­gen uses renew­able elec­tric­i­ty from the sun, wind, or water, while pink hydro­gen uses elec­tric­i­ty from nuclear pow­er plants. The pre­fix ‘elec­tro’ or just ‘e’ refers to hydro­gen pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis using fos­sil-free elec­tric­i­ty (green hydro­gen or pink hydro­gen). The com­plete pro­duc­tion process must run on fos­sil-free ener­gy sources to earn the prefix. ![Concept image showing a rocking board balanced on a globe. On the left side of the board is a green leaf. On the right side of the board is a cloud of CO2.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/carbon-neutral-1200x800.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#additional-benefits)Additional benefits E‑fuel has three sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits in addi­tion to being climate-neutral: 1. Exist­ing logis­tics net­works can be used. No new infra­struc­ture is required. 2. Exist­ing tanks in vehi­cles can be used. No addi­tion­al con­tain­er for gas is required. 3. Exist­ing motors can be used. No hard­ened motor or con­ver­sion of hydro­gen to elec­tric­i­ty is required. These advan­tages have giv­en e‑fuel a boost. Around the world, small and large e‑fuel projects are underway. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#worlds-first-commercial-plants)World’s first commercial plants Regard­ing e‑fuel pro­duc­tion, the Texas-based com­pa­ny HIF Glob­al has come the furthest. On 20 Decem­ber 2022, they inau­gu­rat­ed HIF Haru Oni, the first oper­at­ing e‑fuel facil­i­ty in the world. The facil­i­ty, locat­ed in Chile, is com­plete with wind tur­bines to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty, elec­trolyz­ers to con­vert the elec­tric­i­ty into hydro­gen, and a direct air cap­ture (DAC) unit to extract car­bon diox­ide from the atmos­phere. The plant pro­duces e‑LPG, e‑methanol, and e‑gasoline. When ful­ly oper­a­tional, the plant will pro­duce 130,000 liters of e‑fuel annually. Impres­sive. But HIF Haru Oni is noth­ing com­pared to the company’s next plant. In Texas, they are build­ing the HIF Matagor­da eFu­els Facil­i­ty, which, when com­plet­ed in 2027, will pro­duce 750 mil­lion liters of e‑fuel each year. The elec­trolyz­ers will have a total expect­ed capac­i­ty of about 1.8 gigawatts and pro­duce about 300,000 tonnes of green hydro­gen annually. And it doesn’t stop there. HIF plans to build 12 plants of the same mega-size dis­trib­uted across Chile, the US, and Australia. One of the largest investors in the com­pa­ny is the Ger­man car com­pa­ny Porsche. They have invest­ed over 100 mil­lion USD in e‑fuel. Porsche plans to run its entire Super­cup rac­ing series and all the cars at its Porsche Expe­ri­ence Cen­tres on the fuel. ![Aerial view of the HIF Haru Oni Demonstration Plant](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/hif1-1200x800.webp) HIF Haru Oni Demon­stra­tion Plant. Pho­to: [HIF Glob­al](https://hifglobal.com/). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#europes-largest-e-methanol-project)Europe’s largest e‑methanol project E‑fuel pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties are also being built in Europe. Flag­shipONE, out­side Örn­sköldsvik in north­ern Swe­den, will pro­duce 55,000 tons of e‑methanol when it is oper­a­tional in 2025. This makes it the largest of its kind in Europe. The four elec­trolyz­ers used by Flag­shipONE will have a total capac­i­ty of about 70 megawatts and pro­duce about 12 tons of green hydro­gen per year. The car­bon diox­ide will be sourced from the adja­cent munic­i­pal heat and pow­er plant, which burns bio­mass. The plant will also sup­ply steam and water to the process. The excess heat will then be fed into the municipality’s local dis­trict heat­ing network. Flag­shipONE will sup­ply an increas­ing num­ber of ships that run on methanol. ![Concept image showing the FlagshipONE e-fuel plant that Liquid Wind is building in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/flagship-one-1200x800.webp) Con­cept image show­ing the Flag­shipONE e‑fuel plant that Liq­uid Wind is build­ing in Örn­sköldsvik, Swe­den. Illus­tra­tion: [Liq­uid Wind](https://www.liquidwind.se/). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#future-prospects)Future prospects Naysay­ers and detrac­tors of e‑fuel claim it is a dead end; e‑fuel is cost­ly and a waste of energy. They may be right regard­ing pas­sen­ger cars and many oth­er types of land trans­porta­tion. Most of these vehi­cles are like­ly to be bat­tery-pow­ered. That tech­nol­o­gy has come a long way and is much cheap­er per kilo­me­ter dri­ven than e‑fuel. But oth­er­wise, they are wrong. Fuel pro­duced syn­thet­i­cal­ly from green hydro­gen and cap­tured car­bon diox­ide will be one of sev­er­al suc­cess­ful solu­tions to pow­er vehi­cles. No sin­gle solu­tion works for every­one and every­thing, so a vari­ety of solu­tions are needed. Ship­ping is a good exam­ple. Most experts agree that e‑fuel is the only viable car­bon-neu­tral fuel for large ships like con­tain­er ves­sels. These ships use high­ly pol­lut­ing fos­sil fuels, respon­si­ble for 3% of the world’s CO2 emis­sions. We need e‑fuel to address this. Bat­ter­ies for such ships would be too huge and heavy. The same goes for air­planes, which also can­not have large and heavy bat­ter­ies on board. In addi­tion to these mega mar­kets, there will also be niche mar­kets. One is vehi­cles that can be used where charg­ing from a reli­able, clean elec­tric­i­ty grid is impossible. Anoth­er is sports cars, rac­ing cars, and vin­tage cars, where the sound of an engine revving, the weight, or the preser­va­tion of cul­tur­al her­itage is more important. In short, the future of e‑fuels is bright and has already begun. --- title: "Smoltek’s unfair advantage" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-unfair-advantage/6582/" date: 2024-01-23 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/businessman-in-paris-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" --- # Smoltek’s unfair advantage Car­bon nanofibers are at the heart of our busi­ness. They allow us to cre­ate ultra-thin capac­i­tors with very high capac­i­tance rel­a­tive to their vol­ume. They make it pos­si­ble to offer cell mate­ri­als for elec­trolyz­ers that use only a frac­tion of the amount of irid­i­um used in con­ven­tion­al PEM elec­trolyz­ers. And they are the basis for future inno­va­tions and busi­ness opportunities.  But… One and all can make car­bon nanofibers. Okay, that was an exag­ger­a­tion. Not all. But every­one with the nec­es­sary knowl­edge and equip­ment can do it. And they are not few. In light of this rev­e­la­tion, you are right to ask your­self whether you have bet on the right horse. If car­bon nanofibers are not unique to Smoltek, what is? What gives Smoltek the edge over its com­peti­tors? What is Smoltek’s ‘unfair advan­tage’ – a unique com­pet­i­tive advan­tage that com­peti­tors sim­ply can­not match? Well, let me tell you: We own the holy grail. Not the one Indi­ana Jones sought in The Last Cru­sade, but the holy grail of our field: a method to place and grow ultra-thin car­bon nanofibers pre­cise­ly on almost any sur­face, with  elec­tric con­tact between the sur­face and the fiber. Rest sure we pro­tect­ed this unfair advan­tage. We have 80+ approved [patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/), and counting. To illus­trate the pre­ci­sion with which we con­trol the process, we have cre­at­ed the world’s most minia­ture top­i­ary gar­den made of car­bon nanofibers. We have grown the tiny fibers to form our logo. (I know, it’s a pret­ty geeky thing to do, but that’s who we are). But there is a catch. This gar­den is so small that you can’t walk in it. In fact, you will need a scan­ning elec­tron micro­scope to even see it.  If I may guess, you don’t have a scan­ning elec­tron micro­scope lying around. Do you? Luck­i­ly we have one, so that we can show you how tiny these guys real­ly are. Just look below. ![Cnf Carousel 1](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/cnf-carousel-1-1.png) ![Cnf Carousel 2](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/cnf-carousel-2-1.png) ![Cnf Carousel 3](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/cnf-carousel-3-1.png) ![Cnf Carousel 4](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/cnf-carousel-4-1.png) Note the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion lev­el at the bot­tom left. Swipe the image to the left on your phone or tablet or click the right arrow on your com­put­er to zoom in on the high­light­ed area. Quite some­thing, isn’t it? Did you see the hair strand in the first pic­ture? In that image, the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion is ‘only’ 69✕. In the last image, the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion is a crazy 50,000✕. Yet the car­bon nanofibers look skin­ny com­pared to the hair strand in the first image. The hair strand is between 10,000 and 15,000 times thick­er than the car­bon nanofibers. It’s hard to grasp the dif­fer­ence just from num­bers. An anal­o­gy might help. Imag­ine you’re a tourist in Paris, strolling around with your trusty guide­book. Mind you, it’s not a hefty brick, just an ordi­nary guide­book with a few hun­dred pages. Now, pic­ture your­self arriv­ing at the base of the Eif­fel Tow­er. All around you, tourists look up in awe. But not you. You lie on the ground and gen­tly place your closed guide­book before you. Nev­er mind that every­one has stopped look­ing at the Eif­fel Tow­er and now stares at you. You are not crazy; what you do is per­fect­ly normal. Now, take a moment to com­pare the thick­ness of your book with the tow­er­ing height of the Eif­fel Tow­er. Right there, you’ll find the same stag­ger­ing dif­fer­ence in mag­ni­tude between the diam­e­ter of a car­bon nanofiber and a strand of hair. Do you now appre­ci­ate how thin those fel­lows are? Great! Then you can see what a huge achieve­ment it is to grow them in such a con­trolled way that they form our logo. (And don’t for­get, with elec­tric con­tact between the sur­face and the fiber. An achieve­ment in itself.) It’s this capa­bil­i­ty that is our ‘unfair advan­tage’ – To grow a large num­ber of extreme­ly thin nanofibers, which the cur­rent is forced to fol­low up and down, for each indi­vid­ual fiber. That’s what makes our tech­nol­o­gy so supe­ri­or when it comes to shrink­ing phys­i­cal sur­faces while main­tain­ing elec­tri­cal properties.  And this is what allow us to solve advanced mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing prob­lems, such as cre­at­ing capac­i­tors with very high capac­i­tance in rela­tion to their vol­ume and reduc­ing the need for irid­i­um in PEM electrolyzers. And it’s this tech­nol­o­gy, and the busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties it opens up, that make Smoltek such an excit­ing invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty. Don’t you agree? (By the way, I was not whol­ly truth­ful. It’s not nor­mal to lie down on the ground at the Eif­fel Tow­er. Just so you know.) --- title: "Tech brief: Hydrogen classification systems" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hydrogen-classification-systems/6529/" date: 2024-01-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/colors-of-hydrogen-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "tech brief" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/tech-brief.md" --- # Tech brief: Hydrogen classification systems What col­or does hydro­gen have? None at all. It is trans­par­ent and can­not be seen with the naked eye. How­ev­er, hydro­gen is called black, brown, gray, blue, green, and so forth. The col­ors denote the feed­stocks and pro­duc­tion meth­ods used to pro­duce hydro­gen. In this brief, we explain the mean­ing of the dif­fer­ent col­ors and look at an alter­na­tive clas­si­fi­ca­tion of hydro­gen used by the EU. ### Tech brief This is a tech brief. We craft these to pro­vide tech­ni­cal back­ground infor­ma­tion to help you bet­ter under­stand oth­er blog posts. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#colors-of-hydrogen)Colors of hydrogen Let’s start by review­ing the col­or spec­trum used to clas­si­fy hydro­gen based on how it is pro­duced and with which feedstock. - **Black hydro­gen** is pro­duced by coal gasi­fi­ca­tion of black coal (bitu­mi­nous). - **Brown hydro­gen** is pro­duced by coal gasi­fi­ca­tion of brown coal (lig­nite) or bio­mass gasification. - **Grey hydro­gen** is pro­duced by steam methane reform­ing, par­tial oxi­da­tion, or autother­mal reform­ing of nat­ur­al gas and oil. - **Blue hydro­gen** is pro­duced as black, brown, or grey hydro­gen with the added appli­ca­tion of car­bon cap­ture, uti­liza­tion, and stor­age (CCUS) meth­ods or technologies. - **Turquoise hydro­gen** is pro­duced by methane pyrolysis. - **Yel­low hydro­gen** is pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis using elec­tric­i­ty from the grid regard­less of how this elec­tric­i­ty has been produced. - **Pink hydro­gen** is pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis using elec­tric­i­ty from nuclear power. - **Pur­ple hydro­gen** is pro­duced by ther­mo­chem­i­cal water split­ting using ener­gy from nuclear power. - **Red hydro­gen** is pro­duced by high-tem­per­a­ture cat­alyt­ic split­ting of water using ener­gy from nuclear power. - **Green hydro­gen** is pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis using renew­able ener­gy sources. - **White hydro­gen** is nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring hydro­gen found as a free gas in lay­ers of con­ti­nen­tal crust, deep in the ocean­ic crust, or in vol­canic gas­es, gey­sers, and hydrother­mal systems. The list above can be sum­ma­rized in this schemat­ic table illus­trat­ing the rela­tion­ships between the dif­fer­ent col­or class­es used for hydro­gen and the feed­stock and process used to pro­duce it. | Feed­stock | Pro­duc­tion method | Hydro­gen color | | | |------------------------|-----------------------|-----------------|-------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | Nat­ur­al gas | Methane pyrol­y­sis | Turquoise | | | | | Steam reform­ing | Gray | Blue (if car­bon is captured) | Yel­low (if used to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty for water electrolysis) | | Black coal | Gas­si­fi­ca­tion | | | Black | | Brown coal | Gas­si­fi­ca­tion | | | Brown | | Bio­mass | | | | | | Renew­able electricity | Water elec­trol­y­sis | Green | | | | Nuclear elec­tric­i­ty | Water elec­trol­y­sis | Pink | | | | | Water split­ting | Pur­ple | | | | | Cat­alyt­ic splitting | Red | | | ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#caveat)Caveat The hydro­gen industry’s col­or clas­si­fi­ca­tion is evolv­ing, and not all terms have uni­ver­sal­ly agreed-upon def­i­n­i­tions. This can lead to vari­a­tions in how terms are used and understood. Yel­low hydro­gen is an exam­ple that shows vari­a­tion in how terms are used. Above, it’s described as hydro­gen pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis, where the elec­tric­i­ty comes from the grid and, there­fore, can be pro­duced by any­thing from coal-fired pow­er sta­tions to wind tur­bines. But quite a few peo­ple have a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tion: Yel­low hydro­gen is pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis using elec­tric­i­ty from solar pow­er plants. This is an entire­ly dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tion far from the one used by most inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, gov­ern­ments, author­i­ties, and researchers. Green hydro­gen is an exam­ple that shows vari­a­tion in how terms are under­stood. Above, it’s described as hydro­gen pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis, where the elec­tric­i­ty comes from any renew­able source. Bio­mass is an exam­ple of a renew­able source, but it’s not very” green” when used as fuel in pow­er plants. There­fore, the EU Com­mis­sion and Par­lia­ment use a def­i­n­i­tion of green hydro­gen that excludes bio­mass and also requires at least a 70 per­cent reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­sions com­pared to fos­sil fuels. In addi­tion, some use vio­let instead of pink, and oth­ers con­flate pink, pur­ple, and red hydro­gen and use one of these col­ors to mean all of them. On top of that, researchers and devel­op­ers slap new col­ors on each nov­el method of cre­at­ing hydro­gen. For exam­ple, *aqua* is used for hydro­gen extract­ed from oil sands and oil fields, and *orange* is used for hydro­gen pro­duced by chem­i­cal reac­tions in iron-rich under­ground formations. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#eu-classification)EU classification How­ev­er, as we have seen, there is no con­sen­sus on which col­ors to use and what they stand for. This has prompt­ed the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion to intro­duce its own clas­si­fi­ca­tion in the commission’s [hydro­gen strat­e­gy for a cli­mate-neu­tral Europe](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX%3A52020DC0301&from=EN): - **Elec­tric­i­ty-based hydro­gen** is hydro­gen pro­duced through water elec­trol­y­sis regard­less of the elec­tric­i­ty source. (Thus, includes both yel­low and green hydrogen). - **Renew­able hydro­gen** is hydro­gen pro­duced through water elec­trol­y­sis with elec­tric­i­ty from renew­able sources. (Thus, it’s a large sub­set of green hydrogen). - **Clean hydro­gen** is anoth­er name for renew­able hydrogen. - **Fos­sil-based hydro­gen** is hydro­gen pro­duced through var­i­ous process­es using fos­sil fuels as feed­stock. (Thus, this includes black, brown, gray, and blue hydrogen.) - **Fos­sil-based hydro­gen with car­bon cap­ture** is a sub­part of fos­sil-based hydro­gen, but where green­house gas­es emit­ted as part of the hydro­gen pro­duc­tion process are cap­tured. (Thus, this is equiv­a­lent to blue hydrogen.) - **Low-car­bon hydro­gen** encom­pass­es fos­sil-based hydro­gen with car­bon cap­ture and elec­tric­i­ty-based hydro­gen, with sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced full life-cycle green­house gas emis­sions com­pared to exist­ing hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. [As of Feb­ru­ary 7, 2023](https://energy.ec.europa.eu/publications/delegated-regulation-minimum-threshold-ghg-savings-recycled-carbon-fuels-and-annex_en), this means at least a 70% reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­sions com­pared to fos­sil fuels. (Thus, this con­tains a sub­set of blue hydro­gen and a sub­set of yel­low hydrogen.) - **Hydro­gen-derived syn­thet­ic fuels** refer to var­i­ous gaseous and liq­uid fuels based on hydro­gen and car­bon. (Thus, this has no equiv­a­lent color.) The table below illus­trates the rela­tion­ships between the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion clas­si­fi­ca­tion and the col­or classification. | Hydro­gen col­or classification | EU hydro­gen classification | |---------------------------------|----------------------------------------------| | Black | Fos­sil-based hydrogen | | Brown | | | Gray | | | Blue | Fos­sil-based hydro­gen with car­bon capture | | | Low-car­bon hydrogen | | Turquoise | Low-car­bon hydrogen | | Red | | | Pur­ple | | | Pink | Elec­tric­i­ty-based hydrogen | | Yel­low | | | Green | Renew­able hydrogen | ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#purpose-of-classification)Purpose of classification The clas­si­fi­ca­tion of hydro­gen helps var­i­ous groups like politi­cians, busi­ness lead­ers, and envi­ron­men­tal­ists to quick­ly iden­ti­fy its pro­duc­tion impact on the envi­ron­ment. This clas­si­fi­ca­tion sep­a­rates hydro­gen with high green­house gas emis­sions (black, brown, and gray) from low-emis­sion (blue) and com­plete­ly fos­sil-free types (pink and green). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#present-and-future)Present and future In 2022, almost 95 mil­lion tonnes (Mt) of hydro­gen were pro­duced glob­al­ly, accord­ing to [*Glob­al Hydro­gen Review 2023*](https://www.iea.org/reports/global-hydrogen-review-2023/). 99.3% was fos­sil-based hydro­gen (black, brown, or gray). Only 0.6% was fos­sil-based hydro­gen with car­bon cap­ture (blue). And pity 0.1% was elec­tric­i­ty-based or renew­able hydro­gen (pink, yel­low, or green). Over the next six years, the Glob­al Hydro­gen Review 2023 pre­dicts a sharp increase in demand. The demand is expect­ed to increase by more than 50%, reach­ing 150 tons of hydro­gen by 2030. Ana­lysts and experts gen­er­al­ly believe that vir­tu­al­ly all of this increase will con­sist of hydro­gen pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis. Data from the [*Hydro­gen Pro­duc­tion and Infra­struc­ture Projects Data­base*](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-product/hydrogen-production-and-infrastructure-projects-database) shows that in Octo­ber 2023, there were over 1,500 planned or ongo­ing con­struc­tions of elec­trolyz­er plants to be com­plet­ed by 2030. Togeth­er, they will gen­er­ate 92 Mt of hydro­gen, of which 66 Mt are green, 4 Mt are yel­low, and the rest are unspecified. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 84 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-84-now-granted/6509/" date: 2024-01-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-12-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "interposer" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/interposer.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 84 now granted This, our 84th patent, has been grant­ed in Korea and it cov­ers our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of inter­posers for advanced pack­ag­ing and het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion of semiconductors. Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tions. The present patent pro­tect­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter inter­posers that inte­grates one or sev­er­al com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices. Smoltek’s inven­tions facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy offers industry’s small­est form-fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors, this by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 84 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) --- title: "The shocking history of capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/shocking-history-of-capacitors/6449/" date: 2023-12-24 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/santa-claus-experiments-with-electricity-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "history" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/history.md" - name: "longread" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/longread.md" --- # The shocking history of capacitors Like all capac­i­tors, ours orig­i­nates from the Ley­den jar, a glass bot­tle that can store elec­tri­cal charge. Ewald Georg von Kleist was the first to expe­ri­ence this abil­i­ty when he received a severe elec­tric shock in Octo­ber 1745. Pieter van Muss­chen­broek fol­lowed suit when he repeat­ed the exper­i­ment a few months lat­er, in Jan­u­ary 1746. This is the sto­ry about their shock­ing dis­cov­ery and the ear­ly devel­op­ment of the capac­i­tor – a  ground­break­ing com­po­nent that is ubiq­ui­tous in today’s electronics. *If you pre­fer to lis­ten, you can click the play but­ton below to hear the arti­cle read aloud.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-early-history-of-electricity)The early history of electricity The first known obser­va­tion of what we now call sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty was made by the Greek philoso­pher Thales of Mile­tus in 600 BC. He not­ed that amber, when rubbed against cloth, attracts light objects such as hairs. But it took more than two thou­sand years before any­one set out to explore this force. Sir William Gilbert’s mag­num opus – *De Mag­nete*,  pub­lished in 1600 – con­tains some of the ear­li­est sys­tem­at­ic stud­ies of elec­tric­i­ty. He observed that sub­stances like glass, sul­fur, and dia­mond exhib­it­ed the same attrac­tion prop­er­ty as amber when rubbed. He called this an *elec­tric* force. The name is derived from the Greek word for amber. Six decades lat­er, Otto von Guer­icke invent­ed a sim­ple machine to gen­er­ate sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty. His elec­tro­sta­t­ic gen­er­a­tor con­sist­ed of a ball of sul­fur cast on an iron axle, which, when pulled around and sub­ject­ed to fric­tion, gave off elec­tric charges, which man­i­fest­ed them­selves in sparks. In 1705, Fran­cis Hauks­bee cre­at­ed an improved elec­tro­sta­t­ic gen­er­a­tor. It con­sists of a crank that rotates a large wheel from which a belt runs to a small­er wheel attached to an axle through a glass ball. At the begin­ning of the 1730s, Charles François de Cis­ter­nay du Fay, also known as just Dufay, dis­cov­ered the exis­tence of two types of elec­tri­cal charges. He named them *vit­re­ous* and *resinous* after the mate­r­i­al he used to pro­duce them (glass and resin), but we call them *pos­i­tive* and *neg­a­tive*. Du Fay also noticed that two of the same repel and two of the oppo­site attract each oth­er. More­over, he dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed mate­ri­als in *electrics* and *non-electrics*, which are sim­i­lar but not iden­ti­cal to what we today call *con­duc­tors* and *insu­la­tors*. ![Copper engraving showing a man cranking a large wheel that transmits the motion to an axle with a glass ball that is held by a pair of hands.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/electrostatic-generator-1200x800.webp) Fran­cis Hauksbee’s elec­tro­sta­t­ic generator. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#igniting-alcohol)Igniting alcohol In the fall of 1745, things sparked the explo­ration of electricity. First up was Matthias Bose, who makes a name for him­self as a flam­boy­ant demon­stra­tor of exper­i­ments with sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty. In one of his most famous tricks, he ignites alco­hol float­ing on top of the water by gen­er­at­ing sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty, which he con­ducts through a met­al bar to the water. His main con­tri­bu­tion to this sto­ry is the use of the met­al bar. He hung it hor­i­zon­tal­ly with one end above the Hauksbee’s rotat­ing glass ball. If the dis­tance is not too great, or if a met­al chain hangs from the met­al bar down to the glass ball with­out touch­ing it, the met­al bar will cap­ture sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty that can then be trans­ferred to some­thing else. In Bose’s show, it was the water with alco­hol on the surface. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#zap)Zap! Next up was Ewald Georg von Kleist. Inspired by Bose’s met­al bar, he tried to prove that elec­tric­i­ty can be under­stood as a fluid. On Octo­ber 11, 1745, he filled a small med­i­cine bot­tle with alco­hol and closed it with a cork through which a nail was insert­ed. He then used a met­al bar to trans­fer sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty from an elec­tro­sta­t­ic gen­er­a­tor to the nail. In this way, he imag­ined that sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty was poured into the alcohol. Von Kleist knew that the glass is an insu­la­tor. There­fore, he was con­vinced that sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty could be “cap­tured” and retained in the bottle. He acci­den­tal­ly touched the nail. Zap! He was thrown across the room. Von Kleist had received a strong elec­tric shock, prov­ing that he had cap­tured elec­tric­i­ty in the bot­tle (but not in the way he thought). In fact, he had cre­at­ed the world’s first capacitor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#disappointments)Disappointments Von Kleist wrote about his exper­i­ment to sev­er­al oth­er elec­tri­cal exper­i­men­tal­ists. Some want­ed to try it themselves. Warned by Von Kleist’s exam­ple, they kept their dis­tance when the exper­i­ment was repeat­ed. This proved unnec­es­sary, as the exper­i­ments failed, and noth­ing happened. What a disappointment. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#amateur-night)Amateur night Von Kleist didn’t write to Anderas Cunaeus, a lawyer and ama­teur sci­en­tist. Yet Cunaeus came up with some­thing strik­ing­ly sim­i­lar. Maybe he had heard about Von Kleist’s exper­i­ment. Or not. Nev­er­the­less, he did a sim­i­lar exper­i­ment with house­hold items at his home. The result? Zap! Cunaeus was out for two full days. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#leiden-university-anno-domini-1746)Leiden University, anno Domini 1746 It is a cold evening in Jan­u­ary 1746. Snow is falling thick­ly in the court­yard of Lei­den Uni­ver­si­ty – the old­est in the Nether­lands. A few tardy stu­dents are cross­ing the court­yard from a lec­ture hall to the evening’s sup­per. They pass by the lab­o­ra­to­ry win­dow of Pieter van Musschenbroek. Pro­fes­sor van Muss­chen­broek stands at the win­dow, think­ing of his friend, the lawyer Anderas Cunaeus, who has done what pro­fes­sion­als have failed to do – recre­ate von Kleist’s exper­i­ment from three months ago. Now, he will try to repeat the exper­i­ment himself. He adjusts the chain so that its free end comes as close as pos­si­ble to the glass ball with­out touch­ing it. Mean­while, one of his dis­ci­ples hangs a met­al wire over the oth­er end of the met­al rod. He then fills a glass jar with water. They are now ready for the experiment. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#setting-up-the-experiment)Setting up the experiment While one of the stu­dents cranks the wheels of the elec­tro­sta­t­ic gen­er­a­tor, Pro­fes­sor van Muss­chen­broek takes the water-filled glass jar with his bare hands and holds it up so that the met­al wire is low­ered into the water. Anoth­er stu­dent now takes clothes in his hands and holds them against the rotat­ing glass ball. The fric­tion between the glass and the cloths cre­ates sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty, pass­ing to the met­al bar through the met­al chain and fur­ther to the water through the met­al wire. While stand­ing there, he thinks about Bose. He may be an assid­u­ous self-pro­mot­er, but stor­ing and trans­fer­ring sta­t­ic elec­tric­i­ty with a met­al bar was pret­ty clever. ![Kopparstick som visar van Musschenbroek setup.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/leyden-jar-1200x800.webp) *The exper­i­ment set­up used by Pro­fes­sor van Musschenbroek.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#prove-up)Prove up It’s time for the exper­i­ment itself. Pro­fes­sor van Muss­chen­broek reach­es out with his left hand to the met­al wire hang­ing into the glass jar he holds in his bare right hand. Zap! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#never-try-again)Never try again On Jan­u­ary 20, 1746, Pro­fes­sor Muss­chen­broek wrote to his des­ig­nat­ed con­tact at the Paris Acad­e­my and told him about the exper­i­ment. He began his letter: > I would like to tell you about a new but ter­ri­ble exper­i­ment, which I advise you nev­er to try your­self, nor would I, who have expe­ri­enced it and sur­vived by the grace of God, do it again for all the king­dom of France. > > Pieter van Muss­chen­broek, Jan­u­ary 20, 1746 Abbé Jean-Antoine Nol­let con­firmed the exper­i­ment and then read Musschenbroek’s let­ter at a pub­lic meet­ing of the Paris Acad­e­my in April 1746. He named the elec­tri­cal stor­age device *Ley­den jar*, after Pro­fes­sor Musschenbroek’s university. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#grounded)Grounded Pro­fes­sor van Muss­chen­broek real­ized that a con­di­tion for the exper­i­ment to suc­ceed was that there was a con­duc­tor con­nect­ed to earth on the out­side of the glass jar. In the cas­es of von Kleist, Cunaeus, and him­self, they were the con­duc­tor to earth, as they held the glass jar with their bare hands. Those who failed had put down the glass bot­tle for fear of an elec­tric kiss. (In all hon­esty, they fol­lowed the best prac­tices of their time and delib­er­ate­ly ensured that the glass jar was not grounded). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-novelty-is-spreading)The novelty is spreading The Ley­den jar did not only shock Muss­chen­broek. Soci­ety was also shocked – both lit­er­al­ly and figuratively. Self-pro­claimed “elec­tri­cians” held pub­lic demon­stra­tions where they gave sparkling shows and jolt­ed their audi­ence. Nat­ur­al philoso­phers elec­tro­cut­ed ani­mals to bet­ter under­stand this new force. Physi­cians applied elec­tric shocks to humans to cure var­i­ous ail­ments. And tech­nol­o­gists sent charges through wires over rivers and lakes to fig­ure out what it could be used for. The news of Ley­den jar’s abil­i­ty to store elec­tri­cal charge made its way across the pond to what, for a few more years, would only be referred to as the Amer­i­can Colonies. There, Ben­jamin Franklin exper­i­ment­ed with Ley­den jars. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#is-water-necessary)Is water necessary? It is 1748, and we are at the home of Ben­jamin Franklin in Philadel­phia. He has just filled a Ley­den jar with charge and put it on a glass insulator. With a look of deter­mi­na­tion, he begins his experiment. Franklin pulls out the cork of the jar and lifts it with the wire through it. He grasps the bot­tle with one hand, and brings a fin­ger of the oth­er hand near its mouth. A strong spark comes from the water, as painful as if he had touched the wire before remov­ing it. It con­vinces Franklin that the elec­tric charge is not in the wire. It is still in the jar. He pours water from the charged jar into an emp­ty sec­ond jar. The sec­ond jar shows no sign of elec­tric charge. Thus, the elec­tric charge must remain in the now emp­ty first jar. “What the frock!” Franklin exclaims. He reach­es for the teapot con­tain­ing fresh, unelec­tri­fied water and pours new water into the first jar. Test­ing it again, he finds it still capa­ble of giv­ing him a jolt. He lat­er writes: > Thus the whole Force of the Bot­tle and Pow­er of giv­ing a Shock, is in the Glass itself; the Non-electrics in Con­tact with the two Sur­faces serv­ing only to give and receive to and from the sev­er­al Parts of the Glass; that is, to give on one Side, and take away from the other. > > Ben­jamin Franklin ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#does-the-shape-matter)Does the shape matter? Franklin now asked whether the shape of the jar is cru­cial to its abil­i­ty to store charge. He took a piece of win­dow glass and put it in his hand to test this. On top of it, he then puts a plate of lead that he had electrified. Now comes the test itself: He puts a fin­ger to the plate. Zap! There was a spark and shock. In oth­er words, the shape doesn’t matter. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#where-is-the-charge-stored)Where is the charge stored? But where is the charge stored? On the glass? Or on the hand and the lead plate in con­tact with the glass? Franklin placed a piece of win­dow glass between two lead plates to find out. The whole stack rests in his hand while he elec­tri­fies the top plate. He then sep­a­rates the parts. The glass plate gave off tiny sting­ing sparks when he touched it. He could feel this in many places on the glass sur­face. He also notes that there are no charges in the lead plates. Final­ly, he returned the glass between the lead plates. Now, the moment of truth: Franklin grabs both lead plates. Zap! A strong jolt showed that the charge was still there. From this exper­i­ment, Franklin con­cludes that the elec­tric charge was on the glass and that the lead plates only served to bring the charge to or from its surface. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#not-first)Not first Franklin was not the first to dis­cov­er that water is unnec­es­sary and a glass plate works just as well as a glass jar to hold a charge. John Bevis had already demon­strat­ed this in the same year. How­ev­er, Franklin did not find out until later. But unlike Bevis, who thought that the charge was in the met­al in touch with the glass plate, Franklin proved that the charge is actu­al­ly on the sur­face of the glass. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#positive-is-lack-of-negative)Positive is lack of negative More­over, Franklin also fig­ured out that there are not two types of charges, as du Fay had stat­ed almost two decades ear­li­er, but only one charge: the neg­a­tive one. A pos­i­tive charge aris­es when a neg­a­tive charge is removed. In oth­er words, instead of see­ing pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive as two sep­a­rate enti­ties, Franklin viewed them as two states: the pres­ence of a neg­a­tive charge and the absence of it. With these insights, gained just a few years after the dis­cov­ery of the Ley­den jar, it was now pos­si­ble to explain what hap­pened on that snowy win­ter evening when Pro­fes­sor van Muss­chen­broek had him­self electrified. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#no-escape)No escape The fric­tion against the glass ball gen­er­ates pos­i­tive charges. These are passed through the chain, bar, and wire into the water. Since equal charges repel each oth­er, the pos­i­tive charges are pushed against the inside of the wall of the glass jar. Since the glass is an insu­la­tor, the charges can­not escape the jar. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#redistribution)Redistribution But the force with which charges repel equal charges and attract oppo­site charges isn’t stopped by an insu­la­tor. There­fore, the pos­i­tive charges inside the glass jar repel neg­a­tive pos­i­tive out­side the glass and attract neg­a­tive charges. In its nat­ur­al state, the glass’s exte­ri­or has an equal mix of pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive charges. How­ev­er, the pos­i­tive charges inside the glass repel the exter­nal pos­i­tive charges, redis­trib­ut­ing them away from the sur­face while attract­ing neg­a­tive charges clos­er, con­cen­trat­ing them. This process requires a ground path for the dis­placed pos­i­tive charges. This is where the hand becomes cru­cial, act­ing as a con­duc­tor to com­plete the cir­cuit and allow these charges to reach the ground through the experimentalist’s body. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#storage)Storage As the pos­i­tive charges in the jar grow, so does the resis­tance that new­ly added pos­i­tive charges must over­come. Even­tu­al­ly, the jar reach­es its max­i­mum charge capac­i­ty. There are a large num­ber of pos­i­tive charges on the inside of the glass and an equal num­ber of neg­a­tive charges on the out­side of the glass. The charges remain as long as there is no way for the pos­i­tive charges to get to the neg­a­tive ones. So you could say that von Kleist was right – the jar stores charge, but not in the liq­uid, as he thought, but on the out­side and inside of the jar. But as soon as there is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the pos­i­tive charges to get to the neg­a­tive ones, they will take it. This is what hap­pened to von Kleist, Cunaeus, and Pro­fes­sor van Muss­chen­broek when they touched the nail or chain that was in con­tact with the water when they held the jar. The pos­i­tive charges rushed through their poor bod­ies – from the hand touch­ing the nail or chain to the hand hold­ing the jar. Zap! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#caveat)Caveat The above is a mod­ern descrip­tion of how a Ley­den jar works, using knowl­edge from the mid-18th cen­tu­ry. It is a sim­pli­fied view of, in par­tic­u­lar, what hap­pens on the sur­face and inside the glass wall. It wasn’t until the 1910s that sci­en­tists had the knowl­edge to under­stand what hap­pens at the sub­atom­ic lev­el. It’s pret­ty damn inter­est­ing stuff, and the sto­ry lead­ing up to it is at least as excit­ing as the one we’ve heard so far. But telling this sto­ry would take us on too many wind­ing side roads, and dwelling on the capacitor’s inner work­ings is anoth­er arti­cle, so let’s fast-for­ward the time­line to the begin­ning of the 20th century. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fast-forward)Fast forward Did you see what I just did? I used the word *capac­i­tor* in the con­text of the Ley­den jar. That’s because a Ley­den jar is actu­al­ly a capac­i­tor. That makes von Kleist’s med­i­cine bot­tle the very first ever made. Fur­ther­more, when Franklin put met­al on both sides of a piece of win­dow glass, he cre­at­ed the world’s first *par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor*. In fact, two par­al­lel plates insu­lat­ed from each oth­er are the very essence of a capac­i­tor. The insu­la­tion does not need to be made with glass. It can be vac­u­um, air, or any mate­r­i­al that doesn’t allow charges to move across the gap between the two plates. Some iso­la­tors, like glass, have the prop­er­ty that they increase the abil­i­ty of the capac­i­tor to store charge thanks to a phe­nom­e­non called *polar­iza­tion* (sub­ject of anoth­er arti­cle). Such an iso­la­tor is called a *dielec­tric*. All this began to be under­stood in the 19th cen­tu­ry and led to the first mod­ern capacitor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#birth-of-the-modern-capacitor)Birth of the modern capacitor The Ley­den jar is a high-volt­age capac­i­tor. With the devel­op­ment of teleg­ra­phy, tele­phones, and radio in the late 19th cen­tu­ry, there was a need for small­er capac­i­tors for low­er volt­ages. This accel­er­at­ed the pace of innovation. The first mod­ern capac­i­tor was devel­oped by D. G. Fitzger­ald. It con­sist­ed of met­al foil with impreg­nat­ed paper as a dielec­tric. He patent­ed the solu­tion in 1876. *Paper capac­i­tors*, as they came to be known, were fur­ther devel­oped and wide­ly used through­out the 1950s when plas­tic film capac­i­tors began to appear. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#variety-of-capacitors)Variety of capacitors The first paper capac­i­tors were fol­lowed by a for­mi­da­ble explo­sion of dif­fer­ent types of capacitors: - vari­eties of *elec­trolyt­ic capac­i­tors*, where one plate is replaced by an elec­trolyte, includ­ing *tan­ta­lum capac­i­tors* and *nio­bi­um capacitors* - *mica capac­i­tors* with mica as the dielectric - *ceram­ic capac­i­tors* with a ceram­ic mate­r­i­al as dielec­tric, includ­ing  *ceram­ic disc capac­i­tors* and *mul­ti­lay­er ceram­ic chip (MLCC)  capacitors* - *film capac­i­tor* with plas­tic film as dielec­tric, includ­ing *PET-capac­i­tors* and *PTFE-capac­i­tors* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#capacitors-for-the-future)Capacitors for the future Cur­rent and future demands for extreme minia­tur­iza­tion or for ultra-reli­able and ultra-sta­ble ser­vice result in the devel­op­ment of new types of capacitors. *Inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors* are capac­i­tors formed by appro­pri­ate met­al­liza­tion pat­terns on an iso­lat­ing sub­strate. These include *met­al-oxide-met­al (MOM) capac­i­tors*, *met­al-oxide-semi­con­duc­tor (MOS) capac­i­tors*, and *met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tors*. Despite the name of these types of capac­i­tors, they can be encap­su­lat­ed and sold as reg­u­lar, although very tiny, capac­i­tors. Some­times, they are also called *sil­i­con capac­i­tors* since the sub­strate is usu­al­ly sil­i­con. Sil­i­con com­pounds can also be used as dielectrics. *Deep trench capac­i­tors (DTCs)* are cre­at­ed on a semi­con­duc­tor sub­strate by cre­at­ing deep recess­es, called *trench­es*, to max­i­mize the sur­face area and capac­i­tance in a small foot­print. DTCs are also known as *trench sil­i­con capac­i­tors (TSC)* and *sil­i­con capac­i­tors (SiCap)*. *Glass capac­i­tors* are mod­ern Ley­den jars. They con­sist of mul­ti­ple lay­ers of met­al inter­twined with glass, sim­i­lar to how MLCCs are built. They are used in the most extreme sit­u­a­tions. Glass capac­i­tors are the most durable capac­i­tors in all respects. For exam­ple, they can with­stand high dos­es of nuclear radi­a­tion and strong neu­tron radiation. Note that the term sil­i­con capac­i­tors can be used for both inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors and deep trench capac­i­tors. Quite confusing. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cnf-mim-capacitors)CNF-MIM capacitors Of course, we can’t write an arti­cle with­out talk­ing about our car­bon nanofiber fiber met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (CNF-MIM) capacitor. With­out going into detail, we can say that CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are pro­duced in much the same way as the inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors of the MIM type. You might have guessed this by the name. How­ev­er, they dif­fer from MIM capac­i­tors in one fun­da­men­tal way where CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are more sim­i­lar to DTC. Both DTC and CNF-MIM capac­i­tors use nan­otech­nol­o­gy to increase the sur­face area. This is impor­tant because the abil­i­ty to store charges is direct­ly pro­por­tion­al to the area. But the area can only increase so much for DTC; the sky’s the lim­it for CNF-MIM capac­i­tors (almost lit­er­al­ly). DTCs have trench­es that are lim­it­ed how deep they can go before the sub­strate becomes too brit­tle and breaks. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, on the oth­er hand, build car­bon nanofibers on top of the substrate. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#humbling-perspective)Humbling perspective Pieter van Muss­chen­broek was not the first to dis­cov­er the Ley­den jar. Still, he was the one who made it known and sparked a flur­ry of research into the nature of elec­tric­i­ty. Elec­tric­i­ty was stud­ied fran­ti­cal­ly for the next hun­dred and six­ty years or so. It’s an incred­i­bly fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry, but since we’re approach­ing this article’s end, we’ll leave it at that. Fast for­ward to today, Smoltek is dri­ving the devel­op­ment of suc­ces­sors to the Ley­den jar. The his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive makes us feel hum­ble. Sure, our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is a big step for­ward for capac­i­tors, but it has been pre­ced­ed by oth­er, more essen­tial steps made by oth­ers before us. We feel hap­py to be a small link at the end of this 275-year-long chain of dis­cov­ery and development. Zap! --- title: "Smoltek intends to sign an exclusive agreement with Yageo Group" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-intends-to-sign-an-exclusive-agreement-with-yageo-group/6413/" date: 2023-12-07 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/smoltek-yageo-ctos-2000x1125-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "decoupling capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/decoupling-capacitors.md" - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" --- # Smoltek intends to sign an exclusive agreement with Yageo Group Smoltek Semi and KEMET Elec­tron­ics Cor­po­ra­tion, a sub­sidiary of YAGEO Group intends to sign an agree­ment that would grant YAGEO Group exclu­sive right to man­u­fac­ture and sell dis­crete and embed­ded capac­i­tor prod­ucts based on Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form for ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capac­i­tors (CNF-MIM). Under the intend­ed terms of the Agree­ment, Smoltek Semi would receive a roy­al­ty on indus­try mar­ket terms based on prod­uct sales, and Smoltek Semi would receive fees from KEMET for pro­vid­ing spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal sup­port ser­vices to KEMET for its con­tri­bu­tion to the con­tin­ued joint com­mer­cial­iza­tion of CNF-MIM-based products. Dur­ing nego­ti­a­tions on the terms of the next step in the col­lab­o­ra­tion, Smoltek and YAGEO have iden­ti­fied dis­tinct ben­e­fits of hav­ing YAGEO mar­ket and com­mer­cial­ize dif­fer­ent capac­i­tor prod­ucts through its already estab­lished orga­ni­za­tion. This would facil­i­tate a faster and more cost-effec­tive way to bring CNF-MIM capac­i­tors to mar­ket com­pared to the addi­tion­al plan­ning and invest­ments need­ed to form a new Joint Ven­ture enti­ty, as was pre­vi­ous­ly planned by the parties. Fur­ther­more, such an arrange­ment would allow YAGEO to more effi­cient­ly allo­cate resources to the col­lab­o­ra­tion with Smoltek as appro­pri­ate, includ­ing ongo­ing pay­ment to Smoltek for spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal work car­ried out dur­ing the con­tin­ued joint com­mer­cial­iza­tion and indus­tri­al­iza­tion process, thus facil­i­tat­ing a faster road to mar­ket for CNF-MIM based products. > I am proud of the excep­tion­al work car­ried out by Smoltek and YAGEO dur­ing our col­lab­o­ra­tion up until this point, which has put us in a posi­tion where we are eager to dou­ble down on our efforts to bring a fam­i­ly of ultra-thin dis­crete capac­i­tor prod­ucts based on our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy to the mar­ket. Enter­ing into a license and ser­vice agree­ment with YAGEO makes per­fect sense for Smoltek, as it will enable a smooth and rapid tran­si­tion into the next phase of the col­lab­o­ra­tion, with each par­ty being able to bring full com­mit­ment and resources to the table. > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek In the light of the above, the par­ties are now in nego­ti­a­tions to enter into a glob­al exclu­sive license and ser­vices agree­ment for dis­crete and embed­ded capac­i­tors. This agree­ment would grant YAGEO an exclu­sive glob­al right to man­u­fac­ture and sell CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, while also allow­ing for Smoltek to receive pay­ment for spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal sup­port services. Although the detailed com­mer­cial terms of this agree­ment still is under nego­ti­a­tion, the par­ties have agreed on the fol­low­ing struc­ture and out­lined terms of this agreement: - YAGEO would sup­port devel­op­ment of the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors through pay­ment for ser­vices and or poten­tial invest­ments in Smoltek. - The Agree­ment shall include a roy­al­ty-bear­ing glob­al exclu­sive license for YAGEO to com­mer­cial­ize CNF-MIM capacitors. - The roy­al­ty rate shall cor­re­spond to indus­try mar­ket terms. - Smoltek would, on indus­try mar­ket terms, pro­vide ser­vices in accor­dance of the agree­ment for the devel­op­ment and tech­ni­cal sup­port of the Products. - YAGEO would poten­tial­ly make an equi­ty based invest­ment in Smoltek Semi and/​or Smoltek for a minor­i­ty stake in either com­pa­ny, such terms and struc­ture to be fur­ther dis­cussed and nego­ti­at­ed. YAGEO acquir­ing an equi­ty posi­tion in either Smoltek and/​or Smoltek Semi is con­sis­tent with the intent of the Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing and is in the inter­est of both par­ties giv­en the antic­i­pat­ed devel­op­ment effort and asso­ci­at­ed cost to reach a viable com­mer­cial product. - The agree­ment is depen­dent on suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the JDA with respect to mutu­al agree­ment on achieve­ment of Joint Devel­op­ment Agree­ment met­rics and thus com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty of the CNF-MIM capacitors. Both Smoltek and YAGEO believe that the adjust­ed struc­ture of its future col­lab­o­ra­tion, to be final­ly agreed upon dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2024.  > With excel­lent progress achieved so far in our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Smoltek Semi, com­bined with strong inter­est from poten­tial cus­tomers, I am excit­ed that we are plan­ning a future with CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy based dis­crete and embed­ded capac­i­tor prod­ucts pro­duced exclu­sive­ly by YAGEO. I am cer­tain that such prod­ucts will become an excel­lent addi­tion to our prod­uct port­fo­lio in the com­ing years. > > Philip Less­ner, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of YAGEO *Dis­claimer: Although the par­ties are cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing the nego­ti­a­tions regard­ing the Agree­ment in good faith and with good hope of final­iz­ing the Agree­ment, the above infor­ma­tion shall not in any way be seen as a guar­an­tee regard­ing the out­come and con­clu­sions of the upcom­ing final nego­ti­a­tion phase of the Agree­ment or a guar­an­tee that the Agree­ment will be entered into by the par­ties or that YEAGEO will make any invest­ments in either Smoltek Semi or Smoltek.* *Top image fea­tures Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek and Philip Less­ner, EVP of YAGEO.* --- title: "Is Smoltek Hydrogen ahead of the game?" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-pem-cell-material-benchmarked-at-ecs-244th-meeting/6380/" date: 2023-12-01 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/genius-steampunk-scientist-developing-proton-exchange-membrane-water-electrolyzer-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "event" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/event.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" --- # Is Smoltek Hydrogen ahead of the game? In ear­ly Octo­ber 2023, [The Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Soci­ety](https://www.electrochem.org/) (ECS) held its [244th meet­ing](https://www.electrochem.org/244) in Gothen­burg. [Smoltek Hydro­gen was there](https://www.smoltek.com/together-towards-0-1-mg-iridium-cm2/6172/) with both a speak­er at the con­fer­ence and a booth at the exhi­bi­tion. The pur­pose was main­ly to meet poten­tial part­ners and cus­tomers. But it was also an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty for Smoltek to bench­mark itself against some of the world’s lead­ing researchers from indus­try and academia. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ecs-244th-meeting)**ECS 244th meeting** Smoltek wasn’t alone at the ECS 244th meet­ing. More than 3,400 researchers and indus­tri­al­ists participated. “Many came from the USA, which is the home of ECS,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg. “But a sur­pris­ing num­ber came from Asia, espe­cial­ly Japan and Korea. I think it’s great because there are two giant LNG countries.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#lng-countries)**LNG countries** LNG-coun­tries? What does it mean? “Just as coal has been an impor­tant ener­gy source for the indus­try in Ger­many, liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas, LNG, is an impor­tant ener­gy source for the indus­try in Japan and Korea,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg explains. “Both coun­tries import large amounts of LNG. Their indus­tries need to replace nat­ur­al gas with some­thing more cli­mate-friend­ly. As they are used to han­dle ener­gy gas, hydro­gen is a nat­ur­al alter­na­tive ”, says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, and uses Toy­ota as an example: “Toy­ota dares to devel­op a mid-size hydro­gen fuel cell vehi­cle while the rest of the auto­mo­tive indus­try sole­ly focus­es on bat­tery-pow­ered cars. I believe the con­fi­dence to go their way comes part­ly from Japan’s expe­ri­ence with LNG.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#opportunity-for-comparison)**Opportunity for comparison** It’s not because Elli­nor Ehrn­berg is a pro­po­nent of fuel cells that she is hap­py to see many from Japan and Korea at the con­fer­ence and on the exhi­bi­tion floor. “Pro­ton-exchange mem­branes are used in both fuel cells and elec­trolyz­ers. This means that many tech­no­log­i­cal advances made in the research and indus­tri­al­iza­tion of mem­branes for fuel cells are direct­ly trans­fer­able to PEM elec­trolyz­ers and vice ver­sa,” says Elli­nor Ehrnberg. The ECS 244th meet­ing attract­ed many top tal­ents in the indus­try, many of whom are from Asia, giv­ing Elli­nor Ehrn­berg and her team a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to bench­mark their tech­nol­o­gy with others. “Much research and devel­op­ment of pro­ton-exchange mem­branes is done with­out pub­lish­ing results. But, most peo­ple tend to be out­spo­ken and share infor­ma­tion at an event like this. So, we need to par­tic­i­pate to learn more about oth­ers’ approach­es and results.” Before we exam­ine the approach­es tak­en by dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies and labs and the results they have achieved, we must under­stand the prob­lem that fuel cell and elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers are try­ing to solve. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-center-of-the-magic)**The center of the magic** A mem­brane is at the cen­ter of the mag­ic, where water is split into hydro­gen and oxy­gen. It blocks elec­trons but allows pro­tons to pass through – hence the name Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane (PEM). On both sides of the mem­brane are elec­trodes. An *elec­trode* is a fan­cy term for an elec­tri­cal con­duc­tor in con­tact with a non­metal­lic part of a cir­cuit (in this case, water). One of the elec­trodes is con­nect­ed to the pos­i­tive ter­mi­nal of a pow­er source and is called the *anode*. The oth­er is con­nect­ed to the neg­a­tive ter­mi­nal of the same pow­er source and is called the *cath­ode*. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-trick)**The trick** The pow­er source wants to push out elec­trons at the cath­ode and pull in an equal num­ber at the anode. How­ev­er, this is not pos­si­ble because the mem­brane blocks elec­trons. And here comes the trick: We add water between the anode and the mem­brane. For the pow­er source to draw elec­trons at the anode, water mol­e­cules (H2O) must split into two hydro­gen atoms (2H) and one oxy­gen atom (O). The two hydro­gen atoms then give up their sin­gle elec­tron (2e-) and become two hydro­gen ions (2H+). But… (There is always a but in any good story.) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#oxygen-fights-back)**Oxygen fights back** The oxy­gen atom fights back. It doesn’t want to let go of the hydro­gen unless it makes a new friend. Oxy­gen atoms pre­fer to stick togeth­er in pairs (O2). How­ev­er, this requires two water mol­e­cules to split up vir­tu­al­ly simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and close to each oth­er, which doesn’t hap­pen very often. So, to speed up the process, some­thing is need­ed for the oxy­gen atoms to hold hands with while they look for a mate to merge with. What do oxy­gen atoms like as much as them­selves? Met­al. Oxy­gen loves met­al so much that it forms an oxide with it. If the met­al is iron or steel, we call this oxide rust. And trust me, rust is not desir­able in a PEM electrolyzer. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#iridium-enters-the-scene)**Iridium enters the scene** So, are there any met­als that attract oxy­gen with­out per­ish­ing in the relationship? Yes, there are. They are col­lec­tive­ly called plat­inum-group met­als: ruthe­ni­um, rhodi­um, pal­la­di­um, osmi­um, [irid­i­um](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium), and [plat­inum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum). And the most resis­tant of them all is… Drum­roll, please. Yes, you guessed it: Iridium. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-reaction)**The reaction** Irid­i­um is a safe place for oxy­gen atoms to land while wait­ing for a new part­ner. When two oxy­gen atoms land next to each oth­er, they let go of the irid­i­um and com­bine to become oxy­gen (O2). Thus, we have the fol­low­ing reac­tion on the anode side in a PEM electrolyzer: 2H2O → 4H+ + 4e- + O2 On the oth­er side of the mem­brane, the cath­ode spouts out elec­trons. The hydro­gen ions (H+) are attract­ed to these excess elec­trons, so they migrate through the mem­brane. (Remem­ber that a hydro­gen atom is just a pro­ton with an elec­tron, so when the elec­tron is gone, the hydro­gen ion is a pro­ton, which can pass through the membrane.) Once on the oth­er side, each hydro­gen ion joins with an elec­tron to become a hydro­gen atom. Then, the hydro­gen atoms join togeth­er in pairs to form hydro­gen gas (H2). And just like that, we have pro­duced hydro­gen gas from just water and electricity. Sim­ple, huh? ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-challenge)**The challenge** Of course, it’s not that simple. Water has to flow around the irid­i­um for the reac­tion to take place. The irid­i­um should be in con­tact with the mem­brane to allow the hydro­gen ions to cross over to the oth­er side. The irid­i­um must be elec­tri­cal­ly con­nect­ed to a pow­er source to pull the elec­trons in. And the oxy­gen gas has to be dis­si­pat­ed. All this hap­pens only on the anode side of the membrane. On the cath­ode side, the mem­brane must be in con­tact with the cath­ode so that the hydro­gen ions can com­bine with elec­trons to form hydro­gen atoms, which must then be trans­port­ed away to be utilized. Anoth­er thing to con­sid­er is that the more irid­i­um in con­tact with the mem­brane, the more water can be bro­ken down into hydro­gen and oxy­gen. How­ev­er, you can’t just cov­er one side of the mem­brane with irid­i­um because it would block the hydro­gen ions from pass­ing through the membrane. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-stack)**The stack** The solu­tion is to build a stack called *Mem­brane Elec­trode Assem­bly* (MEA). Elli­nor Ehrn­berg describes how a typ­i­cal MEA is built: “Small grains of irid­i­um are mixed in a sol­vent, and the result is used as ‘ink’ to make screen prints on the anode side of the mem­brane. The result is called a *Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Mem­brane.*” “On top of the cat­a­lyst coat­ing, a lay­er of elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive and porous mate­r­i­al is added to con­duct elec­tric­i­ty and water to the mem­brane and allow oxy­gen to escape. This is called the *porous trans­port lay­er* or PTL. Anoth­er PTL is added on the oth­er side of the mem­brane to allow hydro­gen to escape.” “Final­ly, the whole thing is firm­ly pressed togeth­er to ensure that the mem­brane, the irid­i­um, and the porous trans­port lay­er come into con­tact with each oth­er,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg con­cludes the explanation. This sounds like an ele­gant solu­tion. But there is a catch. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#waste-of-iridium)**Waste of iridium** “The sur­face of the porous trans­port lay­er is… porous. It is not smooth. When every­thing is pressed togeth­er to make con­tact, its rough­ness can dam­age the cat­a­lyst coat­ing, break­ing the con­duc­tive path nec­es­sary for elec­tron flow,” explains Elli­nor Ehrnberg. The solu­tion is to apply sev­er­al lay­ers of cat­a­lyst coat­ing on top of each oth­er. But this is a sig­nif­i­cant waste of irid­i­um because most grains of irid­i­um end up inside the lay­er. They don’t come into con­tact with water and the mem­brane and don’t con­tribute to hydro­gen production. This would not be a prob­lem if irid­i­um were not so rare. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#extremely-rare)**Extremely rare** Irid­i­um is extreme­ly rare; only sev­en to eight tons can be extract­ed annu­al­ly. This lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty con­tributes to the met­al’s high cost. As of Octo­ber 2023, iridium’s mar­ket price exceeds USD 160,000 per kilogram. Each PEM-elec­trolyz­er doesn’t use much irid­i­um. Cat­a­lyst-coat­ed mem­brane uses about two mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter (2 mg/​cm2). But it adds up to a lot, and with the rapid­ly grow­ing demand, it will soon cause the demand for irid­i­um to exceed the supply. So, some­thing must be done. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-holy-grail)**The holy grail** Part of the solu­tion is recov­er­ing irid­i­um from end-of-life PEM elec­trolyz­ers. But that alone is not enough. To meet demand and keep the use of vir­gin irid­i­um at an accept­able lev­el, the amount of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter of the mem­brane must be reduced to one-twen­ti­eth of the cur­rent amount. That’s why 0.1 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter mem­brane (0.1 mg/​cm2) is the industry’s holy grail. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smoltek-makes-it-possible)**Smoltek makes it possible** Smoltek Hydrogen’s tech­nol­o­gy actu­al­ly makes it pos­si­ble to get as low as 0.1 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter in the near future. “We’re not quite there yet, but we’re well on our way,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg and con­tin­ues: “In the lab, we have reached 0.5 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter and expect to reach 0.1 mil­ligrams soon.” But how far have oth­ers come? This was the ques­tion that Elli­nor Ehrn­berg and her team sought to answer dur­ing the 244th ECS meet­ing in Gothenburg. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-classic-route)**The classic route** The most com­mon route is to replace the sol­id grains of irid­i­um with sol­id grains of cheap­er mate­ri­als and put irid­i­um on the out­side, either as a shell or par­ti­cle by particle. With this tech­nique, labs can reduce irid­i­um to 0.3 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter mem­brane (0.3 mg/​cm2). But that’s about as far as it goes, accord­ing to Elli­nor Ehrnberg: “The coat­ing must still have a cer­tain thick­ness, which inevitably means that grains inside the lay­er can­not come into con­tact. So, even if you have reduced the amount of irid­i­um by replac­ing the core with cheap­er mate­ri­als, you are still wast­ing a lot.” Although 0.3 mil­ligrams is a rad­i­cal improve­ment, albeit so far only in lab­o­ra­to­ries, Smoltek’s goal is still three times more ambi­tious. With Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy, pro­duc­ing three times as much hydro­gen for the same amount of irid­i­um will be possible. So, while the cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy can be great­ly improved, Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy will still have a sig­nif­i­cant com­pet­i­tive advantage. Is there no one else who can reach the same low lev­el as Smoltek? Truth to be told, there is. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-high-performance-route)**The high-performance route** [Los Alam­os Nation­al Lab](https://www.lanl.gov/) – per­haps best known for the atom­ic bomb – has cho­sen the same path as Smoltek. Instead of try­ing to improve a flawed idea – the Cat­a­lyst Coat­ed Mem­brane – both have cho­sen a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent route. The idea is to cre­ate fibers that run like spikes between the porous trans­port lay­er and the mem­brane. The fibers are coat­ed with plat­inum to pro­tect them from the cor­ro­sive envi­ron­ment. Nanopar­ti­cles of irid­i­um are attached to the out­side of the plat­inum sur­face of the fibers. In this way, each par­ti­cle comes into con­tact with water and con­tributes to hydro­gen production. “They have cho­sen the same path as us, and for me, that proves we are doing the right thing,” says Elli­nor Ehrnberg. Oh dear. Same solu­tion. That can­not be good for Smoltek Hydrogen. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#different-solutions)**Different solutions** “There are cru­cial dif­fer­ences,” assures Elli­nor Ehrnberg. Unlike Smoltek, Los Alam­os Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry has cho­sen to cre­ate the fibers in the same mate­r­i­al as the mem­brane. These fibers are “pulled out” of the mem­brane and bent at the top so that they touch each oth­er. This cre­ates two prob­lems, accord­ing to Elli­nor Ehrnberg: “First, when a mem­brane elec­trode assem­bly is man­u­fac­tured, the porous trans­port lay­er is pressed with great force against the mem­brane. That’s no prob­lem for Smoltek’s strong car­bon nanofibers, but it may be chal­leng­ing for Los Alam­os fibers. They are made of [nafion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafion), a soft poly­mer that read­i­ly bends under pressure.” “Sec­ond, Los Alam­os fibers must be bent at the tips to make elec­tri­cal con­tact, which can impair water flow and oxy­gen dissipation.” ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#key-competitive-advantage)**Key competitive advantage** But per­haps the most impor­tant com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, accord­ing to Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, is Smoltek’s head start. “My team is work­ing in two par­al­lel tracks. We are refin­ing our tech­nol­o­gy to achieve 0.1 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter. And at the same time, we are devel­op­ing an indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing process. Our plan is to com­bine the two tracks in a pilot plant to be com­plet­ed in 2025.” Los Alam­os Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry is not work­ing on indus­tri­al­iza­tion at all. On a direct ques­tion from an employ­ee at Smoltek, Jacob S. Spende­low, who [pre­sent­ed](https://ecs.confex.com/ecs/244/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/180384) the results from Los Alam­os Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry dur­ing the ECS 244th meet­ing, answered that they “wish” for a part­ner to indus­tri­al­ize the technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conclusion)**Conclusion** To sum­ma­rize, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg is delight­ed with what she and her team learned dur­ing the ECS 244th meet­ing in Gothenburg. She feels con­fi­dent that Smoltek has cho­sen the right path. The clas­sic route – adding lay­er upon lay­er of irid­i­um grains – will always waste the scarce met­al. To reach the holy grail – 0.1 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter (0.1 mg/​cm2) – man­u­fac­tur­ers must fol­low Smoltek’s path. Although oth­ers are look­ing at the same path, Elli­nor Ehrn­berg is con­vinced that Smoltek is ahead of the game. “We don’t know of any com­pa­ny that has come as far as us,” she con­fi­dent­ly assures. “Oth­ers strug­gle with reduc­ing irid­i­um, obtain­ing suf­fi­cient life­time, or scal­ing up.”What are your thoughts on Smoltek Hydro­gen’s future? [Leave your com­ments on LinkedIn.](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/smoltek-investor-relations/) --- title: "Smoltek Hydrogen is verifying its technology for high-volume manufacturing" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen-is-verifying-its-technology-for-high-volume-manufacturing/6313/" date: 2023-11-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/smoltekhydrogenagc-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek Hydrogen is verifying its technology for high-volume manufacturing PEM elec­trolyz­ers are equip­ment used to make hydro­gen. They work with elec­tric­i­ty and use irid­i­um as cat­a­lyst to split water mol­e­cules into hydro­gen and oxy­gen, and they will play an impor­tant role to reduce our car­bon foot­print, since the elec­trolyz­ers can make the pro­duc­tion of e.g., steel, fer­til­iz­ers, and fuels for heavy trans­port fos­sil free.  The PEM elec­trolyz­er has sev­er­al advan­tages over oth­er elec­trolyz­er types. The rapid start and stop times make it oper­ate effi­cient­ly togeth­er with inter­mit­tent elec­tric­i­ty sources (such as wind- and solar-pow­er). This flex­i­bil­i­ty means that the PEM elec­trolyz­er can pro­duce cheap fos­sil-free hydro­gen on windy and sun­ny days, when the elec­tric­i­ty prices are low.  The hydro­gen can then be stored and used when need­ed, for exam­ple in the indus­try, or be turned back into elec­tric­i­ty again. This flex­i­bil­i­ty and cost advan­tage make it attrac­tive to scale-up the pro­duc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­ers, even though they today use large amounts of the scarce met­al irid­i­um as catalyst. Because irid­i­um is such a lim­it­ed resource, reduc­ing its use in the elec­trolyz­ers is an absolute must, oth­er­wise the scale-up of PEM elec­trolyz­ers will be too expen­sive. Already today the irid­i­um price is around SEK 2 mil­lion and is expect­ed to reach around SEK 8 mil­lion by 2030. This requires new mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing solu­tions for elec­trolyz­er cells. Like the one Smoltek Hydro­gen is in the midst of devel­op­ing. It is a new cell mate­r­i­al that sub­stan­tial­ly will reduce the amount of irid­i­um in the elec­trolyz­er cell. The devel­op­ment of Smoltek Hydrogen’s elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al (ECM) is advanc­ing accord­ing to plan, which is to low­er the amount of irid­i­um in the elec­trolyz­er cell towards 0.1 mg/​cm2. As of now the com­pa­ny has pro­duced the same amount of hydro­gen as a stan­dard mate­r­i­al (that uses 2.5 mg iridium/​cm2) with only 0.5 mg iridium/​cm2 and will most cer­tain­ly reach the goal of the year, which is to have an even low­er irid­i­um loading.  **First steps towards indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing of the cell mate­r­i­al** Besides the tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, Smoltek Hydro­gen is work­ing in par­al­lel with devel­op­ment of an indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cept for the cell mate­r­i­al. Today the sam­ples are pro­duced with lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nolo­gies, in low quan­ti­ties and with typ­i­cal area of only a few square cen­time­ters, where­as the indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cept must be scal­able to the high vol­umes fore­seen, which is tens of thou­sands of square meters a year, and beyond. As a first step towards indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing, prac­ti­cal val­i­da­tion of the select­ed con­cept for the growth of nanos­truc­tures is need­ed, since it is a slight­ly dif­fer­ent type of Chem­i­cal Vapor Depo­si­tion (CVD) process than used today. In order to do this Smoltek Hydro­gen has placed an order with AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions for the design and engi­neer­ing of a new ded­i­cat­ed Pro­to­type Coater tool. Smoltek has explored sev­er­al dif­fer­ent con­cepts and the select­ed PECVD tech­nol­o­gy is expect­ed to work well for Smoltek’s growth process. Smoltek and AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions will togeth­er design a Pro­to­type Coater tool that can mir­ror the out­put of full-size equip­ment. It will be placed in the Chalmers MC2 facil­i­ties in Gothen­burg, where Smoltek cur­rent­ly has its nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion oper­a­tions. This is an impor­tant first step towards indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the Smoltek Hydro­gen cell material.  > The Pro­to­type Coater will be used to val­i­date that we have cho­sen the right con­cept for the future vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing, and also make it pos­si­ble to devel­op indus­tri­al growth recipes before fur­ther scale-up. And even more impor­tant – it pro­vides sam­ples of indus­tri­al tech­nol­o­gy already now, when cus­tomers are to use our new mate­r­i­al in the devel­op­ment of their next gen­er­a­tion of PEM electrolyzers.  > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen After suc­cess­ful val­i­da­tion of the Pro­to­type Coater, Smoltek Hydro­gen aims to order a Pilot Coater which is a small­er ver­sion of a final high-vol­ume tool. This is a cru­cial com­po­nent of AGC’s busi­ness mod­el, since they guar­an­tee the per­for­mance of the vol­ume machine if their small­er coater is used to spec­i­fy its require­ments. The Pilot Coater will be used to pro­duce test series for cus­tomers as well as for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies before vol­ume manufacturing.  Smoltek Hydro­gen plans to scale up the man­u­fac­tur­ing in sync with cus­tomers’ prod­uct devel­op­ment process­es, to ensure cus­tomers can obtain appro­pri­ate sizes and quan­ti­ties of sam­ples as well as final prod­ucts when needed.  ![Sh2 Cell Material Roadmap 2023 11](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/sh2-cell-material-roadmap-2023-11.png) The roadmap for scal­ing up pro­duc­tion of Smoltek Elec­trolyz­er Cell Mate­r­i­al is per­formed in sev­er­al phas­es. The design of a Pro­to­type Coater is an impor­tant first step in the vol­ume con­cept validation. **About AGC** AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions is a new busi­ness unit with­in AGC Glass Europe SA, a Euro­pean leader in flat glass. AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions is pro­vid­ing low-pres­sure plas­ma coat­ing tech­nol­o­gy and equip­ment. AGC Plas­ma is an expan­sive team of plas­ma coat­ing experts spe­cial­ized in inno­v­a­tive PVD and PECVD appli­ca­tions from R&D and new prod­uct devel­op­ment all the way through to equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ing and oper­a­tional man­age­ment of mass pro­duc­tion coat­ing plants. Vis­it the web­site www.agc-plasma.com to learn more about the equip­ment and ser­vices offered by AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solutions. *Peo­ple pic­tured in the top pho­to, from left: Amin Saleeem, Bastien Pen­ninckx, Shafik Kabir, Erwan-Axel Mor­ris­son (AGC), Fabi­an Wenger, Jeroen Schot­saert (AGC), Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Réka Simon-Balint.* --- title: "Background on the tax increase for Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/background-on-the-tax-increase-for-smoltek/6303/" date: 2023-11-15 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/don-quixote-tilting-at-windmills-1.png" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # Background on the tax increase for Smoltek A few days ago, we sent a [press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-is-demanded-repayment-for-deductions-of-employer-contributions,c3868487) inform­ing that the Swedish Tax Agency assessed us with 1.5 mil­lion SEK (approx. 130,000 Euro). It stings. Espe­cial­ly since the tax agency jus­ti­fies its deci­sion by claim­ing that what we do is not qual­i­fied R&D. We strong­ly dis­agree with this mis­char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, but the pur­pose of this blog post is not to polemi­cize against the tax agency – there are bet­ter venues for that – but rather to explain what this is all about. So, if you expect this to be a vit­ri­olic retort or satir­i­cal rant, you will be disappointed. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-situation)The situation The Swedish government’s bud­get bill 2014 includ­ed a pro­pos­al to reduce employ­er con­tri­bu­tion for employ­ees who *sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly* car­ry out *qual­i­fied* research and devel­op­ment (R&D) for *com­mer­cial* pur­pos­es. The Swedish Par­lia­ment adopt­ed the bud­get bill, and this option has been avail­able ever since. Smoltek, which almost only has PhDs who sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly con­duct qual­i­fied R&D for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es, has used this oppor­tu­ni­ty to reduce the employ­er contribution. How­ev­er, in a tax audit for 2021 and 2022, the Swedish Tax Agency has con­clud­ed that Smoltek does not meet the require­ments for the reduc­tion. At first, they said we did not meet any of the three con­di­tions, but after much back-and-forth, the tax agency was con­vinced that we con­duct sys­tem­at­ic R&D for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es. How­ev­er, they do not think that our R&D is suf­fi­cient­ly qualified. This is, of course, bollocks. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#never-mind-the-bollocks-heres-smoltek)Never mind the bollocks, here’s Smoltek Smoltek has its roots in research at the [Depart­ment of Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience](https://www.chalmers.se/sv/institutioner/mc2/Sidor/default.aspx) at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy. There, Shafiq Kabir stud­ied the pos­si­bil­i­ties of grow­ing car­bon nanofibers to a spe­cif­ic diam­e­ter and length, plac­ing them with extreme pre­ci­sion, and doing so direct­ly on CMOS semiconductors. His research efforts bore fruit, and in Decem­ber 2005, while fin­ish­ing his Ph.D. the­sis, he start­ed Smoltek to devel­op the meth­ods fur­ther and make them avail­able to the industry. For near­ly two decades, Smoltek has con­tin­ued to explore meth­ods to grow car­bon nanofibers with extreme pre­ci­sion and desired prop­er­ties and explore their use in the semi­con­duc­tor, hydro­gen, bio­med­ical, and oth­er fields. So far, this has result­ed in more than 80 patents and an addi­tion­al 30 pend­ing patents. So, nev­er mind the bol­locks, here’s Smoltek – to para­phrase the most icon­ic  punk band of all time. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-challenges)The challenges Smolteks is not alone in hav­ing prob­lems get­ting the tax author­i­ty to approve the research deduc­tion. A long list of re-tax­a­tion deci­sions bears wit­ness to this. The tax author­i­ty sets up a high bar­ri­er for research-inten­sive com­pa­nies to make the deduc­tion. They require com­pa­nies to show each month how each employ­ee has con­tributed to research that leads to new knowl­edge or par­tic­i­pat­ed in devel­op­ment that sig­nif­i­cant­ly improves a prod­uct. This is at odds with the way R&D is conducted. More­over, the tax author­i­ty has a rig­or­ous inter­pre­ta­tion. For fur­ther prod­uct devel­op­ment to count, they require that it result in a prod­uct that bare­ly resem­bles the orig­i­nal. In addi­tion, they require the com­pa­ny to show pre­cise­ly what research results have been used in the development. In prac­tice, the tax agency’s appli­ca­tion of the law coun­ter­acts its aim of stim­u­lat­ing R&D. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#reasons-for-the-deduction)Reasons for the deduction In Jan­u­ary 2011, the gov­ern­ment appoint­ed a com­mit­tee to review the Swedish tax rules for R&D and pro­pose how tax incen­tives could stim­u­late R&D. On Sep­tem­ber 26, 2012, the com­mit­tee sub­mit­ted its [report](https://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/300906d995a34098ab0d8c2e0f895ce8/skatteincitament-for-forskning-och-utveckling-sou-201266/). The com­mit­tee finds two rea­sons to intro­duce tax incen­tives for R&D: 1. To com­pen­sate for oth­ers prof­it­ing from the new knowl­edge R&D creates. 2. To com­pen­sate for the high­er cost of financ­ing R&D, Let’s dive into what this means. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#leakage-of-rd)Leakage of R&D A com­pa­ny that invests in R&D can­not whol­ly pre­vent oth­ers from prof­it­ing from the new knowl­edge it cre­ates, accord­ing to the Committee. Pos­si­ble ways in which this knowl­edge “leaks” are through patent appli­ca­tions, research papers, and employ­ees mov­ing from one employ­er to anoth­er, to men­tion a few. This is good for soci­ety as a whole but can be dis­cour­ag­ing for the com­pa­ny behind the research. Hence, there is a need for tax incen­tives for R&D. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#higher-cost-of-rd)Higher cost of R&D The cost of cap­i­tal for financ­ing R&D is high­er than for oth­er investments. Research cit­ed by the com­mit­tee shows that investors have dif­fi­cul­ty assess­ing research and, there­fore, require a sig­nif­i­cant risk pre­mi­um to invest in research-inten­sive com­pa­nies. This means that the cost of cap­i­tal for financ­ing R&D is often sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than for oth­er investments. More­over, the com­mit­tee writes that the tax sys­tem treats dif­fer­ent sources of finance dif­fer­ent­ly. For exam­ple, financ­ing with retained earn­ings, a source of financ­ing that large and estab­lished com­pa­nies can use, is favored for tax pur­pos­es. Small and new com­pa­nies usu­al­ly have less retained earn­ings than larg­er and estab­lished com­pa­nies. The lack of retained earn­ings fur­ther rais­es the cost of cap­i­tal for new and small busi­ness­es look­ing to grow. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-employer-contribution-deductions)Why employer contribution deductions The com­mit­tee con­sid­ered sev­er­al dif­fer­ent forms of tax incen­tives. Some pro­pos­als were linked to com­pa­nies’ expen­di­tures, and oth­ers to their income. In the end, the com­mit­tee con­sid­ered intro­duc­ing a tax incen­tive for R&D through a direct employ­er con­tri­bu­tion reduc­tion as the most appro­pri­ate option. With employ­er con­tri­bu­tion as a basis, it is pos­si­ble to ensure that a com­pa­ny can take part in the incen­tive regard­less of whether it is prof­itable or not and to obtain sup­port only for R&D work car­ried out in Sweden. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-requirements)The requirements The work must be qual­i­fied and car­ried out sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly to be eli­gi­ble for the deduction. Qual­i­fied work means actu­al and direct work with real research or devel­op­ment con­tent. Sup­port and ancil­lary func­tions are thus excluded. Sys­tem­at­ic work means that facts must be imple­ment­ed, inves­ti­gat­ed, or fol­lowed up accord­ing to a plan. The work must also have a com­mer­cial pur­pose to qual­i­fy for a deduc­tion, which most prof­it-mak­ing com­pa­nies meet. Deduc­tions can only be made if the per­son has worked on research or devel­op­ment for at least half their actu­al work­ing time and at least 15 hours dur­ing the cal­en­dar month. The deduc­tion is 19.59 per­cent of the tax base for a per­son work­ing on research or development. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#wishful-thinking)Wishful thinking The com­mit­tee sug­gest­ed that the rules must be easy to under­stand and legal­ly clear. They stressed the need for admin­is­tra­tive­ly and tech­ni­cal­ly straight­for­ward, con­sis­tent, clear leg­is­la­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, they stressed the need for an unequiv­o­cal def­i­n­i­tion of R&D based on the OECD’s [Fras­cati man­u­al](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frascati_Manual). This would turn out to be wish­ful think­ing. Now, many com­pa­nies are being reassessed by the tax author­i­ty and ordered to pay back a few years’ worth of deduc­tions. So also Smoltek. ![Don Quixote Tilting At Windmills 6](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/don-quixote-tilting-at-windmills-6-1200x800.png) The expres­sion “tilt­ing at wind­mills” describes attack­ing imag­i­nary ene­mies or extreme ide­al­ism. It is derived from the icon­ic wind­mill scene in Miguel de Cer­van­tes’s book Don Quixote de la Man­cha (1605–1615). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#going-forward)Going forward So what hap­pens now? Of course, our knee-jerk reac­tion was to fight the wrong deci­sion. How­ev­er, there are more impor­tant things to do than fight for the sake of it. So, we keep a cool head and con­sid­er our options. One thing is sure: We will not tilt at wind­mills, but we will request recon­sid­er­a­tion or file an appeal. --- title: "Why capacitors?" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/why-capacitors/6214/" date: 2023-11-09 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/land-side-capacitors-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" --- # Why capacitors? A few weeks ago, we proud­ly [announced that we had start­ed pro­duc­tion of capac­i­tors in high-vol­ume](https://www.smoltek.com/investors/blog/high-volume-production-of-capacitors/6086/). But why the fuss about capac­i­tors? After all, it is a severe­ly price-pres­sured and already cheap com­mod­i­ty. And why is Smoltek’s divi­sion for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, Smoltek Semi, doing this? A capac­i­tor is not a semi­con­duc­tor! And what’s the plan for the future? All this is the sub­ject of this week’s blog post. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#one-of-the-toughest-markets-in-the-world)One of the toughest markets in the world Yes, capac­i­tors are a com­mod­i­ty. Yes, capac­i­tors are cheap (they cost apiece just a frac­tion of a dol­lar). And yes, capac­i­tors are under severe price pres­sure from the big boys. So what on earth makes a small com­pa­ny up in the north, not yet prof­itable, bet on what must be one of the tough­est mar­kets in the world? The answer is two-fold­ed: The know-how to solve one of the elec­tron­ic indus­try’s biggest prob­lems in the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful small devices. And the busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty that comes with that know-how. Let’s unpack what this means, start­ing with the busi­ness opportunity. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-all-the-fuss-about-capacitors)Why all the fuss about capacitors? Every device that con­tains chips also con­tains capac­i­tors. Your smart­watch, smart­phone, smart speak­er; your tablet, lap­top, and desk­top com­put­ers; your tv, stereo sys­tem, and robot vac­u­um clean­er. Every elec­tron­ic gad­get you own. The same applies to larg­er sys­tems like cars, med­ical devices, and indus­tri­al-process controllers. In short, capac­i­tors can be found every­where. They are omnipresent. And there is a colos­sal demand for them. Every year, more than a whop­ping one tril­lion capac­i­tors are pro­duced worldwide. Smoltek aims to grab a slice of that pie. 1,000,000,000,000 So many capac­i­tors are pro­duced – every year. *Source:* [*IEEE Elec­tri­cal Insu­la­tion Mag­a­zine (Vol­ume: 26, Issue: 1, Jan­u­ary-Feb­ru­ary 2010)*](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5383924) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#huge-market)Huge market It sounds like the hubris of a start­up when Smoltek claims to be able to cut even a slice of the pie. But it’s any­thing but hubris. As you know, we have part­nered with [YAGEO](https://www.yageo.com/en/Home), the world’s third-largest man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive com­po­nents like capac­i­tors. With our know-how and YAGEO’s sales and dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels, we aim to joint­ly cap­ture one-third of the capac­i­tor mar­ket for the pre­mi­um seg­ment of mobile phones except iPhones. Of course, Apple knows what we have to offer, but we don’t pur­sue them for now. They are work­ing close­ly with a com­peti­tor, and we believe they will not jump ship any time soon.  We esti­mate that our address­able mar­ket buys between 3.5 and 4.5 bil­lion capac­i­tors each year. So even if the price apiece is only a frac­tion of a dol­lar, the over­all sales impact is impressive. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#not-a-semiconductor)Not a semiconductor It may seem strange that Smoltek focus­es on an elec­tron­ic com­po­nent that is not a semi­con­duc­tor. But there is a per­fect rea­son for that. I have already hint­ed at what it is: Capac­i­tors are an absolute neces­si­ty for dig­i­tal inte­grat­ed cir­cuits of semi­con­duc­tors to work.To explain why, we need to go down the rab­bit hole of the inner work­ings of inte­grat­ed cir­cuits and capac­i­tors. If you don’t like the won­der­land of elec­tron­ics, skip this part and go straight to the last ques­tion: [What’s the endgame?](https://www.smoltek.com#endgame) Still here? Good! Let’s fol­low the White Rabbit. ![Book illustration showing the White Rabbit looking at his pocket watch.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-white-rabbit-450x675.webp) *In Lewis Carroll’s book* The Nurs­ery Alice*, Alice chas­es the White Rab­bit and unex­pect­ed­ly falls down a rab­bit hole, lead­ing her to Wonderland.* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#transients)Transients Although semi­con­duc­tors can be used for more than just dig­i­tal inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, dig­i­tal inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, or *chips* for short, are what we’re talk­ing about here. A chip con­sists of tran­sis­tors that act as elec­tri­cal switch­es. Each tran­sis­tor rep­re­sents a bit – a num­ber that can be one or zero. A tran­sis­tor turns on pow­er to rep­re­sent the val­ue one and turns off pow­er to rep­re­sent the val­ue zero. Turn­ing the pow­er on and off can affect near­by devices. You may have expe­ri­enced that the lights in your home blink when you turn on or off a ket­tle or oth­er elec­tri­cal appli­ance that draws a lot of pow­er. This is because the rapid change in pow­er demand cre­ates a short-lived pulse, called a *tran­sient*, which prop­a­gates from the appli­ance, through the wiring, to the lights. The same hap­pens when tran­sis­tors in a chip turn pow­er on and off. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#troublesome-transients)Troublesome transients To make mat­ters worse, tran­sis­tors on a chip turn on or off simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. They do so at the beat of a clock that ticks bil­lions of times every sec­ond. Each tran­sis­tor con­tributes a lit­tle to what adds up to a sig­nif­i­cant tran­sient. This tran­sient will prop­a­gate from the chip to oth­er chips and com­po­nents if not addressed. That can dis­rupt (and even destroy) the elec­tron­ics, with dev­as­tat­ing consequences. Not only that. Tran­sients rush­ing through the pow­er-feed­ing tracks make them act as trans­mit­ting anten­nas that send out radio waves. Oth­er tracks act as receiv­er anten­nas that pick up the radio waves and con­vert them into elec­tric­i­ty. This way, the pulse is trans­mit­ted wire­less­ly from the sup­ply tracks to oth­er tracks. Tracks that may trans­mit ones and zeros that are at risk of flip­ping. Again, the con­se­quences can be devastating. ![Burning Microchip](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/burning-microchip-1200x800.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-capacitors-are-a-necessity-for-semiconductors)Why capacitors are a necessity for semiconductors To pre­vent these dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences, mit­i­gat­ing out­go­ing and incom­ing tran­sients is nec­es­sary. This is where capac­i­tors come into play. When a capac­i­tor is used for this pur­pose, it’s called a *decou­pling capac­i­tor*. You can think of a decou­pling capac­i­tor as a shock absorber for the volt­age sup­ply to the chip. Quick volt­age changes, both upward and down­ward, are smoothed out and become much small­er. They do this by absorb­ing and releas­ing ener­gy as the sup­ply volt­age fluctuates. Some capac­i­tors are light­ning-fast at absorb­ing the ener­gy but can­not absorb much. Oth­ers are slow­er but can absorb more. There­fore, sev­er­al capac­i­tors are often need­ed to pro­tect a chip. A sin­gle smart­phone proces­sor today typ­i­cal­ly has eight decou­pling capacitors. That’s why capac­i­tors are nec­es­sary for semi­con­duc­tors and the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. How­ev­er, the decou­pling capac­i­tors must be as close to the chip as pos­si­ble for it to work. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-capacitors-need-to-be-close-to-the-chip)Why capacitors need to be close to the chip In an ide­al world, capac­i­tors respond light­ning-fast to pow­er surges, but in real­i­ty, they don’t. The rea­son is spelled *par­a­sitic induc­tance*. *Induc­tance* refers to the prop­er­ty of an elec­tri­cal con­duc­tor by which a quick change in cur­rent flow­ing through it induces (hence the name) a volt­age that oppos­es this change, effec­tive­ly slow­ing the rate at which cur­rent can change. Unin­ten­tion­al and unwant­ed induc­tance is said to be *par­a­sitic*. Par­a­sitic induc­tance is every­where, even in the wires between the capac­i­tor and the chip. The longer the wires, the more induc­tance and the greater the resis­tance to sud­den changes. That is the oppo­site of what we want to achieve.Thus, keep­ing the wires between a decou­pling capac­i­tor and its chip as short as pos­si­ble is essen­tial. Ide­al­ly, the capac­i­tor should be inside the chip. But the next best thing for decou­pling capac­i­tors is to sit between sol­der balls under the chip. Such a capac­i­tor is called a *land-side capac­i­tor* (*LSC*). ![Land Side Capacitors 2](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/land-side-capacitors-2-1200x800.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-capacitors-need-to-be-thin)Why capacitors need to be thin It should be pret­ty obvi­ous why land­side capac­i­tors must be small. They com­pete with the sol­der balls for space on the under­side of the chip. The typ­i­cal length and width of a capac­i­tor vary between half and a few millimeters. They must also be thin because the dis­tance between the chip and the cir­cuit board is small­er than the diam­e­ter of the sol­der balls. Com­mon­ly, for com­put­er chips, the sol­der balls are only 0.5 or 0.4 mil­lime­ters in diameter. In pre­mi­um smart­phones, the require­ments are much tougher than that. They require ultra-thin capac­i­tors. We are talk­ing about tens of microm­e­ters instead of millimeters. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#challenges-with-ultra-thin-capacitors)Challenges with ultra-thin capacitors When the thick­ness of a land-side capac­i­tor gets down to 80 microm­e­ters, 60 microm­e­ters, or even 40 microm­e­ters, many prob­lems start to creep up. The first chal­lenge that man­u­fac­tur­ers face is capac­i­tance. This is the abil­i­ty to save ener­gy. It is nec­es­sary to cre­ate suf­fi­cient capac­i­tance in the small area avail­able with­out mak­ing the capac­i­tor too high. Anoth­er chal­lenge for man­u­fac­tur­ers is to cre­ate ultra-thin capac­i­tors that are not so brit­tle that they can­not be han­dled indus­tri­al­ly with­out breaking. A third chal­lenge is the strength of mate­ri­als. One tech­nique used today is to fill etched trench­es in sil­i­con sub­strates with an insu­lat­ing mate­r­i­al. How­ev­er, there are lim­i­ta­tions in how deep these trench­es can be and how tight­ly they can be placed. Fourth, last but not least, these chal­lenges make the research and devel­op­ment of ever-thin­ner capac­i­tors more com­plex and their pro­duc­tion more expensive. This is where Smoltek’s [CNF-MIM capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/) enter the stage. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-makes-cnf-mim-capacitors-unique)What makes CNF-MIM capacitors unique We expect CNF-MIM capac­i­tors to have high­er capac­i­tance than a deep trench sil­i­con capac­i­tor (the clos­est com­peti­tor) of the same length, width, and height. In addi­tion, the CNF-MIM capac­i­tor is expect­ed to meet real-world require­ments with fly­ing col­ors: excel­lent capac­i­tance sta­bil­i­ty, high break­down volt­age, low leak­age cur­rent, and low series resis­tance and inductance. To top it off, CNF-MIM capac­i­tors aimed at high-end device seg­ments are expect­ed to be cheap­er to pro­duce, so we can com­pete on price and still have a good mar­gin for capacitors. ![Smoltek R&D-team at MC2 nanotech lab](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-10-1200x675.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-endgame)The endgame Is the com­mer­cial­iza­tion and mass pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors the endgame of Smoltek’s explo­ration in the semi­con­duc­tor territory? No. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are just one of many appli­ca­tions in the semi­con­duc­tor field for which car­bon nanofibers can be used. If you’ve been around for a while, you might remem­ber SmolTIM, SmolIN­CO, and SmolIN­PO. Our patent-pro­tect­ed solu­tions for heat dis­si­pa­tion inside chips, inter­posers with built-in decou­pling capac­i­tors and rein­forced con­nec­tion points for mul­ti­ple dies, and sol­der balls with ultra-fine pitch (down to 5 micrometers). How­ev­er, we chose CNF-MIM capac­i­tors because it was pret­ty obvi­ous busi­ness-wise. There is an immi­nent need for ultra-thin capac­i­tors, and the mar­ket is vast. Our patents pro­tect the oth­er tech­nolo­gies, so we can safe­ly focus on launch­ing sales and rolling out mass pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. Once it is up and run­ning, we can return to the oth­er tech­nolo­gies and con­sid­er which one to bring to the mar­ket next. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#unequivocal-proof-of-concept)Unequivocal proof of concept Anoth­er ben­e­fit of start­ing with pro­duc­ing CNF-MIM capac­i­tors is that it offers unequiv­o­cal proof for foundries that our tech­nol­o­gy works in their environments. Foundries are the fac­to­ries that make the semi­con­duc­tor itself. They are arguably the most expen­sive fac­to­ries humans have ever built. Each costs sev­er­al bil­lion US dol­lars. Thus, their own­ers and investors don’t take any risks. They can’t afford it. It is too risky for them to insert Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber grow­ing tech­nol­o­gy into their CMOS chip man­u­fac­tur­ing process with­out proof that it works. Now they get that proof. The same tech­nol­o­gy used by foundries makes the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. Of course, with the addi­tion of our car­bon nanofiber growth tech­nol­o­gy. And that’s the point. Our tech­nol­o­gy works with theirs with­out caus­ing any problems. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#over-to-you)Over to you Well, that’s pret­ty much all there is to know about why we chose capac­i­tors as the first com­mer­cial­ized appli­ca­tion of car­bon nanofibers. What do you think of the blog post? Was it too long? Too tech­ni­cal? Or maybe just right? Some­thing you have missed? Head over to [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7128290123607121920) and leave a comment. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 83 now granted – the first in a new family" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-83-now-granted-the-first-in-a-new-family/6284/" date: 2023-11-08 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 83 now granted – the first in a new family Elec­tro Cat­a­lyst Heat­ing is a new patent fam­i­ly in our IP port­fo­lio, and it describes nov­el designs for heat man­age­ment in elec­trol­y­sis cells. It uses the prop­er­ties of the cell to feed elec­tro­mag­net­ic ener­gy which is con­vert­ed to heat at the cat­a­lyst layer. > ith this new patent fam­i­ly, we are strength­en­ing the scope our IP port­fo­lio with­in the field of green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion using PEM elec­trolyz­ers. The inven­tion allows to sus­tain larg­er tem­per­a­ture gra­di­ents in a cell such that parts which oth­er­wise eas­i­ly cor­rode like bipo­lar plates can oper­ate at more benign tem­per­a­tures. Basi­cal­ly the heat is con­cen­trat­ed to the cat­a­lyst lay­er, where it is of use. > > Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D at Smoltek Hydrogen **Inno­va­tion descrip­tion of the Elec­tro Cat­a­lyst Heat­ing patent fam­i­ly** The Inno­va­tion in brief: An elec­trolyz­er com­pris­ing a heat­ing appa­ra­tus oper­at­ed by prop­a­gat­ing elec­tro­mag­net­ic fields.     From the pub­lished abstract: An elec­trolyz­er com­pris­ing a first and a sec­ond elec­trode and an ion exchange mem­brane arranged in-between the first and the sec­ond elec­trode, where each elec­trode com­pris­es a con­duc­tive ele­ment. At least one of the elec­trodes com­pris­es a cat­a­lyst struc­ture, the cat­a­lyst struc­ture com­pris­ing an elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive mate­r­i­al. The elec­trolyz­er also com­pris­es at least one feed­ing means, where­in the feed­ing means is arranged to intro­duce a viable elec­tro­mag­net­ic field. The vari­able elec­tro­mag­net­ic field is arranged into the elec­trolyz­er with the pur­pose to cre­ate a tem­per­a­ture gra­di­ent in the elec­trolyz­er by increas­ing a tem­per­a­ture of the cat­a­lyst structure. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 83 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Electro Catalyst Heating" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/electro-catalyst-heating/6273/" date: 2023-11-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/patent-83-website-image-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Electro Catalyst Heating The Inno­va­tion: An elec­trolyz­er com­pris­ing a heat­ing appa­ra­tus oper­at­ed by prop­a­gat­ing elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves or alter­nat­ing mag­net­ic fields. Inno­va­tion abstract: The Elec­tro Cat­a­lyst Heat­ing fam­i­ly is cov­er­ing an elec­trolyz­er com­pris­ing a first and a sec­ond elec­trode and an ion exchange mem­brane arranged in-between the first and the sec­ond elec­trode, where each elec­trode com­pris­es a con­duc­tive ele­ment. At least one of the elec­trodes com­pris­es a cat­a­lyst struc­ture, the cat­a­lyst struc­ture com­pris­ing an elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive mate­r­i­al. The elec­trolyz­er also com­pris­es at least one feed­ing means, where­in the feed­ing means is arranged to intro­duce a viable elec­tro­mag­net­ic field. The vari­able elec­tro­mag­net­ic field is arranged into the elec­trolyz­er with the pur­pose to cre­ate a tem­per­a­ture gra­di­ent in the elec­trolyz­er by increas­ing a tem­per­a­ture of the cat­a­lyst structure.  [Link to the patent overview](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=1XVJHmFoC2l7eM42P9NdVA&p2=av2nJikW550&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=3) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Swe­den | [SE 545 582-C2](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=1XVJHmFoC2l7eM42P9NdVA&p2=av2nJikW550&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=5) | --- title: "On the Curse of Knowledge and the need for a glossary" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/on-curse-of-knowledge-and-need-for-glossary/6181/" date: 2023-10-31 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/spooky-room-with-empty-desktop-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # On the Curse of Knowledge and the need for a glossary Greet­ings, dear readers! At Smoltek, we have more PhDs per square meter than most places have cof­fee mugs. And with great knowl­edge comes a pecu­liar chal­lenge. It’s called the [*Curse of Knowl­edge*](https://hbr.org/2006/12/the-curse-of-knowledge). And no, it’s not the title of the next big hor­ror flick. Let’s dial it back to 1990 when a researcher named Eliz­a­beth New­ton at Stan­ford set up a play­ful exper­i­ment. She had peo­ple tap out the rhythm of a famil­iar song on a table (like “Hap­py Birth­day”), and oth­er peo­ple guessed the tune. Now, as the tap­per, with the song’s melody play­ing clear­ly in their mind, it seemed easy to nail the tune, right? They assumed the guessers would nail it about 50 per­cent of the time. The real­i­ty? A mere 2.5 per­cent guessed cor­rect­ly. Talk about lost in translation! This exper­i­ment was a fun glimpse into the *Curse of Knowl­edge*. Once we know some­thing inti­mate­ly, like a catchy tune or, in Smoltek’s case, techy terms, it’s tricky to remem­ber what it’s like *not* to know it. Our thoughts waltz seam­less­ly with advanced terms and abbre­vi­a­tions, leav­ing oth­ers to won­der if we’re speak­ing in some spooky lingo. So, yes, this curse haunts the tal­ent­ed cor­ri­dors of Smoltek. As we pen down our insights, some­times a rogue tech­ni­cal term or elu­sive abbre­vi­a­tion slips in, like an unex­pect­ed guest at a party. But wor­ry not, dear read­er! We’ve whipped up a potion to dis­pel this ghost­ly jar­gon. For every term that might leave you feel­ing you’re read­ing a spell­book, we have craft­ed an expla­na­tion. You can find them all in our [glos­sary](https://www.smoltek.com/glossary/). Think of it as our way of keep­ing the com­mu­ni­ca­tion spir­its friendly. ### Learn more about the Curse of Knowledge The Curse of Knowl­edge is a cog­ni­tive bias that occurs when an indi­vid­ual with a deep under­stand­ing of a sub­ject unwit­ting­ly assumes that oth­ers pos­sess a sim­i­lar lev­el of knowl­edge. This can lead to mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions and mis­un­der­stand­ings. Coined by econ­o­mists Col­in Camer­er, George Loewen­stein, and Mar­tin Weber, the term was first intro­duced in the Jour­nal of Polit­i­cal Econ­o­my in 1989. Eliz­a­beth Newton’s 1990 exper­i­ment is a clas­sic illus­tra­tion of this bias. Her study revealed how a person’s knowl­edge sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­ences their expec­ta­tions of oth­ers’ under­stand­ing, often lead­ing to over­es­ti­mat­ing what is com­mon­ly known. To coun­ter­act this bias, it’s cru­cial to active­ly sim­pli­fy expla­na­tions, avoid jar­gon, and seek feed­back to ensure your mes­sage is under­stand­able to a broad­er audience. --- title: "Low Loading and High Utilization Ratio of Iridium Catalyst Coated Smoltek Carbon Nanofibers Used as Anode Material for PEM Water Electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/low-loading-and-high-utilization-ratio-of-iridium-catalyst-coated-smoltek-carbon-nanofibers-used-as-anode-material-for-pem-water-electrolyzers/7720/" date: 2023-10-30 author: "Ellinor Ehrnberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/smoltek-hydrogen-roll-ups-2023-08.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Low Loading and High Utilization Ratio of Iridium Catalyst Coated Smoltek Carbon Nanofibers Used as Anode Material for PEM Water Electrolyzers Pro­ton exchange mem­brane water elec­trolyz­ers (PEMWE) are a core tech­nol­o­gy for the future green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion mar­ket. The installed pow­er for PEMWE is esti­mat­ed to be 40 GW by 2030. The oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion (OER) cat­a­lyst on the anode side is dom­i­nat­ed by Irid­i­um (Ir)-based mate­ri­als, one of the rarest noble met­als in the crust of Earth. It is crit­i­cal to low­er the load­ing of Ir-based cat­a­lyst to ≈ 0.1 mg Ir/​cm2 with­out com­pro­mis­ing the over­all per­for­mance to enable the mass man­u­fac­tur­ing tar­gets. It is a big chal­lenge due to the poor elec­tri­cal con­tact between the result­ing cat­a­lyst lay­ers and the anode sub­strate. To reach this goal, Smoltek invent­ed an advanced porous trans­port elec­trode (PTE) con­cept using its pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber (CNF) tech­nol­o­gy and unique Ir coat­ing tech­nol­o­gy. An anode porous trans­port lay­er (PTL) is first mod­i­fied by ver­ti­cal­ly aligned CNFs to increase sur­face area, fol­lowed by coat­ing a cor­ro­sion-resis­tant and con­duc­tive lay­er (e.g. Plat­inum) and a sub­se­quent OER cat­a­lyst lay­er. Cathod­ic elec­trode­po­si­tion in a three-elec­trode sta­t­ic cell was per­formed for Ir-based cat­a­lyst depo­si­tion. We demon­strate that with this method, the mor­phol­o­gy and depo­si­tion process of Ir are con­trol­lable at very low load­ing amounts (≥ 0.1 mg Ir/​cm2). An Ir coat­ing lay­er can be formed on the high­ly struc­tured CNF-based sur­face. The elec­trode­posit­ed Ir has strong adhe­sion with the CNF PTEs, result­ing in a high elec­tri­cal conductivity. This unique Ir-elec­trode­posit­ed CNF PTEs struc­ture max­i­mizes the anode sur­face area and paves a new way to increase the uti­liza­tion ratio of cat­a­lyst sur­face at a low load­ing amount, which makes it a com­pet­i­tive anode mate­r­i­al in today’s PEMWE market. [Read more](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/MA2023-02422082mtgabs/meta) --- title: "Together towards 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/together-towards-0-1-mg-iridium-cm2/6172/" date: 2023-10-23 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/sh2-ecs244-boothcamp-01-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ECS244" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ecs244.md" - name: "electrochemistry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrochemistry.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Together towards 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2 The Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Soci­ety, the lead­ing pro­fes­sion­al organ­i­sa­tion in elec­tro­chem­i­cal and sol­id-state sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, rarely place their con­fer­ence out­side the Amer­i­c­as. And when they returned to Europe for the first time since 2009, they chose to meet in a city where sus­tain­abil­i­ty of such events is a top pri­or­i­ty: Gothen­burg, Swe­den – the most sus­tain­able city in the world\*. The 244th ECS was also the per­fect event for us, right on time when our next step is to expand the range of poten­tial cus­tomers. And as a first-time con­trib­u­tor and exhibitor at the Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Society’s annu­al meet­ing we cer­tain­ly made an impact, as our booth had a steady stream of curi­ous vis­i­tors. We were busy explain­ing the ben­e­fits of the mate­r­i­al, the tech­nol­o­gy behind it and our hand-in-hand approach to poten­tial cus­tomers. The mes­sage was that we are now ready to engage in prod­uct devel­op­ment projects with elec­trolyz­er companies. ![Ecs Reception](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ecs-reception.jpg) Open­ing recep­tion of the 244th ECS – with sneak-peek of our booth.  **On site at Sven­s­ka Mäs­san in Gothen­burg** The 244th ECS meet­ing was held at the Swedish Exhi­bi­tion & Con­gress Cen­tre, wel­com­ing over 3,400 atten­dees from all over the world. We had since long planned to use this oppor­tu­ni­ty as the start­ing point of the mar­ket intro­duc­tion of our elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al (ECM) for PEM elec­trolyz­ers, since already now cus­tomers need to start work­ing with us to be able to apply our solu­tion in the next gen­er­a­tion elec­trolyz­ers they are plan­ning for. On Sun­day Octo­ber 8, Bastien Pen­ninckx gave a con­fer­ence pre­sen­ta­tion to an audi­ence of experts work­ing on reduc­ing the need of irid­i­um-based cat­a­lyst in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. He intro­duced the prod­uct, the com­pa­ny, what we have already accom­plished, our next steps and how we plan to man­u­fac­ture our ECM in high vol­umes. After many inter­est­ing ques­tions from the audi­ence dur­ing the Q&A, the dis­cus­sions on our solu­tion and roadmap con­tin­ued in our exhi­bi­tion booth, wit­ness­ing a steady flow of indus­try and research rep­re­sen­ta­tives in our booth and keep­ing us busy. Sev­er­al of the industry’s key play­ers expressed a seri­ous com­mer­cial inter­est and joint next steps were discussed. ![Sh2 Ecs244 Boothcamp 02](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/sh2-ecs244-boothcamp-02.jpg) **Green Hood­ie alert!** In our booth we had pre­pared well. We had a huge back­drop, that was an eye catch­er as well as it gave an overview of what we are doing. A tv-screen where we showed pre­sen­ta­tion slides and a short loop­ing film from our in-house H2LAB. We also had small phys­i­cal sam­ples of our cell mate­r­i­al and a sum­ma­riz­ing leaflet to hand out.  But most impor­tant­ly, we had our R&D and busi­ness peo­ple on site, and we were easy to spot – in our very green hoodies!  Our out­fit was proven to be a hit as all the curi­ous atten­dees just had to grab hold of some­one in green and start ask­ing about our new mate­r­i­al. The ques­tions were rang­ing from: “How do you make the nanos­truc­tures?” to “How big can you make the cell mate­r­i­al sheet?”. And “How long/​short can you make the nanofibers?”, “Can the tech­nol­o­gy be made for bat­ter­ies?” … they were never-ending.  But main­ly the atten­dees asked about our cell mate­r­i­al solu­tion for elec­trolyz­ers in general. > In the booth we could talk about how to work with us, and our roadmap for the cell mate­r­i­al. The choice for the cus­tomers is free, do they want to work in their lab or in our lab? They decide. Also, we could offer them to be their devel­op­ment part­ner. And on site we had some sam­ples to offer, and we invit­ed some to vis­it our inhouse-lab. > > Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D **244th ECS Summary** ![Sh2 Ecs244 Boothcamp 03](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/sh2-ecs244-boothcamp-03.jpg) > It was a fan­tas­tic coin­ci­dence that ECS 244 – the most impor­tant con­fer­ence of the year – hap­pened to take place in our home­town right when we need­ed to make the indus­try aware of how to take the first step towards dras­ti­cal­ly reduc­ing the use of irid­i­um. Among the 3,400 vis­i­tors, some were real­ly the spot-on busi­ness and tech­nol­o­gy man­agers from the elec­trolyz­er indus­try, and we made lots of new con­nec­tions. It was a busy week also with meet­ings and lab tours at the office.  > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, President > Our solu­tion for reduc­ing irid­i­um load­ing on the anode-side and at the same time keep­ing per­for­mance intact was well received as we spoke about the 600-hour elec­trolyz­er test result we have made. The effec­tive uti­liza­tion of irid­i­um through half-cell tests at low load­ings were also well taken. > > Sankar Sasid­ha­ran, Senior Sci­en­tist Electrochemistry ![Sh2 Ecs244 Boothcamp 04](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/sh2-ecs244-boothcamp-04.jpg) > It was inter­est­ing to lis­ten to big indus­try peo­ple speak­ing about hydro­gen demand and appli­ca­tions, pric­ing of renew­able ener­gy require­ments and scope of hydro­gen gen­er­a­tion in com­ing years. > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Processes > The ses­sions on ALD also were help­ful to under­stand the tech­niques used and pos­si­ble improve­ments, since we also use it for plat­inum depo­si­tion. And also all the oth­er pre­sen­ta­tions relat­ed to hydro­gen elec­trolyz­ers , tech­niques and cat­a­lysts were almost full all the time under­lined the impor­tance of top­ic we are deal­ing with. > > Xin Wen, Senior Sci­en­tist Nanotechnology > The meet­ing made it easy to have a num­ber of face to face meet­ings with sup­pli­ers we are work­ing with. It is impor­tant to get to know the peo­ple behind the screen, now when we have so many ini­tia­tives going on. > > Reka Simon-Balint, Qual­i­ty & Project Manager So, by Thurs­day Octo­ber 12 when the con­fer­ence end­ed, a great num­ber of the atten­dees at the 244th ECS had got­ten knowl­edge of Smoltek Hydro­gen and that we can make just as much hydro­gen as using a com­mer­cial cat­a­lyst tech­nol­o­gy – but with way less iridium. \* [Gothen­burg, the most sus­tain­able city in the world](https://thesustainableagency.com/blog/most-sustainable-city-in-the-world-gothenburg-sweden/). --- title: "Q&A about capacitors and electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/qa-about-capacitors-and-electrolyzers/6103/" date: 2023-10-20 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/tech-plat-growing-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "ecm" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ecm.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Q&A about capacitors and electrolyzers At the begin­ning of Octo­ber 2023, Smoltek’s CEO, Håkan Pers­son, talked at the one-day con­fer­ence Aktieda­gen Lund orga­nized by the Swedish Share­hold­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion. Some of what he said is prob­a­bly known to you as a well-informed share­hold­er or investor, but there are also some insights, if not news, worth noting. So, I sat down with Håkan to fol­low up on some points he made in his pre­sen­ta­tion. In total, we cov­ered sev­en top­ics in depth. You can read the ques­tions and answers in this post. But before doing that, you may want to check out his presentation. Watch Håkan Persson’s talk at Aktieda­gen Lund on Octo­ber 9, 2023. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-capacitors-and-electrolyzers)Why capacitors and electrolyzers? *In your talk, you say that Smoltek has explored many appli­ca­tion areas for its patent-pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy – grow­ing car­bon nanofibers on dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als. Among all these, Smoltek has focused on decou­pling capac­i­tors and elec­trolyz­er cell mate­ri­als. Why?* We have a long list of pos­si­ble appli­ca­tions for our tech­nol­o­gy. It ranges from heat dis­si­pa­tion to biosen­sors. Many items on the list are relat­ed to semi­con­duc­tors. This is because Smoltek has grown out of research in this area at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy. But there is also a lot on the list that is not relat­ed to the semi­con­duc­tor industry. To explore the oppor­tu­ni­ties out­side the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, we formed a sep­a­rate busi­ness divi­sion, *Smoltek Inno­va­tion*, to iden­ti­fy an immi­nent need that we can address. Our analy­sis showed that the glob­al hydro­gen mar­ket urgent­ly needs a bet­ter elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al where we can make a big dif­fer­ence. So, we decid­ed to focus on that mar­ket, and con­se­quent­ly, we changed the name of the busi­ness divi­sion to *Smoltek Hydro­gen*. Even before that, we had formed a sep­a­rate busi­ness divi­sion, Smoltek *Semi*, to do the same for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. We found that met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tors, used by the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, are a huge mar­ket where we can make a big impact. That’s why we are pur­su­ing these two mar­kets with car­bon nanofiber-enhanced cell mate­r­i­al and car­bon nanofiber-enhanced MIM capac­i­tors, respectively. We are focus­ing exclu­sive­ly on these two busi­ness divi­sions for now and in the fore­see­able future. But we have many more ideas on our list, so we expect to cre­ate more busi­ness divi­sions in the future. You can think of Smoltek as an incu­ba­tor for car­bon nanofiber-rein­forced solu­tions for var­i­ous applications. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#still-the-worlds-smallest-capacitor)Still the world’s smallest capacitor? *In 2021, Smoltek pre­sent­ed the world’s thinnest capac­i­tor as a ful­ly usable pro­to­type. In your pre­sen­ta­tion, you say Smoltek can man­u­fac­ture ultra-thin decou­pling capac­i­tors more effi­cient­ly than **com­pet­ing** tech­nolo­gies. Does this mean that com­peti­tors have caught up?* No, there are cur­rent­ly no thin­ner capac­i­tors on the open mar­ket than our prototype.  But there are strong con­tenders whose capac­i­tors can also be char­ac­ter­ized as ultra-thin. These capac­i­tors are man­u­fac­tured by dig­ging deep trench­es in sil­i­con. This is why they are called *deep trench­es capac­i­tors* or *sil­i­con capac­i­tors*. They are not wide­ly used because of their costs, and we believe there is a lim­it to how far they can go. We don’t feel com­peti­tors breath­ing down our neck because our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors have two com­pet­i­tive advan­tages over sil­i­con capacitors. First, CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are expect­ed to be cheap­er to pro­duce, so we can com­pete on price and still have a good mar­gin for capac­i­tors aimed at high-end device segments. Sec­ond, our capac­i­tors will have sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er capac­i­tance per unit area and unit height. ![Scanning electron microscope image of Smoltek's prototype capacitor. Measurement line shows a height of 38.2 µm.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sem-image-of-the-cnf-mim-prototype-only-38-microns-thick-1200x800.webp) Scan­ning elec­tron micro­scope image of Smoltek’s pro­to­type capac­i­tor that is thin­ner than any com­mer­cial­ly avail­able capacitor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-the-premium-segment-except-apple)Why the premium segment except Apple? *You men­tioned that Smoltek tar­gets the pre­mi­um seg­ment, except Apple, with its CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. Can you explain that strategy?* I talked about the pre­mi­um seg­ment of the smart­phone mar­ket. We define the seg­ment as smart­phones that 2023 cost more than 300 USD to buy from wholesalers. There are hun­dreds of brands in this mar­ket seg­ment. The largest is Sam­sung. The best-known is Apple. But there are also oth­er big play­ers like Xiao­mi, Oppo, and Vivo, as well as well-rec­og­nized brands such as Google Pix­el and Sony Xperia. It is this mar­ket seg­ment that we address with our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. With one cru­cial excep­tion: Apple. Of course, Apple knows what we are doing. But right now, we choose to focus on the rest of the pre­mi­um seg­ment because we believe Apple has a tight part­ner­ship with a capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er and is not like­ly to jump ship any time soon. Although Apple rep­re­sents one-third of the pre­mi­um seg­ment, the remain­ing mar­ket is huge. We esti­mate that the oth­er pre­mi­um smart­phone man­u­fac­tur­ers pur­chase between 3.5 and 4.5 bil­lion capac­i­tors annu­al­ly. And our goal is to cap­ture one-third of that mar­ket eventually. We are con­sid­er­ing mak­ing smart­phones our first tar­get mar­ket because they great­ly need ultra-thin capac­i­tors. And we nar­rowed it down to the pre­mi­um seg­ment because of the high­er gross prof­it margin. How­ev­er, the mar­ket for CNF-MIM does not end with smart­phones. We are explor­ing oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties and have iden­ti­fied more places where our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy can make a big dif­fer­ence. So, the mobile mar­ket is just the beginning. ![Slide 7 in Håkan's presentation from Aktiedagen Lund on October 9, 2023](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/aktiedagen-lund-9-okt-2023-bild-7.png) Slide from Håkan Persson’s pre­sen­ta­tion at Aktieda­gen Lund on Octo­ber 9, 2023. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-planning-has-smoltek-and-yageo-initiated)What planning has Smoltek and Yageo initiated? *You say that Smoltek and YAGEO have start­ed plan­ning for the next step. What does that mean?* Let me start by reca­pit­u­lat­ing where we are today and where we are going. YAGEO wants the right to sell our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors when that time comes. And we need a dis­trib­u­tor who can sell and ship our capac­i­tors to the big play­ers. We have there­fore agreed on a col­lab­o­ra­tion with two phases. The first phase is to devel­op and pro­duce engi­neer­ing sam­ples of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors and bring them to the mar­ket. This allows poten­tial cus­tomers to test and design them into their appli­ca­tions. This phase is gov­erned by a joint devel­op­ment agree­ment (JDA) that we signed in August 2022. The sec­ond phase is form­ing a joint ven­ture to mass-pro­duce our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. We plan for a *fab­less* pro­duc­tion, which means the man­u­fac­tur­ing will be done by sub­con­trac­tors rather than in-house. Pro­duc­tion will start when we have a *design-win*, when some­one has designed a future prod­uct with our CNF-MIM capacitors. Right now, we are in the first phase. We have made the first batch of just over a quar­ter of a mil­lion capac­i­tors with­out car­bon nanofibers. We are cur­rent­ly mak­ing a sim­i­lar batch, now with car­bon nanofibers. These will be test­ed and eval­u­at­ed by YAGEO, and when they meet the per­for­mance met­rics out­lined in the joint devel­op­ment agree­ment, we will enter phase 2. In par­al­lel with the devel­op­ment of engi­neer­ing sam­ples, YAGEO and Smoltek have already begun plan­ning the next step to avoid los­ing time. The fact that YAGEO is already pre­pared to put in the resources and do the work involved in plan­ning for phase two is an excel­lent tes­ti­mo­ni­al from YAGEO. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-is-electrolyzer-cell-material)What is electrolyzer cell material? *Let’s switch gears and talk about the hydro­gen indus­try. Smoltek devel­ops and plans to sell elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al. What is it?* It’s a lay­er of cor­ro­sion-coat­ed car­bon nanofibers that pen­e­trates the mem­brane on the anode side. On the out­side of the met­al are atoms of iridium. Irid­i­um is a scarce and cost­ly earth met­al used as a cat­a­lyst in a par­tic­u­lar type of elec­trolyz­er. Smoltek’s cell mate­r­i­al will use 95 per­cent less irid­i­um than exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy, thus con­serv­ing a finite resource and sav­ing vast amounts of mon­ey for pro­duc­ers of electrolyzers. This mar­ket is mas­sive. It is not just about future ener­gy sys­tems and trans­porta­tion. There is a huge need here and now. Hydro­gen has been used in indus­try for over 100 years. But 95 per­cent of that hydro­gen is pro­duced from fos­sil fuels. That is not sus­tain­able. There­fore, the indus­try is fac­ing a gigan­tic tran­si­tion to elec­trolyz­ers that pro­duce fos­sil-free hydro­gen. And that’s when irid­i­um is needed. ### Read more about electrolyzers *Fos­sil-free hydro­gen*, or *green hydro­gen*, is pro­duced by run­ning elec­tric­i­ty from solar, wind, or hydropow­er plants through water. This is called *water elec­trol­y­sis*. The appa­ra­tus in which it takes place is called an *elec­trolyz­er*. There are two types of elec­trolyz­ers: an old­er type with low effi­cien­cy and uses alka­line chem­i­cals, and a new­er type that is more effi­cient and doesn’t use chem­i­cals. The new­er tech­nol­o­gy uses a *pro­ton exchange mem­brane* (abbre­vi­at­ed *PEM*), and con­se­quent­ly, it is called a *PEM elec­trolyz­er*. PEM elec­trolyz­ers need irid­i­um as a cat­a­lyst. The met­al acts as a place for water mol­e­cules to hold on while they split into hydro­gen and oxygen. And here is the crux: Irid­i­um costs many times more than gold because it’s so rare and hard to extract. In 2023, a sin­gle kilo of irid­i­um costs up to 200,000 euros; by 2030, just sev­en years from now, it is esti­mat­ed to cost up to 700,000 euros. So even though cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy only needs 2 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter of mem­brane, it is a sig­nif­i­cant cost for elec­trolyz­er manufacturers. That’s the prob­lem we address with our cell material. Smoltek’s cell mate­r­i­al cur­rent­ly uses 75 per­cent less irid­i­um than avail­able tech­nol­o­gy. And we expect to save up to 95 per­cent of irid­i­um com­pared to today’s exist­ing tech­nolo­gies. In this way, our cell mate­r­i­al con­serves a finite resource and saves a lot of mon­ey for elec­trolyz­er manufacturers. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-prevents-competitors)What prevents competitors? *What pre­vents com­peti­tors from mak­ing the same savings?* The stan­dard tech­nol­o­gy uses 2 mil­ligrams of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter. Exter­nal research insti­tutes expect this lev­el to be reduced to 0.8 mil­ligrams per square cen­time­ter by 2030.  Improv­ing the cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy beyond this will be dif­fi­cult, and the tech­nol­o­gy has a lim­it where irid­i­um can­not be fur­ther reduced with­out severe dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the lifetime. Com­pare that to Smoltek’s cell mate­r­i­al, which uses only 0.5 mil­ligrams already, expect­ing to reach 0.2 mil­ligrams quite soon and even­tu­al­ly 0.1 milligrams. Our tech­nol­o­gy is pro­tect­ed by patents and pend­ing patents. And entire­ly new solu­tions require years of research and devel­op­ment. Remem­ber, we have been work­ing on car­bon nanofibers for almost 20 years. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#whats-the-go-to-market-strategy)What’s the go-to-market strategy? *How will Smoltek bring the cell mate­r­i­al to market?* The approach is the same as we use for our capacitors. We are work­ing in par­al­lel to fur­ther devel­op the cell mate­r­i­al from a lab pro­to­type to a ver­i­fied prod­uct and to devel­op an indus­tri­al process for mass pro­duc­tion. We expect to step out of the lab and take the first steps in the indus­tri­al are­na in 2024. The goal is to be up and run­ning with mass pro­duc­tion in 2027. Before that, we will start small-scale pro­duc­tion of engi­neer­ing sam­ples and find the right part­ners to bring the cell mate­r­i­al to the world market. ![Slide 13 in Håkan's presentation from Aktiedagen Lund on October 9, 2023](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/aktiedagen-lund-9-okt-2023-bild-13.png) Slide from Håkan Persson’s pre­sen­ta­tion at Aktieda­gen Lund on Octo­ber 9, 2023. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#over-and-out)Over and out Sev­en ques­tions and sev­en thor­ough answers lat­er, I con­clude by remind­ing you to vis­it Smoltek’s investor rela­tions page on LinkedIn. Find [the post about this Q&A](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/smoltek-investor-relations_h%C3%A5kan-persson-ceo-of-smoltek-talked-at-activity-7121027949956349952-FWTk) and tell us what you want to know more about. I can’t promise you’ll get an answer right away or even at all. After all, Smoltek is a list­ed com­pa­ny and has many rules to con­sid­er. But we will do our best to answer every­thing we can in due course. --- title: "We enable the next-generation capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/we-enable-the-next-generation-capacitors/6133/" date: 2023-10-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/pexels-jimmy-teoh-1634278-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "decoupling capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/decoupling-capacitors.md" - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" --- # We enable the next-generation capacitors Minia­tur­ized inte­grat­ed cir­cuit pack­ag­ing types are dif­fer­ent types of pro­tec­tive pack­ages that iso­late semi­con­duc­tor com­po­nents from the effects of phys­i­cal impact and cor­ro­sion. There are sev­er­al types of inte­grat­ed cir­cuit pack­ages, and they become more com­plex in archi­tec­ture the small­er they get.  In 1970, chip man­u­fac­tur­ers man­aged to fit 1,000 tran­sis­tors per chip. Today, over 50 bil­lion have been squeezed in – on a chip the size of a thumb­nail. And this devel­op­ment only con­tin­ues, as more data must be processed at the same or faster pace. In addi­tion, more func­tions are added on the chip, all while the space in these minia­tur­ized pack­ag­ing types remains the same – or decreas­es. This devel­op­ment also requires that the capac­i­tors take up less space and that they can be placed clos­er to the active chip – and at the same time have the same or bet­ter performance.  **More com­plex chips require a new gen­er­a­tion of capac­i­tors** New advanced chips con­sist of sev­er­al sys­tems. These chips have more fea­tures and bet­ter per­for­mance. To secure the pow­er sup­ply in these tight­ly minia­tur­ized cir­cuits and reduce loss­es in the sys­tems – which is essen­tial for the over­all increas­es in per­for­mance – the capac­i­tors must be extreme­ly small and thin, so that they can be placed clos­er to the proces­sor than is cur­rent­ly possible.  This is exact­ly what Smoltek is devel­op­ing – a new capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that meets the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try’s demands for next-gen­er­a­tion capac­i­tors. Our tech­nol­o­gy offers sev­er­al prop­er­ties that are cru­cial for the devel­op­ment of the new capac­i­tor gen­er­a­tion. Among oth­er things, extreme­ly high capac­i­tance per unit area and extreme­ly low elec­tri­cal loss­es. The capac­i­tors can also be placed in direct con­nec­tion to the sys­tems they are to support. > The ben­e­fit for you and me is that we get more and bet­ter func­tions in the mobile phone. > > Regards, Smoltek CNF-MIM capac­i­tor technology **CNF-MIM – Next-gen capac­i­tors** Based on our pro­pri­etary nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form we have devel­oped a new capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy that ful­fills the demands of high-per­for­mance appli­ca­tion proces­sors for the mobile phone mar­ket. We call the prod­uct line CNF-MIM – Car­bon Nano Fiber-Met­al Insu­la­tor Met­al capac­i­tors – a new breed of capac­i­tors that offers unpar­al­leled met­rics for decou­pling capac­i­tors. And that fits in the increas­ing­ly con­fined spaces of next-gen semi­con­duc­tor chips. > Today, we at Smoltek are alone in the world to offer a car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy that enables the com­bi­na­tion of extreme­ly high elec­tri­cal per­for­mance in an extreme­ly minia­tur­ized capac­i­tor device.  > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek **The decou­pling capac­i­tor explained** A decou­pling capac­i­tor is used in elec­tron­ic devices to reduce high fre­quen­cy noise and dis­tur­bances in the pow­er sup­ply. It is a key device in e.g., appli­ca­tion proces­sors (like the main proces­sor in a mobile phone). How­ev­er, to reduce loss­es at high fre­quen­cies, it is impor­tant to be able to place the capac­i­tor as close to the active chip as pos­si­ble, which requires both extreme thin­ness and high capac­i­tance den­si­ty (which sim­ply explained can be said to be the horse­pow­er of the capacitor). > Our tech­nol­o­gy makes it pos­si­ble to place the capac­i­tor clos­er to the proces­sor, which in turn reduces the loss­es in the sys­tem and enables bet­ter per­for­mance in the next gen­er­a­tion chip.  > > Håkan Pers­son explains For the chip man­u­fac­tur­ers, the ben­e­fit of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy is that they can place the capac­i­tors clos­er to the active chip and thus reduce the loss­es in the sys­tem. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy also enables flex­i­bil­i­ty for the chip man­u­fac­tur­ers, part­ly in terms of the per­for­mance para­me­ters they want, part­ly in terms of how they can design the capac­i­tor com­po­nent in their sys­tem as the tech­nol­o­gy has no restric­tions regard­ing com­pat­i­ble materials.  The ben­e­fit for you and me is that we get more and bet­ter func­tions in the mobile phone. **Mar­ket for CNF-MIM capac­i­tors** Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors main­ly com­pete with sil­i­con-based so-called trench capac­i­tors. Smoltek uses the sub­strate to grow the fibers on top, unlike the com­peti­tors who use the sub­strate to etch the active area. In oth­er words, Smoltek has an addi­tive and the com­peti­tors a sub­trac­tive process leav­ing them with the require­ment of using the sub­strate to increase a larg­er active area.  > Our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to offer an ultra-thin capac­i­tor with the same, or high­er, capac­i­tance den­si­ty at a low­er cost than our competitors. > > Håkan Pers­son conludes And as stat­ed, at the IMAPS Device Pack­ag­ing Con­fer­ence in Phoenix, Ari­zona, on March 3, 2020:  > The sin­gle most impor­tant ques­tion for semi­con­duc­tor pack­ages for mobile phones is: How thin can we make it? > > Chris­t­ian Hoff­mann, Prin­ci­pal Engi­neer at Qualcomm Put in con­text, this means that the con­tin­ued minia­tur­iza­tion of semi­con­duc­tor pack­ages needs much thin­ner capac­i­tors com­pared to what today’s con­ven­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy can handle. --- title: "The machine" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/the-machine/6091/" date: 2023-10-12 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-machine-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # The machine Now it’s ready: Our machine for large-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing of car­bon nanofibers. You can read about this in a [press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-custom-ordered-carbon-nano-growth-tool-is-ready-to-be-shipped-from-the-manufacturer,c3846480). But a press release says only so much. There is much more to say about “the machine,” as we call it. So buck­le up, let’s talk about it. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#its-an-oven)It’s an oven First, you may won­der what kind of machine we are talk­ing about. If you ask our researchers and devel­op­ers, it is a sys­tem con­sist­ing of a *PECVD reac­tor cham­ber* and tools for high-vol­ume production. *PECVD* stands for *Plas­ma Enhanced Chem­i­cal Vapor Depo­si­tion*. The tools include a load­ing device, vac­u­um pumps, cab­i­nets for gas­es, and a con­trol module. If you ask me, I would describe it as an oven for high-vol­ume “bak­ing” of car­bon nanofibers on wafers and oth­er sub­strates. (*Wafers* are sil­i­con discs processed in sev­er­al steps to cre­ate inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, com­mon­ly known as *chips*.) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#its-a-beast)It’s a beast The machine con­sists of sev­er­al parts: **The reac­tion cham­ber** is where the mag­ic hap­pens. It has valves to let a gaseous car­bon com­pound in and out of the cham­ber. It has an elec­trode in the ceil­ing that cre­ates *plas­ma* – free-float­ing elec­trons – that caus­es the gas to release the car­bon atoms that build our [car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers/12/). And it has a heat­ing plate on which pre­pared wafers are placed. **The load­ing device** puts the wafer into the reac­tion cham­ber and takes it out when fin­ished. Load­ing is done auto­mat­i­cal­ly from a car­tridge that holds 25 wafers. We use 8‑inch diam­e­ter wafers. This is the most com­mon size in the industry. **The vac­u­um pumps** evac­u­ate the cham­ber of air so that we can con­trol the process con­di­tions and the sam­ples are not con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by unwant­ed substances. **The gas cab­i­nets** are need­ed to store the gas­es going in and out of the reac­tion chamber. **The con­trol mod­ule**, the cher­ry on the cake, mon­i­tors and con­trols the whole process. Alto­geth­er, the parts take up a floor space of more than 4.5 × 2 meters and weights more than 3.6 tons and. It’s a beast. ![The Machine Explained](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-machine-explained-600x527.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#its-a-beauty)It’s a beauty The reac­tor cham­ber is designed in close col­lab­o­ra­tion between the man­u­fac­tur­er and us, and it is cus­tom-built to meet our specifications. It con­tains sev­er­al inno­v­a­tive tech­ni­cal solu­tions. Many things have been con­sid­ered: mate­r­i­al selec­tion, mechan­i­cal design, com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with our patent-pro­tect­ed process, and more. And the con­trol mod­ule soft­ware is spe­cial­ly designed for our machine. So, it is no exag­ger­a­tion to say that the machine is the only one of its kind. It is tru­ly unique. It’s a beauty. ![Plasma](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/plasma-600x600.webp) A peek into the reac­tor cham­ber through an obser­va­tion port. The char­ac­ter­is­tic pur­ple col­or comes from elec­trons emit­ting pho­tons as they jump from high­er to low­er ener­gy states. They are excit­ed to the high­er ener­gy state by an elec­tric field formed between the elec­trode at the top of the cham­ber and the heat­ing plate at the bot­tom when con­nect­ed to a pow­er source to cre­ate plasma. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#long-wait)Long wait It took a year and half to build this machine. We knew it would take a long time for the machine to be fin­ished when we [placed the order in March 2022](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-orders-industrial-carbon-growth-machine,c3528816). We antic­i­pat­ed that the man­u­fac­tur­er would have to make some tin­ker­ing here and there. It’s nat­ur­al; you rarely get it one hun­dred per­cent right the first time you do some­thing so com­plex. And one hun­dred per­cent right is what we demand. We can’t com­pro­mise on qual­i­ty. So, it took a few iter­a­tions to meet our high standards. The man­u­fac­tur­er, [CVD Equip­ment Cor­po­ra­tion](https://cvdequipment.com/) in the US, is very pro­fes­sion­al and has done an out­stand­ing job. We are delight­ed with the car­bon nanofibers grown dur­ing the accep­tance test. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-remains-to-be-done)What remains to be done Now, all that remains is to get the machine delivered. But first, all parts must be CE marked, which means that the man­u­fac­tur­er declares that the parts com­ply with rel­e­vant EU leg­is­la­tion and can be brought into the Euro­pean Eco­nom­ic Area (EEA). This work is ongo­ing at the time of writing. After that, the machine has to be packed and shipped. It sounds more straight­for­ward than it is. A cus­tom-built machine requires cus­tom pack­ag­ing and spe­cial ship­ping. It isn’t an ordi­nary piece of equip­ment we have bought. If every­thing goes as planned, the machine will be shipped around the turn of the year. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#where-it-will-be-located)Where it will be located We plan to place the machine at a foundry we choose to work with. But we have not yet decid­ed which one. So, for now, it will be stored at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology. Why not set it up at Chalmers, where our old­er machines are already locat­ed, or anoth­er tem­po­rary loca­tion while wait­ing for the right part­ners to be chosen? We have con­sid­ered that but con­clud­ed that it is bet­ter to await the choice of a partner. Remem­ber, it’s a beast. It takes up a lot of space. Requires a lot of ener­gy. And above all, it has to be in a clean room. There are no suit­able places avail­able for tem­po­rary use. We would have to pay for exten­sive rebuild­ing and instal­la­tion work. Mon­ey that could be put to bet­ter use. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-it-will-be-used)How it will be used Once in place, the machine will be part of man­u­fac­tur­ing [CNF-MIM capac­i­tors](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/).  The through­put is one wafer each half hour. Each wafer con­tains 48,000 CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. We plan to process 500 wafers per month. That’s 24 mil­lion capac­i­tors per month. And that’s just the begin­ning. The machine can be built out to pro­duce 10X more wafers, that is, 5,000 wafers per month. We can­not do that vol­ume with our cur­rent machine, which can pro­duce far few­er capac­i­tors per wafer, takes four times as long, and must be oper­at­ed man­u­al­ly. The new machine is sim­ply nec­es­sary for high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM capacitors. The new machine is also scal­able. We can expand it with sev­er­al par­al­lel reac­tion cham­bers to mul­ti­ply the volume. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#i-lied-to-you)I lied to you By the way, I lied to you at the beginning. We don’t call it “the machine.” We call it “the high-vol­ume machine,” or HVM for short. But it doesn’t sound as good as “the machine,” so I gave myself an artis­tic license to short­en the name. Sor­ry. Now, over to you. Head over to [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/machine-smoltek-investor-relations) and tell us what more you would like to know about “the machine.” --- title: "High-volume production of capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/high-volume-production-of-capacitors/6086/" date: 2023-10-12 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/adobestock-76174022-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # High-volume production of capacitors When writ­ing press releas­es, words are weighed on a gold­en scale. A lot of infor­ma­tion has to be squeezed into a small space. As a pub­lic com­pa­ny, weigh­ing the words to min­i­mize the risk of mis­un­der­stand­ings is even more crit­i­cal. This is how it should be. As a share­hold­er or investor, you expect no less. But there are two sides to every coin. The dis­ad­van­tage of these infor­ma­tion dense press releas­es is that the big pic­ture may be lost. It’s easy to miss the for­est for the trees. There­fore, from time to time, we will pick up recent­ly pub­lished press releas­es in this blog and unpack their implications. Let’s start with [“Smoltek has devel­oped a process for pro­duc­tion of engi­neer­ing sam­ples in high vol­umes which are expect­ed to be avail­able before the end of Q4 2023”](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-has-developed-a-process-for-production-of-engineering-samples-in-high-volumes-which-are-expe,c3847209). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#five-news-in-one-press-release)Five news in one press release If you read the press release care­ful­ly, you will find five news items: 1. Smoltek is prepar­ing for high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion of engi­neer­ing sam­ples of MIM-CNF capacitors. 2. Smoltek has devel­oped and imple­ment­ed a process to pro­duce engi­neer­ing sam­ples on a large scale. 3. The process uses 8‑inch wafers and most­ly stan­dard tools. 4. The process has been val­i­dat­ed and found to work as intended. 5. It remains to test the elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties before the pro­duc­tion of engi­neer­ing sam­ples can start. We will go through each of these news items and dis­cuss their sig­nif­i­cance. Let’s begin. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#1-high-volume-production-of-engineering-samples)1. High-volume production of engineering samples Our busi­ness divi­sion for the [semi­con­duc­tor indus­try](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/), Smoltek Semi, has for some time had a strong focus on com­mer­cial­iz­ing its [capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/capacitors/) that use car­bon nanofibers to deliv­er unmatched capac­i­tance per unit area and unit height. We call them [CNF-MIM](https://www.smoltek.com/miniaturized-capacitors/13/) capac­i­tors because they use [car­bon nanofibers](https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers/12/) (CNF) to cre­ate high­ly tight-packed met­al-insu­la­tion-met­al (MIM) capacitors. The road from the [first capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-demonstrates-the-thinnest-capacitor-in-the-world/1408/) to mass pro­duc­tion is long, but we are approach­ing the goal as planned. We are now in the midst of an essen­tial step: pro­duc­ing engi­neer­ing samples. This step is sig­nif­i­cant for two reasons. First of all, it is nec­es­sary to offer engi­neer­ing sam­ples because the big elec­tron­ics com­pa­nies don’t buy a pig in a poke; they require sam­ples to test. Just like you test dri­ve a new car mod­el before you buy it, they want to test dri­ve new elec­tron­ic com­po­nents before using them in mass pro­duc­tion. So, it is nec­es­sary to offer engi­neer­ing sam­ples to sell. This brings us to the sec­ond rea­son this step is sig­nif­i­cant: It enables cus­tomer inter­ac­tion. Next year, we will start sales by con­vinc­ing elec­tron­ics man­u­fac­tur­ers to choose our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy for their designs. If every­thing goes accord­ing to [plan](https://mb.cision.com/Main/16786/3711874/1837985.pdf), we will mass-pro­duce CNF-MIM capac­i­tors before 2027. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#2-process-for-large-scale-production)2. Process for large scale production We have been work­ing for some time to take the man­u­fac­ture of CNF-MIM from the lab to the indus­try. That is not a triv­ial task. It’s one thing to pro­duce sin­gle CNF-MIM capac­i­tors in the lab and quite anoth­er to mass man­u­fac­ture them on a large scale. In the lab, we can do pret­ty much what we want. But for high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion, we must adapt the process to indus­tri­al stan­dards, use read­i­ly avail­able tools and mate­ri­als, and ensure the fastest, eas­i­est, and smoothest process possible. We have come a long way in doing so. We have now imple­ment­ed a process with our part­ners that enables us to pro­duce high-vol­ume engi­neer­ing samples. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#3-standard-tools-and-8-inch-wafers)3. Standard tools and 8‑inch wafers An exam­ple of adap­ta­tion we have made going from the lab to the indus­try is the intro­duc­tion of 8‑inch diam­e­ter wafers. A *wafer* is a cir­cu­lar sil­i­con disc usu­al­ly used to make inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, known as *chips*. Wafers exist in dif­fer­ent sizes, from 2 inch­es in diam­e­ter to 12 inch­es. The choice of size is a com­pro­mise between pro­duc­ing many chips in a sin­gle batch and the risk of los­ing many chips due to man­u­fac­tur­ing errors. We have so far worked with 4- and 6‑inch wafers. But we have adapt­ed our process to 8 inch­es, the industry’s most com­mon size in our new [high-vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing machine](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-s-custom-ordered-carbon-nano-growth-tool-is-ready-to-be-shipped-from-the-manufacturer,c3846480). We have also rebuilt our cur­rent machine so that an 8‑inch wafer can phys­i­cal­ly fit in, even though the effec­tive area is equiv­a­lent to a 6‑inch wafer. Anoth­er exam­ple of adap­ta­tion is that we main­ly work with tools that are com­mon­ly used in industry. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#4-validating-the-process)4. Validating the process We have pro­duced a first batch of ten wafers with 27,000 capac­i­tors each. That is more than a quar­ter of a mil­lion capacitors. The man­u­fac­tured capac­i­tors are met­al-insu­la­tion-met­al (MIM) with­out car­bon nanofiber (CNF). Thus, they are MIM capac­i­tors but not CNF-MIM capacitors. So why did we do a batch with­out car­bon nanofibers? Pro­duc­ing MIM capac­i­tors on semi­con­duc­tors is a high­ly com­plex task. It requires sev­er­al steps by dif­fer­ent part­ners spe­cial­ized in their respec­tive fields. We want­ed to val­i­date that our part­ners could pro­duce capac­i­tors with con­sis­tent prop­er­ties and good qual­i­ty in a sta­ble and repeat­able way. So, by elim­i­nat­ing the car­bon nanofibers from the equa­tion, we were able to val­i­date that the process steps our part­ners make meet our high stan­dards. We are delight­ed with the results. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#5-next-step-cnf-mim)5. Next step: CNF-MIM We have already start­ed pro­duc­tion of a new tri­al batch that is iden­ti­cal in all respects to the first one, except that we are now adding car­bon nanofibers. We expect to fin­ish this sec­ond batch before the end of this year. When we receive the new batch, we will togeth­er with our part­ner YAGEO test the elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties. We are ready to start pro­duc­ing and ship­ping engi­neer­ing sam­ples if they meet our high expectations. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-do-you-think)What do you think? Did this arti­cle  give you a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the mean­ing of the [press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-has-developed-a-process-for-production-of-engineering-samples-in-high-volumes-which-are-expe,c3847209)? [Vis­it our IR page on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/high-volume-production-capacitors-smoltek-investor-relations) and tell us what you thought of the post. The floor is yours. --- title: "8‑inch format process for capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/8-inch-format-process-for-capacitors/6149/" date: 2023-10-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-01-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # 8‑inch format process for capacitors Smoltek Semi has suc­cess­ful­ly man­u­fac­tured capac­i­tor pro­to­types (with­out car­bon nanofibers) on 8‑inch wafer for­mat. The pro­cess­ing has been car­ried out in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ners, includ­ing research insti­tutes, tool ven­dors as well as high-vol­ume foundries. Most of the pro­cess­ing has been made on stan­dard high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion tools used for com­po­nent pro­duc­tion in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. > The capac­i­tor pro­to­types have the pur­pose of devel­op­ing and val­i­dat­ing the sta­bil­i­ty, repeata­bil­i­ty, and over­all qual­i­ty of the fab­ri­ca­tion process­es nec­es­sary for 8‑inch wafer for­mat pro­duc­tion – not to demon­strate high elec­tri­cal per­for­mance of our CNF-MIM capacitors. > > Louise Duk­er, Chief Prod­uct Offi­cer at Smoltek Semi. Based on the suc­cess­ful results achieved, Smoltek Semi has decid­ed to uti­lize the devel­oped 8‑inch fab­ri­ca­tion process to pro­duce the first lot of CNF-MIM engi­neer­ing sam­ples, incor­po­rat­ing Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary and patent-pro­tect­ed car­bon nanofibers.  The CNF-MIM engi­neer­ing sam­ples, that are now being man­u­fac­tured in this 8‑inch process are expect­ed by the end of the fourth quar­ter this year. The elec­tri­cal per­for­mance, reli­a­bil­i­ty and process sta­bil­i­ty that Smoltek Semi aims to demon­strate with these CNF-MIM engi­neer­ing sam­ples will pro­vide infor­ma­tion need­ed to take the next step towards a com­mer­cial high-per­form­ing capac­i­tor prod­uct togeth­er with our part­ner YAGEO.  **Devel­op­ment of a more indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion process** This process devel­op­ment is impor­tant for pri­mar­i­ly two rea­sons. The first being the sig­nif­i­cant increase in the num­ber of capac­i­tors we can pro­duce for devel­op­ment pur­pos­es, approx­i­mate­ly 27 000 capac­i­tors on one sin­gle 8‑inch wafer.  > The sheer num­ber makes it pos­si­ble to con­duct more data-dri­ven devel­op­ment, and hence accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment pace towards a com­mer­cial product. > > Karl Lun­dahl, COO and Head of R&D at Smoltek Semi. The sec­ond rea­son why the 8‑inch form fac­tor is impor­tant is that the for­mat is com­pat­i­ble with high-vol­ume production.  > We are quite con­fi­dent that the 8‑inch wafer for­mat that we now have migrat­ed to in our devel­op­ment will enable us to more effec­tive­ly expe­dite the tech-trans­fer of the fab­ri­ca­tion process­es to a future high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion setting.  > > Karl Lun­dahl, concludes. --- title: "Premier for investor relations blog" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/premiere-for-investor-relations-blog/5988/" date: 2023-09-14 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/smoltek-img-0000s-0003-cityscape-2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "General" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/articles/general.md" --- # Premier for investor relations blog I agree. We have com­mu­ni­cat­ed what is required, and a bit more, but not near­ly as much as our share­hold­ers and investors would have liked. Full stop. Peri­od. End of story. That will change now. How? you wonder. I’m glad you asked. Before I answer, I want to clar­i­fy that we will not remove or change any­thing in the exist­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We will con­tin­ue to send out reports and press releas­es, pub­lish news and occa­sion­al YouTube videos, and dis­trib­ute our email newslet­ter from time to time. (Don’t for­get to sub­scribe to the [newslet­ter](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/newsletters/), if you haven’t already.) What’s chang­ing is what we are adding. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#content-for-shareholders-and-investors)**Content for shareholders and investors** We are adding con­tent focused on the inter­ests of our share­hold­ers and investors. The con­tent is pub­lished in three dif­fer­ent for­mats and channels: - A [blog](https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts/) ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to share­hold­ers and investors (you are read­ing it right now), - A brand new [LinkedIn page](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/smoltek-investor-relations/) for investor rela­tions, and - A new series of ‘fol­low me around’ style [YouTube videos](https://www.youtube.com/@smoltek596) made exclu­sive­ly for share­hold­ers and investors. Pret­ty good, huh? I’m glad you agree. But I sense some doubt. Will we rehash the same con­tent that we put out in the already exist­ing channels? No, that’s not the plan. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-its-about)**What it’s about** We aim to expand on tech­ni­cal and finan­cial news, pro­vide some back­ground, and clar­i­fy what makes it note­wor­thy and how it con­tributes to our business. We also want to show what we do and put it in con­text to help you bet­ter under­stand its busi­ness value. And final­ly, we will do our best to answer your ques­tions as far as the stock mar­ket reg­u­la­tions allow us. We will pub­lish the con­tent as longer posts here, on the blog, or as videos on YouTube, and share or sum­ma­rize it on LinkedIn. So make sure you sub­scribe to all three (or at least one) to avoid miss­ing out. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#easygoing-and-enjoyable)**Easygoing and enjoyable** You may have noticed that the tone of this post isn’t as aus­tere and aca­d­e­m­ic as most of what we pub­lish. That’s because we want to make it easy and enjoy­able for our share­hold­ers and investors to learn what we do and how we do business. We believe that the best investors and share­hold­ers are those who under­stand our oper­a­tions and busi­ness and believe in what we do. It’s a lot to ask for, giv­en that what we do is high­ly tech­ni­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly advanced. But we have faith in you. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#over-to-you)**Over to you** What do you think about our ini­tia­tive? Is it a step in the right direc­tion regard­ing share­hold­er and investor rela­tions? Head over to our new [LinkedIn page](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/smoltek-investor-relations/) and leave a com­ment on the post sum­ma­riz­ing this article. And by the way, don’t for­get to fol­low the new LinkedIn page. See you soon! --- title: "Smoltek aims to unlock the scale-up for PEM water electrolysis" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-aims-to-unlock-scale-up-for-pem-water-electrolysis/5869/" date: 2023-09-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/h2lab-xinbastien-05-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek aims to unlock the scale-up for PEM water electrolysis In Octo­ber 8–12 you can take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet the [Smoltek Hydro­gen](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-hydrogen/) team of experts at the [244th Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Soci­ety Meet­ing](https://www.electrochem.org/244) in Gothen­burg, Swe­den to learn more about our tech­nol­o­gy, our H2LAB and the road to vol­ume process­es for green hydro­gen at scale. We wel­come you at the tech­ni­cal exhib­it (booth #108) or meet with one of our sci­en­tists at the con­fer­ence: Xin Wen, Bastien Pen­ninckx, Jaime Sanchez, Sankar Sasidharan.  See you in Gothen­burg, 8–12 October!  ![SmoltekHydrogen_PTL-with-CNF](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/smoltekhydrogen-ptl-with-cnf.jpg) SEM image of PTL with Car­bon nanofibers (CNF) Tech­no­log­i­cal scope: The low elec­tri­cal resis­tiv­i­ty and mechan­i­cal strength indi­cate why CNF are an attrac­tive cat­a­lyst sup­port mate­r­i­al. The solu­tion offered by Smoltek Hydro­gen takes full advan­tage of the prop­er­ties of CNF and the oppor­tu­ni­ties afford­ed by PECVD growth by grow­ing ver­ti­cal CNF on a PTL (above image). This method ensures con­tact between the CNF and the PTL while pro­vid­ing a high sur­face area sub­strate. Cat­a­lyst can then be deposit­ed on top of this sub­strate. The ver­ti­cal ori­en­ta­tion of the CNF facil­i­tates coat­ing of the sur­face with addi­tion­al lay­ers of mate­r­i­al, such as cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion lay­ers or cat­a­lyst particles. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 82 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-82-now-granted/5864/" date: 2023-09-07 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FG-intervju-2022-07-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "interposer" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/interposer.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 82 now granted The patent, recent­ly grant­ed in India, cov­ers our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of inter­posers for advanced pack­ag­ing and het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion of semiconductors. Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tions. The present patent­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter inter­posers that inte­grates one or sev­er­al com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices. Smoltek’s inven­tions facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy offers industry’s small­est form-fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors, this by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 82 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) --- title: "Yageo Group sees a lot of potential in Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/yageo-group-sees-a-lot-of-potential-in-smoltek/5845/" date: 2023-08-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/smoltek-yageo-ctos-2000x1125-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Yageo Group sees a lot of potential in Smoltek In an inter­view, first pub­lished in a Ger­man tech mag­a­zine, in July this year, Philip Less­ner, CTO at Yageo Group spoke about the plans they have for tech­nol­o­gy and mar­ket leadership. In the arti­cle, he also speaks about the advan­tages with Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor technology: > In the past, there have been few pas­sive device activ­i­ties that have used semi­con­duc­tor process tech­nol­o­gy to pro­duce pas­sive devices. Ipedia is prob­a­bly the best known. Our goal is also to map the func­tions of pas­sive com­po­nents in semi­con­duc­tors. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with Smoltek Semi, we build car­bon nanofibers on 8‑inch sil­i­con wafers, with the rest of the pro­cess­ing done as part of a nor­mal CMOS process tech­nol­o­gy. Such a wafer would then prob­a­bly pro­vide us with 48,000 CNF-MIM capac­i­tors of size 0402. > > Philip Less­ner, CTO at YAGEO Group Read the full arti­cle here, pub­lished Eng­lish in the [Pas­sive Com­po­nents blog](https://passive-components.eu/phil-lessner-cto-of-yageo-explains-yageo-technology-and-market-leadership/). Or if you rather read the Ger­man orig­i­nal ver­sion, pub­lished in [elektroniknet.de](https://www.elektroniknet.de/e-mechanik-passive/passive/ein-f-e-getriebenes-technologieunternehmen.207178.html). In the image above, Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek and Philip Less­ner, CTO at Yageo Group meet at Yageo Group’s head­quar­ters in Taipei City, Taiwan. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 81 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-81-now-granted/5838/" date: 2023-08-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-10-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 81 now granted Smoltek’s 81st patent has been grant­ed in India and relates to the Assem­bly plat­form fam­i­ly, which is a par­tic­u­lar appli­ca­tion in the field of inter­con­nects and het­ero­ge­neous integration. > “*Our Assem­bly plat­form patent fam­i­ly is a path­way to tap into the increas­ing demand for minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and inter­con­nect them in the form of an assem­bly to min­i­mize foot­print at the pack­ag­ing lev­el*”, > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. In the con­text of our Assem­bly plat­form and inter­con­nects, the present appli­ca­tions con­cepts take advan­tage of the wet­ta­bil­i­ty prop­er­ties of nanos­truc­tures to form small sized com­pos­ite inter­con­nect bumps togeth­er with tra­di­tion­al solder/​metal mate­ri­als. Such com­pos­ite inter­con­nects pro­vide a means to improve the elec­tri­cal reli­a­bil­i­ty of the solder/​metal bumps since car­bon nanos­truc­tures are inher­ent­ly capa­ble of car­ry­ing high cur­rent at a much small­er footprint.  Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 81 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 80 now granted – the first in a new family targeting the green hydrogen industry" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-80-now-granted-the-first-in-a-new-family-targeting-the-green-hydrogen-industry/5820/" date: 2023-08-24 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/fw-2023-cropped-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 80 now granted – the first in a new family targeting the green hydrogen industry The Elec­tro Cat­a­lyst Sup­port is the first patent of a new patent fam­i­ly regard­ing how to use Smoltek’s core tech­nol­o­gy in elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells. In this case – how we can use the tech­nol­o­gy to rad­i­cal­ly decrease the amount of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst load in PEM water elec­trolyz­er cells as well as increase the out­put per area of the cell. > With this new patent fam­i­ly Smoltek expands its IP port­fo­lio to include the field of green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. This is a break­through for us as we now can be a key sup­pli­er of tech­ni­cal solu­tions that enable the hydro­gen indus­try to scale up the pro­duc­tion of PEM electrolyzers. > > Fabi­an Wenger, Head of R&D at Smoltek Hydrogen The Elec­tro Cat­a­lyst Sup­port patent fam­i­ly is cov­er­ing an elec­trolyz­er and a method for pro­duc­ing a cat­a­lyst sup­port­ed on a nanos­truc­ture. The inno­va­tion relates to devices used in elec­trol­y­sis, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the elec­trol­y­sis of water, a way of pro­duc­ing hydro­gen gas with­out fos­sil fuels. It pro­vides means of con­vert­ing excess elec­tri­cal ener­gy from inter­mit­tent ener­gy sources, such as wind and solar pow­er to chem­i­cal ener­gy for stor­age and lat­er use. The approved claims cov­er an elec­trolyz­er con­tain­ing elon­gat­ed, ver­ti­cal­ly ori­ent­ed nanos­truc­tures used to cre­ate a con­nec­tion between the cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles on the pro­tect­ed nanos­truc­ture and in con­tact with the mem­brane pro­vid­ing con­duct­ing paths for both ions and elec­trons. The tech­nol­o­gy is suit­able for nanos­truc­tures that are at least par­tial­ly cov­ered by a pro­tec­tive lay­er designed to increase resis­tance to cor­ro­sion (i.e. so they are durable for use on the anode side of the PEM electrolyzer). Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 80 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Toward Low Loading and High Utilization Ratio of Iridium Catalyst for PEM Water Electrolyzers Using Smoltek Carbon Nanofibers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/toward-low-loading-and-high-utilization-ratio-of-iridium-catalyst-for-pem-water-electrolyzers-using-smoltek-carbon-nanofibers/7722/" date: 2023-08-20 author: "Ellinor Ehrnberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/smoltek-hydrogen-1000h-nanostructure-2024-04-10.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Toward Low Loading and High Utilization Ratio of Iridium Catalyst for PEM Water Electrolyzers Using Smoltek Carbon Nanofibers Smoltek address­es the hydro­gen indus­try’s main chal­lenges for enabling cost-effi­cient pro­duc­tion of fos­sil-free hydro­gen by dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing the cost of PEM water electrolyzers.  - **By focus­ing on:** - Anode side cat­a­lyst is expensive. - Good elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty is important. - **We can:** - Increase anode sur­face area by Smoltek CNFs. - Low­er Ir load­ing amount to ≤0.2 mg Ir/​cm2. - **We do this by grow CNFs on anode PTLs:** - Cre­at­ing a Cat­a­lyst coat­ed PTL substrate - Where the CNFs increase sur­face area (CNF length can be con­trolled from 1 to 30 µm) - Cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion: CNFs cov­ered with a 50 nm Pt lay­er and an elec­trode­posit­ed Ir layer - **This results in:** - Con­trolled Ir load­ing by our own depo­si­tion process - Decrease Ir cat­a­lyst load­ing to as low as 0.1 mgIr/​cm2 - Per­for­mance is bet­ter than com­mer­cial Ir cat­a­lyst ink [Read more](https://www.efcf.com/2023/) --- title: "Electro Catalyst Support" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/electro-catalyst-support/5811/" date: 2023-08-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/smoltek-patent-no-80-electro-catalyst-support-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Electro Catalyst Support The Inno­va­tion: An elec­trolyz­er com­pris­ing a first and a sec­ond elec­trode and an ion exchange mem­brane arranged in-between the first and the sec­ond elec­trode is dis­closed. Each elec­trode com­pris­es a con­duc­tive ele­ment. At least one of the elec­trodes com­pris­es a cat­a­lyst struc­ture, the cat­a­lyst struc­ture com­pris­ing a plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures arranged to con­nect the con­duc­tive ele­ment to a cor­re­spond­ing plu­ral­i­ty of cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles. Each cat­a­lyst par­ti­cle is local­ized at the end of a respec­tive elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­ture oppo­site from the con­duc­tive element. [Down­load patent file: PRV-SE545366-C2](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/prv-se545366-c2-electro-catalyst-support.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Swe­den | [SE 545 366 C2](https://tc.prv.se/spd/patent?p1=MVbm3x84sp17eM42P9NdVA&p2=At5eb2ktILs&content=Smoltek&lang=sv&tab=1&hits=true&hitsstart=0&start=6) | --- title: "From Tokyo to Gothenburg for development of sustainable tech" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/from-tokyo-to-gothenburg-for-development-of-sustainable-tech/5800/" date: 2023-08-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/sankar-2000x1125-2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # From Tokyo to Gothenburg for development of sustainable tech Sankar will be employed by Smoltek Hydro­gen and share his time between our efforts to devel­op our inno­v­a­tive elec­trolyz­er mate­r­i­al (ECM) and post­doc­tor­al research in PEM anode coat­ings togeth­er with Prof. Zhenyuan Xia from the Insti­tute of Mate­r­i­al Sci­ence at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology. Sankar has most recent­ly made a post­doc­tor­al stay at IMS Chalmers and Tokyo Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy and he is bring­ing his com­pe­tence in mate­r­i­al sci­ence and elec­tro­chem­istry to improve the dura­bil­i­ty of our PEM cells and accel­er­at­ing our tech­nol­o­gy a few steps in tech­nol­o­gy readi­ness and mar­ket success. --- title: "Introducing Smoltek Carbon Nanofiber Technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/introducing-smoltek-carbon-nanofiber-technology/5742/" date: 2023-06-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/youtube-this-is-smoltek-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Whitepapers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/whitepapers.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "carbon nanostructures" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanostructures.md" - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Introducing Smoltek Carbon Nanofiber Technology ![Age of AI downtown+2coins](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/age-of-ai-downtown2coins.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#introducing-smoltek-carbon-nanofiber-technology)Introducing Smoltek Carbon Nanofiber Technology Smoltek can grow extreme­ly thin car­bon nanofibers in var­i­ous three-dimen­sion­al struc­tures that mul­ti­ply the address­able sur­face that can be coat­ed with dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als. By doing so, we enable the man­u­fac­tur­ing of mate­ri­als and com­po­nents that make appli­ca­tions such as prod­ucts, com­po­nents and devices bet­ter – much thin­ner, more pow­er­ful, more ener­gy-effi­cient and/​or a lot cheap­er to produce. We have devel­oped a strong patent-pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form around con­trolled growth of con­duc­tive, pre­cise­ly local­ized and defined nanos­truc­tures. These can be placed and grown as indi­vid­ual fibers or clus­ters, in pre­de­fined pat­terns or films, and is done through cat­alyt­ic growth in a vac­u­um cham­ber using gas and cat­a­lysts. Mate­ri­als and process con­di­tions are com­pat­i­ble with indus­tri­al requirements. For the use of our tech­nol­o­gy we have devel­oped unique growth recipes by which we can tai­lor car­bon nanos­truc­tures at exact posi­tions with exact desired prop­er­ties. This is our core tech­nol­o­gy, and it goes by the name Smol­GROW™. Part­ners can license our tech­nol­o­gy to accom­plish solu­tions tai­lored to their unique needs and requirements. The main ben­e­fits of our car­bon nanotechnology: - Reduce size - Save ener­gy - Increase pow­er - Min­i­mize costs Read more in the whitepaper! --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 79 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-79-now-granted/5699/" date: 2023-06-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 79 now granted This is the first patent in the new patent fam­i­ly of dis­crete capac­i­tor appli­ca­tions, and the inno­va­tion exploits the extra-ordi­nary sur­face to vol­ume ratio pro­vid­ed by car­bon nanofibers to cre­ate a MIM capac­i­tor with unpar­al­leled high capac­i­tance density. > “With this new patent fam­i­ly Smoltek expands its IP port­fo­lio to include the field of dis­crete capac­i­tors – a field that we have been heav­i­ly invest­ing in terms of R&D and inno­va­tion resources.” > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. The patent dis­clos­es a dis­crete met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor com­po­nent based on the pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped at Smoltek. It also describes the struc­ture of such capac­i­tor and the relat­ed micro­fab­ri­ca­tion process­es to real­ize it. > “This patent grant has arrived in per­fect time as the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try has start­ed to inves­ti­gate aggres­sive­ly in advanced capac­i­tor tech­nolo­gies to match the demands of new­er inte­grat­ed cir­cuits. It is reward­ing to wit­ness that our R&D efforts as reflect­ed in our expand­ing IP port­fo­lio aligns well with the needs of the indus­try and that our dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy can solve prob­lems that tra­di­tion­al tech­nolo­gies cannot.” > > Farzan Gha­vani­ni The new Dis­crete CNF-MIM patent fam­i­ly dis­clos­es a high-den­si­ty dis­crete capac­i­tor based on Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy paving the way for ultra-thin capac­i­tors that can be placed adja­cent to the com­po­nents they are sup­posed to sup­port. The patent fam­i­ly enables the sys­tem design­ers to bring for­ward inte­gra­tion and pack­ag­ing schemes with supe­ri­or per­for­mance with very small foot­print. These new schemes are vital in devel­op­ing new prod­ucts in the field of IoT, wear­ables, high-per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC), and similar. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 79 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Discrete CNF-MIM" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/discrete-cnf-mim/5689/" date: 2023-06-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/wo2020080993a1-web-patents-01-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "Discrete capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/discrete-capacitors.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Discrete CNF-MIM The inven­tion: A dis­crete two-ter­mi­nal met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor com­po­nent, the capac­i­tor com­po­nent com­pris­ing: a MIM-arrange­ment com­pris­ing: a first elec­trode lay­er; a plu­ral­i­ty of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures grown from the first elec­trode lay­er; a sol­id dielec­tric mate­r­i­al lay­er con­for­mal­ly coat­ing each nanos­truc­ture in the plu­ral­i­ty of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures and the first elec­trode lay­er uncov­ered by the con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures; and a sec­ond elec­trode lay­er cov­er­ing the sol­id dielec­tric mate­r­i­al lay­er a first con­nect­ing struc­ture for exter­nal elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion of the capac­i­tor com­po­nent a sec­ond con­nect­ing struc­ture for exter­nal elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion of the capac­i­tor com­po­nent; and an elec­tri­cal­ly insu­lat­ing encap­su­la­tion mate­r­i­al at least part­ly embed­ding the MIM-arrangement. [Down­load patent file: WO2020080993A1](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/wo2020080993a1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN112823403B](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN112823403B/en) | | Tai­wan | [I832909](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI832909B/en) | | Japan | [JP7430718](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP7430718B2/en) | | USA | [US12033797](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220013305A1/en) | | India | IN559520 | | Korea | 10–2795481 | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Inauguration of our in-house hydrogen laboratory" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-inaugurates-in-house-hydrogen-laboratory/5610/" date: 2023-05-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/h2lab-inauguration-01-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Inauguration of our in-house hydrogen laboratory Dur­ing the spring, we have built a hydro­gen lab­o­ra­to­ry, in con­nec­tion with our new head­quar­ters in cen­tral Gothen­burg. H2LAB, as it is called, has advanced equip­ment for per­for­mance mea­sure­ment and long-term tests of elec­trolyz­er cells, and also enables in-house pro­duc­tion of test cells. This will accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of our dis­rup­tive cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyzes, at the same time as the eval­u­a­tion of dif­fer­ent con­cepts for vol­ume pro­duc­tion is enabled. Today, May 26, was the offi­cial open­ing of H2LAB. Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek’s hydro­gen busi­ness area, gave a speech and the new chair­man of the board, Per Zell­man, cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly cut the rib­bon and declared the com­pa­ny’s new lab­o­ra­to­ry open. > Here we can try-out cells with a min­i­mal amount of irid­i­um. Using as lit­tle irid­i­um as pos­si­ble in a PEM elec­trolyz­er is absolute­ly cru­cial in order to be able to pro­duce the large amount of green hydro­gen that a fos­sil-free future needs. > > Elli­nor Ehrnberg She con­tin­ues: > In an exter­nal lab­o­ra­to­ry, we have already been able to show that we reach the right per­for­mance with 0.5 mg iridium/​cm2. And hope­ful­ly we will be able to show that our tech­nol­o­gy only needs to use 0.1 mg iridium/​cm2. Com­pare that with the goal set by the elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, which is 0.8 mg iridium/​cm2 in 2030. With our tech­nol­o­gy, around 5 tons of irid­i­um could be saved annu­al­ly – which is a rare met­al that is fore­cast to cost around SEK 8 million/​kg in 2030. --- title: "Smoltek and Yageo is a perfect fit" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-and-yageo-is-a-perfect-fit/5471/" date: 2023-05-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pl-smoltek-inverview-2025-05-2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "carbon nanofibers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanofibers.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semicoductors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicoductors.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Smoltek and Yageo is a perfect fit --- title: "Smoltek can radically reduce the iridium catalyst loading in PEM electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-can-radically-reduce-the-iridium-catalyst-load-in-pem-electrolyzers/5794/" date: 2023-04-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek can radically reduce the iridium catalyst loading in PEM electrolyzers With­in the hydro­gen busi­ness area, Smoltek devel­ops a cell mate­r­i­al for PEM elec­trolyz­ers (Smoltek ECM) with a goal to min­i­mize the amount of the rare pre­cious met­al irid­i­um in the elec­trolyz­er cell (the irid­i­um cat­a­lyst load­ing). The elec­trolyz­ers will thus become much cheap­er to man­u­fac­ture. The reduced amount of irid­i­um per elec­trolyz­er will also help enable glob­al scale-up of PEM elec­trolyz­ers, which are essen­tial for the pro­duc­tion of fos­sil-free hydrogen. The results of these tests have been ver­i­fied, and they show that with a cal­a­lyst load of only 0.5 mg of iridium/​cm2, Smoltek’s pro­to­types pro­duce the same amount of hydro­gen as a con­ven­tion­al cell does with 2.5 mg of iridium/​cm2. The improve­ment is due to the devel­op­ment of the com­pa­ny’s unique cell mate­r­i­al and the three-dimen­sion­al nanos­truc­ture the cor­ro­sion-coat­ed car­bon fibers pro­vide. The next step is to start tun­ing var­i­ous tech­ni­cal para­me­ters to fur­ther improve the tech­nol­o­gy and reach the goal of 0.1 mg irid­i­um per square centimeter. > “This is an incred­i­bly pleas­ing result for us. Already today, the irid­i­um price is up to SEK 2 mil­lion per kilo­gram and is expect­ed to rise to SEK 8–10 mil­lion per kilo­gram before the end of the decade. This shows that our con­cept is extreme­ly strong.” > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen The pro­to­types, devel­oped by the group com­pa­ny Smoltek Hydro­gen in col­lab­o­ra­tion with a large indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­er of elec­trolyz­ers mate­ri­als (com­po­nents), have been test­ed by a promi­nent Ger­man tech­ni­cal insti­tute. Smoltek’s cell mate­r­i­al have been assem­bled into pro­to­types (demon­stra­tors) of com­plete elec­trolyz­er cells and test­ed these against con­ven­tion­al cells. The tests indi­cate that the same capac­i­ty is reached with the Smoltek cell mate­r­i­al as with a stan­dard mate­r­i­al, which in this case con­tains five times more irid­i­um than the Smoltek mate­r­i­al. This means that Smoltek Hydro­gen’s sub-goal of get­ting down to 0.2 mg of irid­i­um per square cen­time­ter is with­in reach. The next devel­op­ment step is to start tun­ing var­i­ous tech­ni­cal para­me­ters to get clos­er to the goal of only need­ing 0.1 mg irid­i­um per square centimeter. In addi­tion, the ini­tial long-term tests have also yield­ed pos­i­tive results where Smoltek’s pro­to­types have passed a 1,000-hour test with­out degrad­ing. It shows that the cor­ro­sion-resis­tant coat­ing pre­vents the car­bon nanofibers from break­ing down in the high­ly cor­ro­sive envi­ron­ment of the anode side where the water main­tains a pH val­ue of 0. **Facts, Smoltek ECM (Elec­trolyz­er Cell Mate­r­i­al):** Smoltek’s pro­pri­etary mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers is a three-dimen­sion­al nanos­truc­ture-based coat­ing devel­oped to rad­i­cal­ly reduce the irid­i­um cat­a­lyst load­ing and increase pro­ton through­put in an elec­trolyz­er cell. ![electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl-1200x800.png) Elec­trolyz­er-cell with Smoltek anode-PTL and catalysts --- title: "Smoltek Semi visiting Taiwan" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi-visiting-taiwan/6684/" date: 2023-04-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/smoltek-yageo-ctos-2000x1125-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductos.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Smoltek Semi visiting Taiwan Smoltek Semi has been vis­it­ing Tai­wan for a series of meet­ings with our col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner YAGEO as well as a num­ber of meet­ings with poten­tial cus­tomers of CNF-MIM capacitors. > We have met with a num­ber of poten­tial cus­tomers and pre­sent­ed our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, and lis­tened to their spe­cif­ic needs for future capac­i­tor products. > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek and Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi The cus­tomers we have met are incred­i­bly curi­ous about our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, and they want us to pro­vide them with *engi­neer­ing sam­ples** as soon as possible.  How­ev­er, first we need to see up an indus­tri­al 8‑inch for­mat man­u­fac­tur­ing process for the engi­neer­ing sam­ples. This indus­tri­al process is planned to be ready some­time dur­ing the third quar­ter this year. When this process is up and run­ning, we can hope­ful­ly start pro­duc­ing engi­neer­ing sam­ples by the end of 2023.  > The meet­ings have pro­vid­ed us with oppor­tu­ni­ties to dis­cuss the dif­fer­ent types of con­fig­u­ra­tions and require­ment spec­i­fi­ca­tions each cus­tomer has for the next gen­er­a­tion of capac­i­tors to be used in their chip. > > Louise Duk­er, Chief Prod­uct Offi­cer at Smoltek Semi *** Engi­neer­ing sam­ples** We define indus­tri­al­ly pro­duced capac­i­tor pro­to­types that are made with our pro­pri­etary car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy (CNF-MIM) as engi­neer­ing sam­ples. This broad def­i­n­i­tion is made just to make cus­tomer dia­logues easier. We some­times com­mu­ni­cate that we are producing/​have pro­duced capac­i­tor pro­to­types. These should not be mis­tak­en for what we call engi­neer­ing sam­ples as they are sole­ly made for pro­duc­tion process test­ing and oth­er in-house R&D activities. *Top image fea­tures Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek and Philip Less­ner, EVP of YAGEO Group.* --- title: "Smoltek is going from lab to fab" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-going-from-lab-to-fab/5339/" date: 2023-04-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ld-4.jpg" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "decoupling capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/decoupling-capacitors.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Smoltek is going from lab to fab --- title: "Shafiq Kabir appointed head of volume processes within the hydrogen business area" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/shafiq-kabir-appointed-head-of-volume-processes-within-the-hydrogen-business-area/5344/" date: 2023-03-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_4fcd45c4296847a59e3ac6fb88e4e041mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Shafiq Kabir appointed head of volume processes within the hydrogen business area Shafiq Kabir found­ed Smoltek in Decem­ber 2005, out of sci­en­tif­ic curios­i­ty and with the ambi­tion to devel­op tech­ni­cal solu­tions based on nanos­truc­tures that can be use­ful in many fields. Since the start, he has method­i­cal­ly devel­oped the com­pa­ny’s tech­nol­o­gy plat­form based on cat­alyt­ic growth of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures, and where much of the appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment has been focused on car­bon nanofibers. > “I start­ed Smoltek because of my ambi­tion to dri­ve my research results in nan­otech­nol­o­gy towards indus­tri­al use. By switch­ing to devel­op­ment on a com­mer­cial basis, we want­ed to make the pos­si­bil­i­ties of nan­otech­nol­o­gy avail­able on a much larg­er scale.” > > Shafiq Kabir Smoltek’s big break­through came around 2017, when the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try showed a sig­nif­i­cant inter­est in the com­pa­ny’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy (CNF-MIM) – a tech­nol­o­gy based on cre­at­ing ener­gy-effi­cient com­po­nents with small­er form fac­tors and with main­tained elec­tri­cal per­for­mance. The com­pa­ny’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy has now devel­oped into its own busi­ness area, where the group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi is today in the process of devel­op­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing ultra-thin capac­i­tors togeth­er with YAGEO, one of the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­ers of pas­sive elec­tron­ic components. In 2020, Smoltek began to eval­u­ate oth­er areas for the com­pa­ny’s nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form, and the fol­low­ing year this effort start­ed to focus on using the tech­nol­o­gy for the huge growth of the fos­sil-free hydro­gen mar­ket. Today, the hydro­gen busi­ness is run by the group com­pa­ny Smoltek Hydro­gen, which plans for a large scale-up of the com­pa­ny’s tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions to elec­trolyz­ers – a mar­ket seg­ment with­in the green hydro­gen econ­o­my that is esti­mat­ed to increase from today’s SEK 30 bil­lion to SEK 650 bil­lion in 2030,[1](https://www.smoltek.com#7681c6bf-a16a-49ae-90ab-a86045fef088) of which around 10 % is address­able to Smoltek’s cell mate­r­i­al.[2](https://www.smoltek.com#7ee7ee89-05aa-41fb-b9b1-eac37978733a) **Shafiq is back in Smoltek – with a focus on scal­ing up vol­ume process­es** As the founder of Smoltek, Shafiq Kabir has been the dri­ving force behind the devel­op­ment of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy and he served as the Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer of the com­pa­ny until Jan­u­ary 2021, when he took a break from the nan­otech­nol­o­gy indus­try to com­plete an Exec­u­tive MBA program. > “I am pas­sion­ate about green tech­nol­o­gy. And now that Smoltek is invest­ing in fos­sil-free hydro­gen, it’s the per­fect match for me. It is about how to cre­ate the right inno­va­tion cul­ture and part­ner­ships to devel­op tech­nol­o­gy for fos­sil-free raw mate­ri­als and ener­gy types in order to reach the goal of car­bon diox­ide-neu­tral emis­sions, or towards “net-zero”. > > Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen In his new role, Shafiq will be head of vol­ume process­es in the group com­pa­ny Smoltek Hydro­gen, where he will devel­op and eval­u­ate con­cepts for vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing of Smotek’s cell mate­r­i­al to elec­trolyz­ers (ECM) which is now being devel­oped. The focus will be on the actu­al process­es used to pro­duce nanos­truc­tures and coat­ings in order to suc­cess­ful­ly scale them up to indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing. The over­all goal is to deliv­er the desired prod­uct char­ac­ter­is­tics even in mass pro­duc­tion. Work­ing close­ly with the entire Smoltek Hydro­gen team, Shafiq will be involved in all ongo­ing projects around man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es, cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion, irid­i­um depo­si­tion and whole cell eval­u­a­tions for the cell mate­r­i­al that are done in day-to-day operations. > “The mar­ket for green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion is grow­ing rapid­ly, and and Smoltek Hydro­gen’s mate­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy for irid­i­um coat­ing (ECM) to elec­trolyz­ers allows the com­pa­ny to low­er the cost of new elec­trolyz­ers as the indus­try scales up and irid­i­um prices soar. The mate­r­i­al tech­nol­o­gy also offers great oppor­tu­ni­ties to reduce the size of new hydro­gen plants”. > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen --- title: "A giant market for new Swedish technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/a-giant-market-for-new-swedish-technology/4086/" date: 2023-02-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pexels-kehn-hermano-4675376-webbformat-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # A giant market for new Swedish technology In Swe­den, there is a lot of talk about the Swedish steel indus­try’s invest­ments in green hydro­gen, but not much about the fact that the same is also hap­pen­ing on a large scale in Chi­na, the USA and the rest of Europe, or that the steel indus­try is just one of all future areas of use for green hydrogen. Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of heavy trans­port is one such area, where today’s diesel-pow­ered ships, trucks and trains can run on syn­thet­ic fuels made from green hydro­gen – and where new­ly man­u­fac­tured vehi­cles have fuel cells and can be refu­eled direct­ly with hydro­gen. Anoth­er large area of indus­tri­al use is to replace today’s fos­sil hydro­gen gas (pro­duced from nat­ur­al gas) with green hydro­gen gas in the pro­duc­tion of arti­fi­cial fertiliser. Today, large quan­ti­ties of the oil we use are pro­duced in desert areas. In order to switch to fos­sil-free ener­gy, gigan­tic solar parks are now being built to pro­duce green hydro­gen which is then shipped around the world. Pipelines and tankers already exist, and exam­ples of coun­tries with high ambi­tions for this are the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Chi­na and the USA. The devel­op­ment in Europe has been accel­er­at­ed by the fact that the EU allo­cat­ed large funds this spring to invest­ments in green hydro­gen, which to some extent can direct­ly replace the nat­ur­al gas that is cur­rent­ly in short sup­ply. Oth­er areas are that hydro­gen plants linked to solar and wind pow­er plants can store the excess pro­duc­tion and have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to use it as reg­u­lat­ing pow­er on days when the sun does not pen­e­trate the clouds and the wind tur­bines are dormant. **Supe­ri­or per­for­mance – an attrac­tive invest­ment** To pro­duce green hydro­gen, elec­trolyz­ers are used, which split water into hydro­gen and oxy­gen. In order for it to be pos­si­ble to scale up the pro­duc­tion of elec­trolyz­ers, the indus­try sees it as nec­es­sary to reduce the con­sump­tion of the extreme­ly expen­sive noble met­al irid­i­um by 95% – oth­er­wise the price will sky­rock­et to lev­els that make the tech­nol­o­gy unusable.  > “No one has yet suc­ceed­ed in this, but we at Smoltek expect to be able to solve this with a new cell mate­r­i­al based on car­bon nanofibers.” > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen The Smoltek pro­pri­etary cell mate­r­i­al (ECM) is intend­ed for the anode side of the cell in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. The mate­ri­al’s unique three-dimen­sion­al struc­ture allows the amount of very expen­sive irid­i­um par­ti­cles to be reduced by up to 95%. By pack­ing the cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles more tight­ly, a con­sid­er­able reduc­tion in the size of the elec­trolyz­er is also made possible. A small­er and thus cheap­er elec­trolyz­er reduces the cost of build­ing a new hydro­gen plant by up to half, and also means reduced oper­at­ing and main­te­nance costs. **Giant mar­ket for green hydro­gen and elec­trolyz­ers** Hydro­gen as a fos­sil-free raw mate­r­i­al cre­ates a poten­tial­ly huge mar­ket for elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, and also for Smoltek. All over the world, a huge amount is invest­ed in this area, not least in Europe. Already today, large amounts of hydro­gen are pro­duced for sev­er­al ener­gy-inten­sive indus­tri­al sec­tors that need to switch to fos­sil-free energy.  So far, how­ev­er, it is only just under 5 per­cent of all hydro­gen that is fos­sil-free. This means that there is a great demand for new tech­nol­o­gy to obtain more cost-effec­tive meth­ods for the pro­duc­tion of green hydrogen. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 78 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-78-now-granted/4051/" date: 2023-02-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/220608-smoltek-renrum-01-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 78 now granted Smoltek’s 78th patent has been grant­ed in Chi­na and relates to the Assem­bly plat­form fam­i­ly, which is a par­tic­u­lar appli­ca­tion in the field of inter­con­nects and het­ero­ge­neous integration. > “*Our Assem­bly plat­form patent fam­i­ly is a path­way to tap into the increas­ing demand for minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and inter­con­nect them in the form of an assem­bly to min­i­mize foot­print at the pack­ag­ing lev­el*”, > > says Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. In the con­text of our Assem­bly plat­form and inter­con­nects, the present appli­ca­tions con­cepts take advan­tage of the wet­ta­bil­i­ty prop­er­ties of nanos­truc­tures to form small sized com­pos­ite inter­con­nect bumps togeth­er with tra­di­tion­al solder/​metal mate­ri­als. Such com­pos­ite inter­con­nects pro­vide a means to improve the elec­tri­cal reli­a­bil­i­ty of the solder/​metal bumps since car­bon nanos­truc­tures are inher­ent­ly capa­ble of car­ry­ing high cur­rent at a much small­er footprint.  Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 78 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Carbon nanofibers in the hydrogen industry" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers-in-the-hydrogen-industry/3977/" date: 2022-12-22 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/green-world-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/articles/hydrogen.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "carbon neutrality" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-neutrality.md" - name: "cleantech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cleantech.md" - name: "green hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/green-hydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "membrane-electrode assembly" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/membrane-electrode-assembly.md" - name: "proton-exchange membrane" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/proton-exchange-membrane.md" --- # Carbon nanofibers in the hydrogen industry The demand for sus­tain­ably pro­duced hydro­gen is ris­ing due to its role in avoid­ing green­house gas emis­sions. Pro­duc­tion and use of sus­tain­able hydro­gen is made pos­si­ble by two core tech­nolo­gies: Water elec­trol­y­sis, which pro­duces hydro­gen from water using elec­tric­i­ty, and fuel cells, which revers­es the reac­tion to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty. How­ev­er, both tech­nolo­gies use rare and expen­sive cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als such as plat­inum or irid­i­um. Using car­bon nanofibers (CNF) as a cat­a­lyst sup­port can decrease the amount of expen­sive cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al need­ed. Smoltek nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy can unlock this potential. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-need-for-hydrogen)The need for hydrogen Hydro­gen pro­duced by water elec­trol­y­sis can be a solu­tion to sev­er­al prob­lems in the process of reduc­ing green­house gas emis­sions. For exam­ple, inter­mit­tent ener­gy sources such as solar and wind pow­er occa­sion­al­ly pro­duce more elec­tric­i­ty than need­ed, e.g. on very windy or sun­ny days.  Using this elec­tri­cal pow­er for water elec­trol­y­sis allows the ener­gy to be stored in the form of pro­duced hydro­gen gas, which can lat­er be used con­vert­ed back to elec­tric­i­ty by a fuel cell form­ing only water vapor in the process. Anoth­er key dri­ver is to abate the car­bon diox­ide emis­sion in the pro­duc­tion of steel, where coal and coke can be replaced by hydro­gen gas as reduc­ing agent for the iron ore emit­ting only water vapor and mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in glob­al car­bon diox­ide emis­sions pos­si­ble. This enables a fos­sil-free steel production. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/sunny-deciduous-forest.jpg) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#making-hydrogen-by-electrolysis)Making hydrogen by electrolysis Water elec­trolyz­ers use two elec­trodes, a pos­i­tive­ly charged anode and a neg­a­tive­ly charged cath­ode, sep­a­rat­ed by an elec­trolyte that allows ions to trav­el between the elec­trodes. The elec­trodes are also elec­tri­cal­ly con­nect­ed to a pow­er source that sup­plies elec­tri­cal pow­er to dri­ve the reac­tion. Oxy­gen gas is pro­duced at the anode through the oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion, and hydro­gen gas is pro­duced at the cath­ode through the hydro­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion. Cat­a­lysts are used to pro­mote these elec­tro­chem­i­cal reac­tions and allow them to run at a low­er ener­gy cost. The reac­tions hap­pen at the active cat­a­lyst sur­face, i.e. at sur­faces where the cat­a­lyst is in con­tact with the electrolyte.  Ben­e­fi­cial con­di­tions for water elec­trol­y­sis depend on the type of elec­trolyte, the oper­at­ing tem­per­a­ture, the pres­sure and the types of cat­a­lysts. His­tor­i­cal­ly the indus­try has most­ly relied on low-tem­per­a­ture elec­trolyz­ers using an alka­line solu­tion with high pH con­tain­ing potas­si­um hydrox­ide in water. They do not require scarce cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al but cause lim­it­ed cur­rent den­si­ties and there­fore lim­it­ed hydro­gen out­put per cell area. This draw­back can be over­come by poly­mer ionomer mem­branes that con­duct either hydro­gen ions or hydrox­ide ions in direct con­tact with anode and cath­ode, so-called zero-gap design. These ion-con­duct­ing poly­mers are known as pro­ton exchange mem­branes (PEM) or anion exchange mem­branes (AEM) respectively. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/proton-exchange-membrane-pem-electrolysis-1200x800.png) Schemat­ic of how PEM elec­trol­y­sis works ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#green-hydrogen-and-low-carbon-hydrogen)Green hydrogen and low-carbon hydrogen Low-tem­per­a­ture elec­trolyz­ers with PEM elec­trolytes, known as PEM elec­trolyz­ers, are promis­ing not only for their high­er cur­rent den­si­ty but also for their excel­lent match with inter­mit­tent pow­er sources and the longevi­ty of the com­mer­cial­ly offered pro­ton exchange mem­branes. This enables a com­pact and durable elec­trolyz­er design.  For high-cur­rent den­si­ty oper­a­tion at low over­po­ten­tial[1](https://www.smoltek.com#edfe5993-b914-4153-b913-3d478838dfe2) PEM elec­trolyz­ers need rare and expen­sive of cat­a­lysts such as plat­inum on the cath­ode side and irid­i­um oxide on the anode side. To real­ize the poten­tial of PEM elec­trolyz­ers, it is cru­cial that the cat­a­lysts are used effi­cient­ly and that the cat­a­lyst load, i.e. the amount of cat­a­lyst per unit area of the elec­trolyz­er cell, is kept to a minimum.  One way of reduc­ing the cat­a­lyst load is to deposit the cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al on anoth­er mate­r­i­al known as a cat­a­lyst sup­port, either in the form of a thin film or as par­ti­cles with a diam­e­ter of a few nanome­ters. The cat­a­lyst sup­ports act as a scaf­fold­ing, allow­ing the cat­a­lyst to be spread over a larg­er area. An ide­al cat­a­lyst sup­port should have a large sur­face area, an open struc­ture that lets water and gas­es flow to and from the cat­a­lyst, excel­lent con­tact with the pro­ton exchange mem­brane and good and sta­ble elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty to enable the elec­tro­chem­i­cal reac­tions. Car­bon black is often used as a cat­a­lyst sup­port on the cath­ode side in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, but the irid­i­um cat­a­lyst on the anode side is gen­er­al­ly used with­out sup­port due to the harsh acidic con­di­tions at the anode. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#better-catalysts-with-carbon-nanofibers-cnf)Better catalysts with carbon nanofibers (CNF) Car­bon nanofibers (CNF) are car­bon struc­tures with a diam­e­ter that is typ­i­cal­ly below 100 nm and a length between 1 and 100 µm. Like many car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als, CNF are elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive and mechan­i­cal­ly strong.  CNF are grown by chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (CVD) and have the poten­tial to improve on exist­ing cat­a­lyst sup­ports. The CVD growth method makes it pos­si­ble to con­trol the ori­en­ta­tion of the CNF so that they are ver­ti­cal­ly aligned with a well-defined aver­age spac­ing, width, and height. This means that the struc­ture of a CNF cat­a­lyst sup­port can be adjust­ed to achieve the large sur­face area and degree of poros­i­ty that is needed. The struc­ture of a CNF cat­a­lyst sup­port also makes it pos­si­ble to con­trol the posi­tion of the cat­a­lyst that is deposit­ed on it, which in turn opens pos­si­bil­i­ties for opti­miz­ing the active sur­face area of the cat­a­lyst and reduc­ing the cat­a­lyst load. For exam­ple, the cat­a­lyst can be placed in direct con­tact or even embed­ded into the mem­brane. The CNF can be con­for­mal­ly coat­ed and pro­tect­ed for use on the anode side of the electrolyzer.  Although reduc­ing cat­a­lyst load is most impor­tant in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, CNF cat­a­lyst sup­ports may also be used in AEM elec­trolyz­ers and in PEM fuel cells. There are clear advan­tages to using CNF grown by CVD as a cat­a­lyst sup­port, such as increas­ing the active cat­a­lyst sur­face area and decreas­ing the need­ed cat­a­lyst load. The CVD meth­ods used for CNF pro­duc­tion by Smoltek can be used to real­ize the poten­tial of CNF in elec­trol­y­sis and fuel cells. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl-1200x800.png) Elec­trolyz­er-cell with Smoltek anode-PTL and catalysts ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#radically-reducing-the-price-for-hydrogen-production)Radically reducing the price for hydrogen production For future needs of the PEM elec­trolyz­er mar­ket, when the capac­i­ty is scaled to pro­duce Gigawatts of water elec­trol­y­sis year­ly it will be cru­cial to man­age a low irid­i­um cat­a­lyst load on PEM anodes to enable cost-effi­cient hydro­gen production. Smoltek’s nanofiber-based cell mate­ri­als cre­ates an opti­mal anode struc­ture that allows irid­i­um cat­a­lyst nanopar­ti­cles to form a high­ly active and acces­si­ble sur­face. In prin­ci­ple, all of the nanopar­ti­cles come into con­tact with the pro­ton exchange mem­brane of the cell poten­tial­ly reduc­ing the need­ed amount of irid­i­um by 80% – or more.  Anoth­er ben­e­fit is that the cells can be opti­mized for high cur­rent den­si­ty, thus the capac­i­ty to pro­duce hydro­gen per cell area increas­es. This is achieved by a cor­re­spond­ing increase of the irid­i­um load. These design choic­es can cre­ate a 2–3 times low­er invest­ment cost for the elec­trolyz­er in a hydro­gen plant. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#are-you-interested-in-partnering-with-us)Are you interested in partnering with us? Our next step is to indus­tri­al­ize our solu­tion for the elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al (CNF-ECM). We are there­fore look­ing for indus­tri­al partner(s) that, in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with us; - build and test pro­to­types with dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions of sub­strates, nanos­truc­ture mor­phol­o­gy, anti-cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion and cat­a­lyst deposition, - estab­lish per­for­mance and long-term durability, - devel­op a high-vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing concept, - pro­duces a test series of CNF-ECM to be used in actu­al production. Is your com­pa­ny a poten­tial part­ner in tak­ing advan­tage of our dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy? [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/contact/cleantech/) today, and let’s arrange a meet­ing to dis­cuss it further. --- title: "New collaboration for our hydrogen business" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-collaboration-for-our-hydrogen-business/3957/" date: 2022-11-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # New collaboration for our hydrogen business Smoltek Hydro­gen has received an order from the man­u­fac­tur­er for a num­ber of test sam­ples of cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers. The order for the eval­u­a­tion was received from one of Europe’s lead­ing elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, which in the com­ing years will invest in exten­sive expan­sion of its pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty to mass pro­duce electrolyzers. > With this col­lab­o­ra­tion, we are now build­ing demon­stra­tors togeth­er with one of the lead­ing play­ers in the elec­trolyz­er mar­ket. This mar­ket is the pre­req­ui­site behind the growth of fos­sil-free hydro­gen, and is it now grow­ing at record speed.[1](https://www.smoltek.com#b4f192fb-845b-4330-b89a-839fb2b12a8b) > > says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen The elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­er has ordered mate­r­i­al sam­ples of Smoltek’s cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers, which they will inte­grate with their own tech­nol­o­gy into com­plete elec­trolyz­er cells. When the man­u­fac­tur­er has car­ried out com­pre­hen­sive tests of the elec­trolyz­er cells, the results will be joint­ly evaluated. The mate­r­i­al sam­ples con­sist of porous tita­ni­um that will be coat­ed with Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers and a cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion. This enables the elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­er to eval­u­ate how the cell mate­r­i­al per­forms in com­bi­na­tion with the manufacturer’s oth­er mate­r­i­al choic­es and design. Smoltek’s mate­r­i­al is being devel­oped to increase the cur­rent den­si­ty, which is expect­ed to great­ly reduce the size and thus the cost of an elec­trolyz­er. In par­al­lel, the amount of (rare and extreme­ly expen­sive) irid­i­um is also reduced by at least 80%. **Back­ground for the col­lab­o­ra­tion** The elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­er and Smoltek Hydro­gen have agreed to con­duct a project togeth­er where mate­r­i­al from both par­ties are built togeth­er into com­plete elec­trolyz­er cells in lab­o­ra­to­ry size, so-called test cells. The man­u­fac­tur­er will then run these test cells accord­ing to pre­de­ter­mined pro­to­cols. First, the man­u­fac­tur­er will mea­sure the cell’s per­for­mance, and then spe­cif­ic test meth­ods will be used to pro­vide an indi­ca­tion of the cell’s lifes­pan. The results of these mea­sure­ments will be shared with Smoltek, which will result in large time sav­ings as well as cost sav­ings of sev­er­al hun­dred thou­sand SEK relat­ed to the val­i­da­tion of the technology. > How­ev­er, the most impor­tant thing about this col­lab­o­ra­tion is that we will learn from each oth­er. By work­ing side by side with elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers, we help dri­ve the devel­op­ment of the next gen­er­a­tion of elec­trolyz­ers for­ward. This is done with the goal to make the elec­trolyz­ers much small­er and cheap­er to manufacture. > > Elli­nor Ehrnberg --- title: "Smoltek presents ultra-thin capacitors together with Yageo" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-presents-ultra-thin-capacitors-together-with-yageo/3933/" date: 2022-11-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/lab-01-2000x1123-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Smoltek presents ultra-thin capacitors together with Yageo [Elec­tron­i­ca 2022](https://electronica.de/en/) and [SEMICON Europe](https://www.semiconeuropa.org) are held in Munich, Ger­many, 15–18 Novem­ber. This is the first time they are co-locat­ed, and togeth­er they form the largest event and trade fair for elec­tron­ics man­u­fac­tur­ers in Europe. Smoltek will par­tic­i­pate togeth­er with Yageo, and present the two company’s joint col­lab­o­ra­tion for indus­tri­al­iz­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing ultra-thin capac­i­tors that can be placed clos­er to the appli­ca­tion proces­sor in mobile phones. > “By par­tic­i­pat­ing at this event togeth­er with our col­lab­o­ra­tion part­ner Yageo, we are able to increase the aware­ness of Smoltek’s rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form and our upcom­ing joint prod­uct fam­i­ly of ultra-thin capacitors.” > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek The goal of the col­lab­o­ra­tion is to com­mer­cial­ize Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy by inte­grat­ing the CNF-MIM (car­bon nanofiber capac­i­tor) tech­nol­o­gy into Yageos’s prod­uct flow and mar­ket­ing chan­nels. This cre­ates an opti­mal way to mar­ket, mass pro­duc­tion and a glob­al sales net­work, while the capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is at the same time intro­duced to addi­tion­al semi­con­duc­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers, which strength­ens Smoltek’s posi­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ties to ini­ti­ate more com­mer­cial part­ner­ships based on the company’s tech­nol­o­gy platform. > “This part­ner­ship is an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­mer­cial­ize a new tech­nol­o­gy that will be used in capac­i­tors for appli­ca­tions where space is at a pre­mi­um and high capac­i­tance den­si­ty is required.”  > > Dr. Philip Less­ner, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Yageo group > “By ini­ti­at­ing con­ver­sa­tions with poten­tial cus­tomers already at the cur­rent stage, we can ensure that the first prod­uct, for which we plan to be able to accept vol­ume orders by the end of 2024, has an opti­mal design and per­for­mance in line with mar­ket demands. It is also clear that Yageo shares our strong con­fi­dence in Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, and that we togeth­er have excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ties to claim a sig­nif­i­cant share of a glob­al bil­lion-dol­lar market.” > > Håkan Pers­son --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 77 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-77-now-granted/3905/" date: 2022-10-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/fg-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 77 now granted Smoltek’s 77th patent has been grant­ed in Japan and is cov­er­ing the inven­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing of extreme­ly thin ener­gy stor­age devices embed­ded in an interposer.  Our inven­tions in the area of semi­con­duc­tors and elec­tron­ics facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly low-pro­file sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM-tech­nol­o­gy offers the small­est form-fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies.  Tra­di­tion­al­ly, an inter­pos­er is used only to make redis­tri­b­u­tions lay­ers (RDL) or inter­con­nects for oth­er dies to be con­nect­ed. With our patent­ed con­cept, it will be pos­si­ble to make the inter­pos­er hav­ing ener­gy stor­age devices e.g. capac­i­tors, sol­id state micro bat­ter­ies etc. embed­ded with­in the inter­pos­er struc­ture. This allows not only to have inter­pos­er with inter­con­nects but also with ener­gy storage.  > “*The appli­ca­tions of such inter­posers are antic­i­pat­ed to steadi­ly grow in the field of Het­ero­ge­neous Inte­gra­tion. And in this case, our com­pact ener­gy stor­age inter­pos­er fam­i­ly is com­ple­men­tary to our Inter­pos­er fam­i­ly, and offers an alter­na­tive path to uti­lize our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy pri­mar­i­ly to man­u­fac­ture inter­posers. The beau­ty of our con­cept is that it facil­i­tates to make an inter­pos­er smarter with added func­tion­al­i­ty embed­ded with­in the inter­pos­er. Quite mind­bog­gling, actu­al­ly*”, > > says Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO and Head of R&D at Smoltek. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 77 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Kickoff for Smoltek and Yageo collab" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/kickoff-for-smoltek-and-yageo-collab/3911/" date: 2022-10-07 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/smoltek-yageo-kickoff-2022-09-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Kickoff for Smoltek and Yageo collab The group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi, which devel­ops our inno­v­a­tive capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy, togeth­er with the elec­tron­ics com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­er Yageo, has start­ed the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of our ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capacitors.  > “The pur­pose of meet­ing at our place in Gothen­burg for a work­shop was to gath­er exper­tise and resources from Smoltek and Yageo for infor­ma­tion exchange and to estab­lish a com­mon goal and agen­da for the work to com­mer­cial­ize Smoltek’s ultra-thin capacitors.” > > Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek The first prod­uct that will be devel­oped with­in the col­lab­o­ra­tion is a decou­pling capac­i­tor for appli­ca­tion proces­sors in next-gen­er­a­tion mobile phones. The work began with a work­shop in Gothen­burg and is in accor­dance with the joint devel­op­ment agree­ment the par­ties signed this summer. > “Yageo Cor­po­ra­tion is now col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Swedish inno­v­a­tive nan­otech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Smoltek to indus­tri­al­ize sil­i­con capac­i­tors with car­bon nanofibers. We kicked off the project last month at Smoltek’s head­quar­ters in Gothen­burg. We also got a tour of the MC2 lab­o­ra­to­ry at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy where Smoltek grows its car­bon nanofibers.”  > > Dr. Philip Less­ner, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Yageo group --- title: "Smoltek Innovation changes name to Smoltek Hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-innovation-changes-name-to-smoltek-hydrogen/3908/" date: 2022-10-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/smoltek-mc2-2022-06-01-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" --- # Smoltek Innovation changes name to Smoltek Hydrogen The renam­ing of the sub­sidiary is a log­i­cal next step when the inno­va­tion project around mate­ri­als for elec­trolyz­ers and green hydro­gen is now its own inde­pen­dent busi­ness area with­in Smoltek, and the new com­pa­ny name shows that we are com­mit­ted to the ambi­tion to pro­vide the new hydro­gen econ­o­my with deci­sive tech­nol­o­gy.[1](https://www.smoltek.com#1924ffbd-bb01-4d27-b5da-b823daf959db) > “The glob­al hydro­gen mar­ket is grow­ing incred­i­bly fast, and the mar­ket for cell mate­r­i­al on the anode side of a PEM elec­trolyz­er alone is expect­ed to reach SEK 65 bil­lion in 2030. In addi­tion, the acute short­age of nat­ur­al gas has fur­ther increased the lev­el of ambi­tion in Europe. For us, it is impor­tant to quick­ly reach the goal of becom­ing an estab­lished play­er in this market.” > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Hydrogen \* [Elec­trolyz­er Mar­ket worth over $65 Bn by 2030](https://www.gminsights.com/pressrelease/electrolyzer-market?utm_source=PrNewswire.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Paid_PrNewswire) **Scop­ing for new inno­va­tion areas** Smoltek Inno­va­tion was formed as a sep­a­rate group com­pa­ny in August 2020, with the task of tak­ing new tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven inno­va­tions from con­cept to prod­ucts for the mar­ket. Dur­ing the first six months, a hand­ful of promis­ing areas were iden­ti­fied, with one of them, high-per­for­mance cell mate­ri­als for elec­trolyz­ers, select­ed to be the first con­cept to devel­op further. The ambi­tion to devel­op our tech­nol­o­gy into new busi­ness areas is still some­thing we look into, and next in line is con­cept devel­op­ment in areas such as med­ical tech­nol­o­gy, next-gen­er­a­tion bat­ter­ies and super­ca­pac­i­tors. These are areas where we con­sid­er our tech­nol­o­gy around nanofibers to be use­ful and pos­si­ble to explore. This is now car­ried out by the R&D‑department. ### Smoltek Hydrogen – electrolyzer cell material Based on Smoltek’s patent-pro­tect­ed nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy, a new cell mate­r­i­al for PEM elec­trolyz­ers has been devel­oped. It has the poten­tial to great­ly increase the amount of hydro­gen pro­duced per unit area, lead­ing to up to three times small­er and thus cheap­er elec­trol­y­sers. Fur­ther­more, we reduce the amount of irid­i­um used when man­u­fac­tur­ing an elec­trolyz­er by at least 80%. This is a sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage because irid­i­um is a crit­i­cal cat­a­lyst mate­r­i­al that cur­rent­ly costs rough­ly SEK 2 mil­lion per kilogram. --- title: "Smoltek reduces investment costs for green hydrogen production" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-reduces-investment-costs-for-green-hydrogen-production/3866/" date: 2022-09-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" --- # Smoltek reduces investment costs for green hydrogen production Smoltek’s mate­r­i­al is based on car­bon nanofibers and pro­vides a new solu­tion for the cat­a­lyst lay­er on the anode side of the cell stack in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. The elec­trolyz­er is a mar­ket that is grow­ing expo­nen­tial­ly due to the huge invest­ments that are now being made world­wide to enable the pro­duc­tion of green hydro­gen. For exam­ple, Glob­al Mar­ket Insights Inc* esti­mates that the mar­ket for elec­trolyz­ers will be val­ued at around SEK 650 bil­lion glob­al­ly in 2030. The three-dimen­sion­al struc­ture of our cell mate­r­i­al increas­es the cur­rent den­si­ty to such an extent that the elec­trolyz­er size can be reduced by up to a fac­tor of three, while the usage of the expen­sive mate­r­i­al irid­i­um can be reduced by over 80%. Togeth­er, this makes it sig­nif­i­cant­ly cheap­er to build new hydro­gen plants, which is cru­cial for the rapid growth of what is being called the new green hydro­gen economy. > “We are look­ing for­ward to a very excit­ing autumn. The results of the two ongo­ing demon­stra­tion projects and our new com­pe­tent employ­ees are crit­i­cal mile­stones for the devel­op­ment of pro­to­types, pilot plants and cus­tomer projects. Addi­tion­al­ly, it is real­ly inspir­ing to see increas­ing val­i­da­tion of the boom­ing hydro­gen econ­o­my and how large it will become. Coun­try after coun­try sur­pass­es each oth­er in the enor­mous sums that they are invest­ing in the hydro­gen expan­sion. The lack of nat­ur­al gas is push­ing things even fur­ther in this direction,” > > says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Innovation \* [Elec­trolyz­er Mar­ket worth over $65 Bn by 2030](https://www.gminsights.com/pressrelease/electrolyzer-market?utm_source=PrNewswire.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Paid_PrNewswire) --- title: "Smoltek’s capacitor technology explained" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-capacitor-technology-explained/3863/" date: 2022-08-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FG-intervju-2022-07-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "decoupling capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/decoupling-capacitors.md" - name: "landside capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/landside-capacitors.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Smoltek’s capacitor technology explained --- title: "Vertically aligned carbon nanofibers promise more cost-efficient PEM water electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-promise-more-cost-efficient-pem-water-electrolyzers/7718/" date: 2022-08-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/electrolyzer-cell-with-smoltek-anode-ptl.png" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Vertically aligned carbon nanofibers promise more cost-efficient PEM water electrolyzers PEMWE is rec­og­nized as a key tech­nol­o­gy for sus­tain­able hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. How­ev­er, the neces­si­ty of using plat­inum group met­als (PGMs) as cat­a­lysts sets up a bar­ri­er for estab­lish­ing GW-scale sys­tems. Espe­cial­ly on the anode side for oxy­gen evo­lu­tion, the load­ing of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst must be reduced sig­nif­i­cant­ly from cur­rent­ly 2 mgIr cm‑2 to 0.05 mgIr cm‑2 lev­el to enable large scale appli­ca­tion of PEMWE \[1]. Even though sub­stan­tial progress has been made, there remain tremen­dous chal­lenges to make PEMWE work at ultra-low load­ings in practice.  Ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (CNF) cre­ate low-tor­tu­os­i­ty con­duct­ing 3D nanos­truc­tures over porous trans­port lay­ers (PTLs), act­ing as sup­ports for ultra-low load­ing of irid­i­um cat­a­lyst with non-com­pro­mised per­for­mance. Pro­ton exchange mem­brane water elec­trol­y­sis (PEMWE) is envis­aged to be more effi­cient using such advanced PTLs.  Read more on: https://learn.mines.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ICE2021\_ProgramComplete01.with-links.6.17.22.pdf (page 24–25). [Read more](https://learn.mines.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ICE2021_ProgramComplete01.with-links.6.17.22.pdf) --- title: "Smoltek signs JDA with Yageo to commercialize discrete capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-signs-jda-with-yageo-to-commercialize-discrete-capacitors/3853/" date: 2022-08-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/hp-2022-1-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "Smoltek Semi" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek-semi.md" - name: "Yageo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/yageo.md" --- # Smoltek signs JDA with Yageo to commercialize discrete capacitors The ini­tial tar­get appli­ca­tion is a decou­pling capac­i­tor for micro­proces­sor land­side mount­ing. The tar­get thick­ness for this dis­crete capac­i­tor is 40 microns. Land­side decou­pling for micro­proces­sors is an increas­ing area of inter­est for minia­tur­iza­tion with­in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. The capac­i­tors are based on Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed. CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy and will be fab­ri­cat­ed using a pro­pri­etary nano-fiber syn­the­sis machine and indus­tri­al sil­i­con foundry processes. > “We are excit­ed to part­ner with a major pas­sive com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­er to com­mer­cial­ize a prod­uct that is based on our core Car­bon Nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy. We now have a per­fect part­ner in place to com­plete a com­pet­i­tive prod­uct and indus­tri­al mass pro­duc­tion process for our ultra-thin CNF-MIM capacitors” > > says Smoltek’s CEO Håkan Persson The JDA con­sti­tutes the next step in accor­dance with the Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) pre­vi­ous­ly signed by the par­ties. In con­junc­tion with the sign­ing of the JDA, Smoltek Semi will receive 1.5 MUSD to be used for devel­op­ment activ­i­ties with­in the frame­work of the part­ner­ship with Yageo. > “This part­ner­ship is an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­mer­cial­ize a new tech­nol­o­gy that will be used in capac­i­tors for appli­ca­tions where space is at a pre­mi­um and high capac­i­tance den­si­ty is required”.  > > Dr. Philip Less­ner, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Yageo group [Read the offi­cial press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-semi-and-yageo-group-sign-joint-development-agreement-to-commercialize-discrete-capacitors%2Cc3616009) --- title: "Smoltek gets order for conducting proof-of-concept for medtech device" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-gets-order-for-conducting-proof-of-concept-for-medtech-device/3847/" date: 2022-07-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/hakan-persson-03-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "interconnects" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/interconnects.md" - name: "Medtech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/medtech.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek gets order for conducting proof-of-concept for medtech device The pur­pose of the proof-of-con­cept study is to con­firm that our elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive, ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers can func­tion as an inter­con­nect between an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and a sen­sor mate­r­i­al that is not com­pat­i­ble with metals. We have been col­lab­o­rat­ing with the glob­al medtech com­pa­ny for some time and a num­ber of ini­tial tests have already been per­formed. How­ev­er, the cur­rent proof-of-con­cept study will include a more com­plete test of the con­cept, which among oth­er things aims to ver­i­fy the per­for­mance of the solu­tion and to ensure that the assem­bly lasts, as well as to obtain more knowl­edge in how to scale up the con­cept to vol­ume production. > “This is a great busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty for us, in a unique con­text where we don’t real­ly see any alter­na­tive solu­tions. The medtech indus­try is very inter­est­ing as a poten­tial busi­ness area for Smoltek’s future expan­sion, in addi­tion to our two pri­or­i­ty busi­ness areas: the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, where we devel­op ultra-thin capac­i­tors for appli­ca­tion proces­sors and the hydro­gen indus­try, where we devel­op high-per­for­mance cell mate­ri­als for electrolyzers” > > says Smoltek’s CEO Håkan Persson The car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy used in this proof-of-con­cept study is very sim­i­lar to what we are devel­op­ing for our main busi­ness track – ultra-thin capac­i­tors, and the study is an excel­lent exam­ple of the many areas where the company’s tech­nol­o­gy can be applied. The order to car­ry out the proof-of-con­cept study is worth 40,000 euros. --- title: "Smoltek signs MoU with global manufacturer of capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-signs-mou-with-global-manufacturer-of-capacitors/3801/" date: 2022-06-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/hp-2022-2-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductorindustry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductorindustry.md" --- # Smoltek signs MoU with global manufacturer of capacitors The MoU also refers to the poten­tial for­ma­tion of a 50/50-owned joint ven­ture which, if it is formed, will receive a license for mass pro­duc­tion and sales of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors in the dis­crete capac­i­tors seg­ment. The capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er has, in the event of the joint ven­ture being formed, under­tak­en to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the day-to-day oper­a­tions of the planned joint ven­ture, as well as to invest a total of 3.5 mil­lion USD in the devel­op­ment project, of which 1.5 mil­lion USD will be paid to Smoltek Semi when the planned Joint Devel­op­ment Agree­ment (JDA) for the ini­tial part of the project has been signed. > “This agree­ment with a glob­al capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er is a his­toric mile­stone for Smoltek. We now have a per­fect part­ner in place to com­plete a com­pet­i­tive prod­uct and indus­tri­al mass pro­duc­tion process for our ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. Giv­en that we suc­ceed in this, the joint ven­ture that we plan to start will have excel­lent con­di­tions to take a sig­nif­i­cant share of the mar­ket for decou­pling capac­i­tors by uti­liz­ing our part­ner’s estab­lished net­work in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. I am very proud of Smoltek’s entire team that has made it pos­si­ble to take such an impor­tant step clos­er to our goal of becom­ing an inno­v­a­tive indus­tri­al com­pa­ny based on our patent­ed nan­otech­nol­o­gy platform,”  > > says Smoltek’s CEO Håkan Persson Smoltek Semi has been col­lab­o­rat­ing with a glob­al man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive com­po­nents for the eval­u­a­tion of Smoltek’s patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, which enables man­u­fac­tur­ing of ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capac­i­tors, since 2020. The eval­u­a­tion license agree­ment for this col­lab­o­ra­tion has been grad­u­al­ly extend­ed, most recent­ly to the end of June 2022, with the pur­pose to reach an agree­ment on the terms of the MoU which has now been signed. Read more about the agree­ment in [the offi­cial press release](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-signs-mou-with-global-manufacturer-of-capacitors%2cc3593579). --- title: "Smoltek has been granted two new patents" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-granted-two-new-patents/3797/" date: 2022-06-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/smoltek-rd-team-200mm-wafer-2000x1125-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has been granted two new patents Smoltek’s 75th patent has been grant­ed in Tai­wan and is cov­er­ing the con­cept and man­u­fac­tur­ing of extreme­ly thin ener­gy stor­age devices embed­ded in an inter­pos­er. The ener­gy stor­age device con­cepts can take a large num­ber of forms e.g. dis­crete, inte­grat­ed – or it may take the form where the end result is an inter­pos­er with CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in it. And the Com­pact ener­gy stor­age inter­pos­er fam­i­ly is devel­oped to cap­ture around that concept. > “Through these two new patents, Smoltek again proves our abil­i­ty both in tech­ni­cal and inno­v­a­tive capa­bil­i­ties of widen­ing our IP footprint”, > > says Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO and Head of R&D at Smoltek. ![Farzan Ghavanini, CTO at Smoltek](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/farzan-ghanavini-500x500-1-300x300.webp) Smoltek’s 76th patent has been grant­ed in Korea and relates to the Assem­bly plat­form fam­i­ly in the field of inter­con­nects and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion. This par­tic­u­lar patent fam­i­ly is a path­way to tap into the ever-increas­ing demand for minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and inter­con­nect them in the form of an assem­bly to min­i­mize foot­print at the pack­ag­ing level. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 76 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek’s hydrogen business explained" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-hydrogen-business-explained/3776/" date: 2022-06-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ellinor-ehrnberg-president-of-smoltek-innovation-02-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "fuel cells" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fuel-cells.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" --- # Smoltek’s hydrogen business explained --- title: "Carbon nanofibers in the semiconductor industry" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers-in-the-semiconductor-industry/3200/" date: 2022-06-18 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/adobestock-165717610-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/articles/semiconductor.md" tags: - name: "2.5" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/2-5.md" - name: "3D" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/3d.md" - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "cnf" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "microbumps" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/microbumps.md" - name: "thermal film" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/thermal-film.md" --- # Carbon nanofibers in the semiconductor industry Based on our CNF-tech­nol­o­gy, we have devel­oped an assem­bly plat­form that push­es the lim­its for het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion in 2.5D and 3D. The plat­form offers ultra-fine pitch microbumps, ultra thin ther­mal film for heat dis­si­pa­tion, ultra minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors inte­grat­ed direct­ly onto dies or embed­ded into inter­posers, and an inter­pos­er with built-in DC stor­age smooth­ing out vari­a­tions in pow­er supply. ![Ultra-fine pitch microbumps made of carbon nanofibers.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/carbon-nanofiber-microbumps-600x400.webp) ![Close-up of a wafer with Smoltek's carbon nanofiber metal-insulator-metal (CNF-MIM) capacitor—the world's thinnest capacitor.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cnf-mim-wafer-01-1200x675-1.jpg) We have also devel­oped [the world’s small­est capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/miniaturized-capacitors/). The total height is only 30 µm—which is less than half what is pos­si­ble with oth­er tech­nolo­gies. Its capac­i­tance is a whop­ping 650 nF/​mm2. Its inter­nal resis­tance (ESR) is less than 40 mΩ, and its inter­nal induc­tance (ESL) is below 15 pH. We offer a tech­ni­cal part­ner­ship to man­u­fac­tur­ers who want to devel­op their offer in het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion or pas­sive com­po­nents with our tech­nol­o­gy to short­en devel­op­ment time and min­i­mize risks. Are you inter­est­ed? [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/contact/) now to learn more. ![Smoltek team members in the lab.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/smoltek-in-the-lab-1200x800.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#what-are-semiconductors)What are semiconductors? A mate­r­i­al is an elec­tri­cal *con­duc­tor* if an elec­tric field can move an elec­tron from one atom to the next. Only the elec­tron in the out­er­most shell around an atom­ic nucle­us can do that, and only if there is an even fur­ther out shell that it can jump to with ener­gy from the elec­tric field. If the dis­tance between the out­er­most shell of elec­trons and the next shell is too great for elec­trons to jump out there, the sub­stance is an elec­tri­cal *insu­la­tor*. For some mate­ri­als, such as sil­i­con, the gap is so small that some elec­trons can jump across the gap. When the elec­tron cross­es the gap, it leaves behind a *hole*. Under the influ­ence of an elec­tri­cal field, both the elec­tron and the hole can move across the mate­r­i­al. It con­ducts elec­tric­i­ty, but poor­ly. That’s why such a sub­stance is called *semi­con­duc­tor*. The con­duc­tiv­i­ty can be dra­mat­i­cal­ly improved by adding impu­ri­ties in the form of oth­er sub­stances that add extra elec­trons or holes. This is called *n‑doping* and *p‑doping*, respec­tive­ly. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-magic-at-the-p-n-junction)The magic at the p‑n-junction A *p‑n-junc­tion* is where p‑doped semi­con­duc­tor meets n‑doped semi­con­duc­tor. At p‑n-junc­tions, the mag­ic hap­pens that makes mod­ern elec­tron­ics possible. Because there is an excess of elec­trons in the n‑doped semi­con­duc­tor and a deficit of elec­trons (holes) in the p‑doped semi­con­duc­tor, elec­trons dif­fuse from the n‑doped to the p‑doped semi­con­duc­tor to reach equi­lib­ri­um. This cre­ates a region that is deplet­ed of elec­trons and holes that can car­ry cur­rent. Con­se­quent­ly, the region is said to be a *deple­tion region*. By apply­ing a volt­age across the p‑n junc­tion one can cause the deple­tion region to increase (which blocks cur­rent from pass­ing) or decrease (which allows cur­rent to pass). This is what is exploit­ed in transistors. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-transistors-work)How transistors work A *tran­sis­tor* acts like an elec­tri­cal­ly con­trolled tap. By gen­tly turn­ing the tap, more or less flow can be cre­at­ed. This fea­ture is used in ana­log elec­tron­ics to ampli­fy sig­nals. By quick­ly turn­ing the tap on or off, “ones and zeros” are cre­at­ed in terms of cur­rent pass­ing or not. This is the foun­da­tion of all dig­i­tal elec­tron­ics, not least computers. The first tran­sis­tor was cre­at­ed in Decem­ber 1947 at the Bell Tele­phone Lab­o­ra­to­ries. A cou­ple of years lat­er, what we today think of as a tran­sis­tor was invent­ed. It con­sists of n‑doped or p‑doped semi­con­duc­tors through which cur­rent is passed. The mid­dle part of the semi­con­duc­tor is replaced by a piece of semi­con­duc­tor of the oppo­site type. It cre­ates two p‑n junc­tions. By sup­ply­ing cur­rent through the mid­dle sec­tion, the width of the two deple­tion regions can be changed. Thus, a cur­rent through the mid­dle sec­tion con­trols how much of the cur­rent through the tran­sis­tor is allowed to pass. Since both neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive charges are mov­ing (elec­trons and elec­tron holes, respec­tive­ly), it is called *bipo­lar junc­tion tran­sis­tor* (*BJT*). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#mosfet)MOSFET A tran­sis­tor con­trolled by an elec­tric field instead of cur­rent is called a *field-effect tran­sis­tor* (*FET*). While the BJT always con­sumes pow­er, the FET con­sumes no pow­er when its tap is unchanged (e.g., on or off). That’s per­fect for cre­at­ing ener­gy-effi­cient dig­i­tal electronics. The first field-effect tran­sis­tor was devel­oped in 1953. But it had prob­lems with leak­ag­ing cur­rent where p–n junc­tions inter­cept the surface. In the late 1950s, Mohamed M. Atal­la of Bell Tele­phone Lab­o­ra­to­ries dis­cov­ered that a thin lay­er of insu­lat­ing sil­i­con diox­ide on top of a semi­con­duc­tor pre­vents leak­age cur­rent. But how to make elec­tric con­tact with a FET if an insu­lat­ing lay­er cov­ers its surface? Mohamed M. Atal­la and his col­league Dawon Kah­ng ele­gant­ly solved this. They added met­al gates on top of the oxide lay­er where they want­ed the con­nec­tion. The stack of met­al, oxide, and semi­con­duc­tor form a par­al­lel-plate capac­i­tor. The met­al gate is one elec­trode, the semi­con­duc­tor under­neath is the oth­er elec­trode, and the thin sil­i­con diox­ide lay­er acts as the dielec­tric. The much improved FET was named *met­al-oxide-semi­con­duc­tor field-effect tran­sis­tor*, or *MOSFET* for short. One of the MOS­FETs’ many ben­e­fits is that com­pared to BJTs they are rel­a­tive­ly easy to pro­duce. There­fore, it is bet­ter to use MOS­FETs in inte­grat­ed cir­cuits. Dawon Kah­ng point­ed this out in 1961. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#integrated-circuit-ic-chip)Integrated circuit (IC)—chip An *inte­grat­ed cir­cuit* (*IC*) is a set of elec­tron­ic cir­cuits on one small flat piece of semi­con­duc­tor called *chip*. The idea of com­bin­ing sev­er­al com­po­nents in one device goes back to 1949. But it wasn’t until a decade lat­er that the first IC in a mod­ern sense was fab­ri­cat­ed. It used bipo­lar junc­tion tran­sis­tors (BJT). The first chip with MOSFET was fab­ri­cat­ed in 1961. MOS­FETs are supe­ri­or to BJTs in inte­grat­ed cir­cuits because they are eas­i­er to pro­duce and can be made much small­er. It took only two years after the first MOSFET chip was pro­duced before chips with MOSFET reached high­er tran­sis­tor den­si­ty and low­er man­u­fac­tur­ing costs than those with BJTs. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#cmos)CMOS In the late 1960s, the *com­ple­men­tary met­al-oxide-semi­con­duc­tor* (*CMOS*) was devel­oped. The name refers to both a par­tic­u­lar style of dig­i­tal cir­cuit­ry design, cre­at­ing dig­i­tal gates by com­bin­ing two MOS­FETs of oppo­site dop­ing, and a process used to imple­ment that cir­cuit­ry on inte­grat­ed cir­cuits (chips). Two impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tics of CMOS devices are high noise immu­ni­ty and low sta­t­ic pow­er consumption. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#chip-manufacturing-process)Chip manufacturing process The pro­duc­tion of chips is a com­plex process that can take up to three months. Today, they are usu­al­ly man­u­fac­tured accord­ing to the fol­low­ing steps: 01. Extreme­ly pure sil­i­cone is pro­duced from quartzite or sand. The sil­i­cone is shaped into a cylin­dri­cal ingot with a diam­e­ter of up to 300 mil­lime­ters. The sil­i­con ingot is then sliced into discs; each disc is 0.75 mil­lime­ters thick and is called a *wafer*. 02. Sev­er­al thin lay­ers of insu­lat­ing, semi­con­duct­ing, and con­duct­ing mate­ri­als are placed on a wafer. Which mate­ri­als and in what order depends on what is to be pro­duced. This is called *depo­si­tion*. 03. The last lay­er applied is a *pho­tore­sist*—a sub­stance resis­tant to cor­ro­sive sub­stances except where it has been exposed to ultra­vi­o­let light. 04. The next step is *lith­o­g­ra­phy*. Deep ultra­vi­o­let (DUV) or extreme ultra­vi­o­let (EUV) light is sent through a ret­i­cle with the draw­ing of the pat­tern to be cre­at­ed. Lens­es or mir­rors are used to shrink and focus the pat­tern pro­ject­ed onto the pho­tore­sist. Where the light hits the pho­tore­sist, it los­es its resis­tance to cor­ro­sive sub­stances, while the resis­tance remains where the light has not hit. 05. Wafers are now placed in a chem­i­cal bath that erodes exposed pho­tore­sist while leav­ing the unex­posed pho­tore­sist unaf­fect­ed. This is called *wet etch­ing*. Instead of a bath, gas can also be used. This is called *dry etch­ing*. The result is that under­ly­ing lay­ers are uncov­ered where the light has hit while the rest is still shielded. 06. Once pat­terns are etched in the wafer, the wafer may be bom­bard­ed with pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive ions to dope uncov­ered semi­con­duc­tors. This is called *ion implan­ta­tion*. 07. Now, the remain­ing sec­tions of resist that were pro­tect­ing areas that should not be etched or ion­ized are removed. 08. Steps 2–7 are repeat­ed repeat­ed­ly until the desired func­tion­al­i­ty is achieved. Mod­ern chips can have up to two hun­dred lay­ers, which all need to align on top of each oth­er with extreme precision. 09. A wafer holds cir­cuits for many chips. How many cir­cuits depends on how large they are. Some wafers may con­tain thou­sands of cir­cuits, while oth­ers con­tain only a few dozen. The cir­cuits are cut out with a dia­mond saw. The cut-out pieces of the wafer are called *dies*. 10. The chip is now cre­at­ed by mount­ing the die on a sub­strate that acts as a back­plane with con­nect­ing wires. 11. Final­ly, the chip is put into a plas­tic pack­age with con­nect­ing pins. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/adobestock-444505498-1200x480.webp) Sil­i­con wafer after the dic­ing process. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#minimum-costs-per-transistor)Minimum costs per transistor Although chip man­u­fac­tur­ing has been refined since the first MOSFET chips were pro­duced, not all dies will work. There­fore, each die must be test­ed (which is typ­i­cal­ly done before the wafer is diced). The per­cent­age that pass­es is called the *die yield*. The cost per tran­sis­tor decreas­es with the num­ber of tran­sis­tors that fit on a chip to a point where the cost increas­es again due to decreas­ing yield. Thus there is an inflec­tion point where the cost per tran­sis­tor is the low­est possible. In an arti­cle pub­lished in 1965 in Elec­tron­ics (Vol­ume 38, Num­ber 8), Gor­don E. Moore—co-founder of Fairchild Semi­con­duc­tor and lat­er Intel—referred to this opti­mal point as “min­i­mum com­po­nent costs.” More­over, he not­ed that in those few years that chips had been pro­duced, the num­ber of tran­sis­tors giv­ing min­i­mum com­po­nent costs had dou­bled each year. He pre­dict­ed that this growth rate would con­tin­ue for anoth­er ten years. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#moores-law)Moore’s law When he looked back at his pre­dic­tion in 1975, Moore, who now was CEO of Intel, found it was almost spot on. Instead of an expect­ed increase of 210, the increase was 29. In oth­er words, the num­ber of tran­sis­tors at the low­est price point dou­bled every 13 months. At the 1975 *IEEE Inter­na­tion­al Elec­tron Devices Meet­ing*, Moore revised his fore­cast rate, pre­dict­ing that semi­con­duc­tor com­plex­i­ty would con­tin­ue to dou­ble annu­al­ly until about 1980, after which it would decrease to a rate of dou­bling approx­i­mate­ly every two years. One of Moore’s friends, Dr. Carv­er Mead, a pro­fes­sor at Cal­tech, dubbed this revised pre­dic­tion as *Moore’s Law*. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#houses-postulate)House’s postulate In a sci­en­tif­ic paper pub­lished in 1974, the pow­er con­sump­tion of MOS­FETs was shown to decrease lin­ear­ly with the area they occu­py. This rela­tion­ship is called *Den­nard scal­ing*. Dennard’s scal­ing makes it pos­si­ble to dou­ble the num­ber of tran­sis­tors with­out using more pow­er. And if no more pow­er is sup­plied, no more heat needs to be dis­si­pat­ed. Thus it is pos­si­ble to dou­ble the com­pu­ta­tion­al capac­i­ty by dou­bling the num­ber of tran­sis­tors with­out heat dis­si­pa­tion becom­ing a grow­ing prob­lem. This leaves room to increase the clock fre­quen­cy that sets the rate at which ones and zeros are turned off and on. David House, an Intel exec­u­tive, real­ized that this and oth­er improve­ments make it pos­si­ble to increase com­put­ing capac­i­ty faster than the num­ber of tran­sis­tors. He, there­fore, pos­tu­lat­ed that the per­for­mance of a com­put­er chip dou­bles every eigh­teen months. House’s pos­tu­lates are often mis­tak­en as Moore’s Law. But these are two sep­a­rate pre­dic­tions, albeit close­ly related. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#is-moores-law-still-applicable)Is Moore’s law still applicable? Does Moore’s law still apply? No, not as orig­i­nal­ly for­mu­lat­ed. Den­si­ty at min­i­mum cost per tran­sis­tor has long ceased to dou­ble every two years. How­ev­er, den­si­ty at *any* cost per tran­sis­tor still dou­bles every two years. But even this more gen­er­ous inter­pre­ta­tion of Moore’s law will not last for­ev­er. Many indus­try experts believe that Moore’s law will cease to apply alto­geth­er as ear­ly as 2025. Rea­sons for Moore’s law to cease are many. Obvi­ous­ly, tran­sis­tors can­not become small­er than the atoms that make them up. But even before that, prob­lems arise with quan­tum tun­nel­ing, where elec­trons jump through bar­ri­ers and cause cur­rent leak­age. Anoth­er prob­lem, which is already real, is par­a­sitic tran­sis­tors that cre­ate cir­cuits that shouldn’t be there. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#does-it-matter)Does it matter? Does it mat­ter that Moore’s law is com­ing to an end? Not per se, but its impli­ca­tions are profound. The devel­op­ment of the Inter­net of Things (IoT), self-dri­ving cars, con­nect­ed homes, Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty (VR), and Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) increas­ing­ly demands high com­put­ing capac­i­ty in a small foot­print and at low pow­er con­sump­tion. For this devel­op­ment not to come to a halt with Moore’s law, oth­er solu­tions are need­ed than cram­ming more and more tran­sis­tors onto the same surface. A fore­cast of what will hap­pen when Moore’s Law ceas­es to apply was giv­en to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try around 2006 when Den­nard scal­ing broke down. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#breakdown-of-dennard-scaling)Breakdown of Dennard scaling The pow­er con­sump­tion of CMOS cir­cuits is pro­por­tion­al to the clock fre­quen­cy. His­tor­i­cal­ly, the tran­sis­tor pow­er reduc­tion afford­ed by Den­nard scal­ing allowed man­u­fac­tur­ers to raise clock fre­quen­cies from one gen­er­a­tion to the next with­out sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­ing over­all cir­cuit pow­er consumption. But around 2006, tran­sis­tors had shrunk­en so much the pow­er required to run them increased due to cur­rent leak­age. Increased pow­er con­sump­tion leads to increased heat gen­er­a­tion. And increased heat caus­es elec­trons to become more mobile, which can cause tran­sis­tors to turn on or off spon­ta­neous­ly, lead­ing to fatal fail­ures. Increased heat also increas­es leak­age cur­rent, which fur­ther increas­es pow­er con­sump­tion and the prob­lems that fol­low. In the worst case, this self-ampli­fi­ca­tion can lead to ther­mal runaway. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#overcoming-the-dennard-scaling-breakdown)Overcoming the Dennard scaling breakdown The break­down of Den­nard scal­ing prompt­ed a prob­lem that could only be par­tial­ly over­come with improved cool­ing. In the end, it was not rea­son­able to con­tin­ue increas­ing the clock speed. That’s why the clock fre­quen­cy of today’s micro­proces­sors is the same as fif­teen years ago. But the per­for­mance has increased any­way. How? The solu­tion to over­come the break­down of Den­nard scal­ing was mul­ti-core proces­sors. Instead of increas­ing the speed at which a sin­gle pro­cess­ing unit exe­cut­ed instruc­tions, more units were added. These units, called cores, can work inde­pen­dent­ly with par­al­lel tasks. This increas­es the over­all per­for­mance of the processor. The solu­tion when Moore’s law breaks down is kind of similar. ![AdobeStock_352217571](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/adobestock-352217571-1200x375.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#system-in-package-sip)System-in-Package (SiP) The final step in fab­ri­cat­ing inte­grat­ed cir­cuits is to place the chip into a plas­tic pack­age with con­nect­ing pins. In the begin­ning, each such pack­age con­tained only one chip. Even­tu­al­ly, two or more chips began to be placed in the same pack­age to cope with - reduced sur­face area due to more and more to be packed into less and less space, - reduced yield due to larg­er dies, - lim­it­ed trans­mis­sion speed due to capac­i­tance in long wires, and - pow­er loss­es due to par­a­sitic capac­i­tance in long wires. It also allows the assem­bly of sim­pler chips into more com­plex solutions—like Lego. Last­ly, it enables a mix of chips with incom­pat­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing and pas­sive com­po­nents (e.g. condensers). This approach is called *het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion*, and the result is called a *Sys­tem-in-Pack­age* or *SiP* for short. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#2d-ic)2D IC The eas­i­est way is to assem­ble a SiP is to place two or more dies next to each oth­er on the same sub­strate. The dies are inter­con­nect­ed with each oth­er through wires in the sub­strate. The sub­strate also pro­vides an exter­nal con­nec­tion through tiny globes of solder—called *sol­der bumps*. A die can be mount­ed face up. Then the die is con­nect­ed to the inter­con­nec­tions and the sol­der bumps with wires. More com­mon is to mount a die face down. In this case, the die itself has micro­scop­ic sol­der globes—called *microbumps*—that come into con­tact with pads on the top of the sub­strate. These pads are, in turn, con­nect­ed to the substrate’s inter­con­nec­tions and sol­der bumps. This form of SiP is called *2D IC* (two-dimen­sion­al inte­grat­ed cir­cuit) because the dies are mount­ed in a sin­gle plane. It is also known as *mul­ti-chip mod­ule* (*MCM*). ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2d-1200x233.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#2-5d-ic)2.5D IC The next step up in SiP-com­plex­i­ty is called *2.5D IC* (two and a half-dimen­sion­al inte­grat­ed cir­cuit). The name comes from the fact that dies are still side by side, but now face down on an inter­me­di­ate lay­er of silicon—called *inter­pos­er*. An inter­pos­er has pads on its top and microbumps on its bot­tom. Hor­i­zon­tal elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions inside the sil­i­con inter­con­nect some pads. Some are con­nect­ed to microbumps by a ver­ti­cal elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion run­ning through the silicon—called *through sil­i­con via* or *TSV* for short. So what’s the point of adding an inter­pos­er? An inter­pos­er gen­er­al­ly reroutes con­nec­tions from one con­fig­u­ra­tion and pitch to anoth­er con­fig­u­ra­tion and pitch. But this is not the pri­ma­ry rea­son for their use in 2.5D ICs; the same goal can be achieved with wires on the sub­strate in 2D ICs. It is the use of sil­i­con that makes them worthwhile. The fab­ri­ca­tion tech­niques used for sil­i­con allow elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions much fin­er than fea­si­ble on com­mon sub­strates. More­over, we are not con­strained to con­nec­tions hor­i­zon­tal­ly but can also make them ver­ti­cal­ly. Thus, we can cre­ate many inter­con­nec­tions with­out a larg­er foot­print or adding much height. In turn, this means short­er sig­nal paths that enable high­er trans­mis­sion rates and reduce pow­er losses. In addi­tion, sil­i­con expands much less when heat­ed than com­mon sub­strates. More impor­tant­ly, it expands like the dies mount­ed on top, whose microbumps must align per­fect­ly with the pads they con­nect to. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/25d-1200x317.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#3d-ic)3D IC The most com­plex SiP uses dies on top of each oth­er. This is called *3D IC* (three-dimen­sion­al inte­grat­ed circuit). In its sim­plest form, one die is mount­ed on the top of anoth­er die, with the low­er die employ­ing through-sil­i­con vias (TSVs) to allow the upper die to con­nect to the low­er die and to the substrate. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/3d-1200x433.png) In the gen­er­al case, a 3D IC con­sists of mul­ti­ple dies stacked on top of each oth­er using TSVs, and mul­ti­ple stacks of dies inter­con­nect­ed through a sil­i­con inter­pos­er. In jets, this is some­times called 5.5D IC since it com­bines the tech­niques of 2.5D and the sim­plest ver­sion of 3D. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/55d-1200x433.png) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#benefits-of-sip)Benefits of SiP A sys­tem-in-pack­age (SiP) is the result of het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion. Sim­ple dies are put togeth­er like Lego pieces to form com­plex sys­tems. As we have already not­ed, SiP pro­vides less foot­print, increased yield, increased trans­mis­sion speed, and less pow­er loss. Tak­en togeth­er, this opens the door to con­tin­ued rapid growth in per­for­mance per unit area despite the lit­er­al mean­ing of Moore’s law ceas­ing to apply. How­ev­er, it is not enough to open the door; we must also get through it. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#whats-next)What’s next? Sev­er­al things need to be addressed to main­tain con­tin­ued rapid growth in per­for­mance per unit area. In particular, - more con­nec­tors are need­ed for each die to han­dle more data, - heat must be dis­si­pat­ed from each die to avoid mal­func­tion, and - decou­pling capac­i­tors must be placed as close to each die as pos­si­ble to avoid interference. These are chal­lenges that put bound­aries for what is pos­si­ble with het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion. And we have accept­ed the challenge. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pushes-the-boundaries-of-heterogeneous-integration)Pushes the boundaries of heterogeneous integration Smoltek devel­ops tech­nolo­gies to fab­ri­cate nanos­truc­tures. In par­tic­u­lar, we are focus­ing on [car­bon nanofibers (CNFs)](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/carbon-nanofibers/), which have many valu­able prop­er­ties. They are very stiff and strong. They are good con­duc­tors of heat and elec­tric­i­ty. And the con­tact sur­face where they stand increas­es a thousandfold. A sig­nif­i­cant part of Smoltek’s research and devel­op­ment has been com­mit­ted to over­com­ing the chal­lenges of het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion. We have also com­mit­ted our­selves to devel­op a fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy that is process com­pat­i­ble with CMOS. The latter’s chal­lenge is the rel­a­tive­ly low tem­per­a­tures used in CMOS fab­ri­ca­tion. We are pleased to say that we have deliv­ered on our commitments. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#smolteks-achievements)Smoltek’s achievements We have developed - microbumps with ultra-fine pitch (< 5 µm), - ultra thin ther­mal film for heat dissipation, - an inter­pos­er with built-in DC stor­age smooth­ing out vari­a­tions in pow­er supply, - a capac­i­tor direct on die or embed­ded in interposers These achieve­ments form the cor­ner­stones on which we have built *Smoltek Tiger*—an assem­bly plat­form con­cept for het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion and advanced pack­ag­ings such as 2.5D and 3D SiP. Of these achieve­ments, we are most excit­ed about our capac­i­tor, which has the world’s small­est foot­print (650 nF/​mm2) and low­est build height (0.5–10 µm). Its inter­nal resis­tance (ESR) is less than forty mil­liohms (40 mΩ), and its inter­nal induc­tance (ESL) is below fif­teen pico­hen­ry (15 pH). So, of course, we also want to make this tech­nol­o­gy avail­able as a reg­u­lar dis­crete component. [![Carbon nanofiber microbump.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/image-023-600x400.webp)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/image-023.jpg) Car­bon nanofiber microbump. [![Carbon nanofiber thermal film.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-thermal-film-600x400.webp)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-thermal-film.jpg) Car­bon nanofiber ther­mal film. [![scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-600x400.webp)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate.jpg) Car­bon nanofiber met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capacitor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#ultra-miniaturized-discrete-capacitors)Ultra-miniaturized discrete capacitors Capac­i­tors are essen­tial in all elec­tron­ics. They store ener­gy, atten­u­ate tran­sients, dis­si­pate inter­fer­ence, and more. They are indis­pens­able. Not least inside and out­side inte­grat­ed circuits. We have there­fore focused in par­tic­u­lar on devel­op­ing our ultra-minia­tur­ized capac­i­tor and mak­ing it avail­able as a dis­crete com­po­nent that can be - mount­ed on chip die, - embed­ded in chip interposer, - mount­ed on chip interposer, - embed­ded in print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB), and - mount­ed on PCB. The total height, includ­ing cap­sule, is only 30 µm—which is less than half what is pos­si­ble with oth­er technologies. The most amaz­ing thing about this micro­scop­ic capac­i­tor is its per­for­mance. One square mil­lime­ter has a capac­i­tance of a whop­ping 650 nF/​mm2. Its inter­nal resis­tance (ESR) is less than 40 mΩ, and its inter­nal induc­tance (ESL) is below 15 pH. We describe our capac­i­tor as a *CNF-MIM capac­i­tor* since it is a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor where [car­bon nanofibers (CNF)](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/carbon-nanofibers/) are used to cre­ate a much larg­er sur­face area hence high­er capac­i­tance than the form fac­tor suggest. Read the ded­i­cat­ed page about [Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/miniaturized-capacitors/) for more information. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/waffer-with-smolteks-cnf-mim-capacitors.jpg) Close-up of a wafer with Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (CNF-MIM) capacitor—the world’s thinnest capacitor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#interested-in-our-technology)Interested in our technology? Smoltek’s busi­ness mod­el is not to man­u­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tors nor capac­i­tors but to license our fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy to lead­ing sup­pli­ers of such products. We offer a long-term tech­ni­cal part­ner­ship, where we con­tribute our tech­nol­o­gy which we have invest­ed mon­ey and time in devel­op­ing at our per­il, for the ben­e­fit of our part­ner, thus short­en­ing the devel­op­ment time and min­i­miz­ing the risks. We also offer know-how, tai­lor-made solu­tions, pro­duc­tion of test series, and advice and assis­tance in imple­ment­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing process. Are you inter­est­ed in part­ner­ing with us? [Con­tact us](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi/contact/) today, and let’s arrange a meet­ing to dis­cuss it further. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 74 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-74-now-granted/3677/" date: 2022-06-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/fg-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 74 now granted Smoltek’s 74th patent has been grant­ed in the US and relates to the Assem­bly plat­form fam­i­ly, which is a path­way to tap into the ever-increas­ing demand for minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and inter­con­nect them in the form of an assem­bly to min­i­mize foot­print at the pack­ag­ing level. > “Through this new patent grant we widen our glob­al IP-foot­print, and again show­case the great dis­rup­tive poten­tial of our tech­nol­o­gy platform.”, > > says Farzan Gha­vani­ni, CTO at Smoltek. In the con­text of our Assem­bly plat­form and inter­con­nects, the present appli­ca­tions con­cepts take advan­tage of the wet­ta­bil­i­ty prop­er­ties of nanos­truc­tures to form small sized com­pos­ite inter­con­nect bumps togeth­er with tra­di­tion­al solder/​metal mate­ri­als. Such com­pos­ite inter­con­nects pro­vide a means to improve the elec­tri­cal reli­a­bil­i­ty of the solder/​metal bumps since car­bon nanos­truc­tures are inher­ent­ly capa­ble of car­ry­ing high cur­rent at a much small­er footprint. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 74 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Collaboration agreement signed for Smoltek’s green hydrogen solutions" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/collaboration-agreement-signed-for-smolteks-green-hydrogen-solutions/3680/" date: 2022-05-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ee-2022-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cleantech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cleantech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" --- # Collaboration agreement signed for Smoltek’s green hydrogen solutions The par­ties have signed a col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment, which means that Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers and cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion will be com­bined with oth­er mate­ri­als from the man­u­fac­tur­er, and cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles from a third par­ty, into a lab-sized demon­stra­tor. This demon­stra­tion mate­r­i­al will then be inte­grat­ed into a com­plete PEM elec­trolyz­er cell, fol­lowed by test runs and mea­sure­ment of its performance. > “It is excit­ing that we and our part­ner have now signed a col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment for this devel­op­ment project, and we are both look­ing for­ward to devel­op­ing a com­plete PEM elec­trolyz­er cell with our patent-pro­tect­ed technology,” > > says Fabi­an Wenger, Tech Lead at Smoltek Innovation This project is con­duct­ed to ver­i­fy the poten­tial of Smoltek’s nanofiber-based cell mate­r­i­al and its abil­i­ty to reduce the amount of extreme­ly expen­sive cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles in PEM elec­trolyz­ers. Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy increas­es the active sur­face that is in con­tact with the mem­brane in the elec­trolyz­er cell, which in turn reduces the total size of the elec­trolyz­er with main­tained pro­duc­tion capacity. > “Togeth­er, these prop­er­ties sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the pro­duc­tion cost for green hydrogen,” > > says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Innovation. **EU Hydro­gen invest­ments are sky­rock­et­ing** 18 May 2022 the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion pre­sent­ed a wide range of ini­tia­tives to reduce Europe’s reliance on fos­sil fuels and a list of pro­pos­als aimed to stim­u­late the pro­duc­tion of renew­able hydro­gen and to improve frame­work con­di­tions for Euro­pean elec­trolyz­er man­u­fac­tur­ers were includ­ed in this plan, known as [RePow­erEU](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_3131). These pro­pos­als includ­ed, among oth­ers, two main tar­gets: To increase the indus­try tar­get from 50% renew­able hydro­gen con­sump­tion in 2030 to 75%. And to dou­bling the next ETS Inno­va­tion Fund call for large scale projects set to be announced in Autumn of this year. EUR 3 bil­lion will be made avail­able, for among oth­er elec­trolyz­er manufacturers. > ”Fur­ther­more, the Euro­pean elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty must be scaled-up sig­nif­i­cant­ly to meet the expect­ed demand for renew­able hydro­gen pro­duc­tion. Elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ers in Europe set the objec­tive to have in place by 2025 a com­bined annu­al elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty in Europe of 17.5 GW, and to fur­ther increase that capac­i­ty by 2030 in line with pro­ject­ed demand for renew­able and low-car­bon hydrogen48. To sup­port these objec­tives, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion will put in place enabling reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work, facil­i­tate access to finance and pro­mote effi­cient sup­ply chains. The upscal­ing of the elec­trol­yser man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ties will require invest­ments esti­mat­ed at up to €2bn,” > > states the RePoweEU plan. --- title: "Smoltek initiates MoU-negotiations for joint development of ultra-thin capacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-initiates-mou-negotiations-for-joint-development-of-ultra-thin-capacitors/3682/" date: 2022-05-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/hp-2022-1-1200x675-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" --- # Smoltek initiates MoU-negotiations for joint development of ultra-thin capacitors The Group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi has been col­lab­o­rat­ing with a glob­al man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive com­po­nents for the eval­u­a­tion of Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, which enables man­u­fac­tur­ing of ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capac­i­tors, since 2020. The eval­u­a­tion license agree­ment for this col­lab­o­ra­tion will now be extend­ed for two months, until the end of June 2022. The exten­sion is made to enable the two com­pa­nies to reach a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) for a con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion towards mass-pro­duc­tion of Smoltek’s ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capac­i­tors (CNF-MIM). The MoU-nego­ti­a­tions have been initiated. > “We are real­ly excit­ed that this glob­al man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive com­po­nents, after a com­pre­hen­sive eval­u­a­tion of our tech­nol­o­gy, is now pre­pared to take the col­lab­o­ra­tion with us to the next level,” > > says Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek and Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi. The pur­pose of the MoU is to define and agree upon both par­ties’ intents, require­ments, and the struc­ture for the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of an indus­tri­al mass pro­duc­tion process for Smoltek’s ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capacitors.“We are now defin­ing the way for­ward togeth­er with this major capac­i­tor ven­dor to bring our ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors to the mar­ket. I view the ini­ti­a­tion of these MoU nega­tions with our part­ner as a strong val­i­da­tion of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy and know-how, as well as the com­mer­cial poten­tial for our ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capacitors,”  > “We are now defin­ing the way for­ward togeth­er with this major capac­i­tor ven­dor to bring our ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors to the mar­ket. I view the ini­ti­a­tion of these MoU nega­tions with our part­ner as a strong val­i­da­tion of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy and know-how, as well as the com­mer­cial poten­tial for our ultra-thin car­bon nanofiber capacitors,” > > Håkan con­cludes. The com­pa­nies expect that it will be pos­si­ble to reach a MoU before the end of June 2022, when the new exten­sion of the eval­u­a­tion license ends. ![Wafer with CNF-MIM capacitors (mockups)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cnf-mim-wafer-01-1200x675-1.jpg) Wafer with CNF-MIM capac­i­tors (mock­ups) --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 73 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-73-now-granted/3688/" date: 2022-04-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 73 now granted The patent, recent­ly grant­ed in Japan, cov­ers our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of inter­posers for advanced pack­ag­ing and het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion of semiconductors. Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tions. The present patent­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter inter­posers that inte­grates one or sev­er­al com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices. Smoltek’s inven­tions facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy offers industry’s small­est form-fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors, this by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 73 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) --- title: "Smoltek has placed an order on an industrial carbon growth machine" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-placed-an-order-on-an-industrial-carbon-growth-machine/3700/" date: 2022-03-22 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/smoltek-rd-team-200mm-wafer-2000x1125-1-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Smoltek has placed an order on an industrial carbon growth machine The car­bon growth machine, which will be installed at a semi­con­duc­tor foundry, con­sti­tutes a cen­tral part of the pro­duc­tion process that Smoltek is now estab­lish­ing to be able to man­u­fac­ture the company’s ultra-thin capac­i­tors. By order­ing this indus­tri­al car­bon growth machine – that is in line with the unique spec­i­fi­ca­tions based on Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing process for growth of car­bon nanofibers with very high pre­ci­sion – anoth­er impor­tant step has been tak­en in the work of cre­at­ing a pro­duc­tion process to be able to man­u­fac­ture ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors in very high vol­umes. The machine will be installed and qual­i­fied for mass pro­duc­tion at a semi­con­duc­tor foundry. > “It is inspir­ing that the work with estab­lish­ing a pro­duc­tion process for the man­u­fac­tur­ing of our ultra-thin capac­i­tors is pro­ceed­ing in a sat­is­fac­to­ry man­ner. We are cur­rent­ly in the design phase of the project, which is project phase three of five, where the final phase defines the final­ized pro­duc­tion process before pro­duc­tion can begin,” > > says Karl Lun­dahl, VP Indus­tri­al­iza­tion and Prod­uct Man­age­ment, Smoltek Semi. In par­al­lel with the indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, Smoltek Semi is also work­ing on the devel­op­ment of the first prod­uct, which the com­pa­ny believes will be the world’s thinnest decou­pling capac­i­tor for appli­ca­tion proces­sors for mobile phones. Smoltek Semi’s ambi­tion over time is also to expand and broad­en the prod­uct fam­i­ly of CNF-MIM based capac­i­tors. Pri­ma­ry appli­ca­tions can be found in for exam­ple wear­ables, high per­for­mance com­put­ing (HPC) and 5G. > “An impor­tant aspect of the pro­duc­tion process and sup­ply chain that is now being devel­oped by Smoltek Semi, is that it has a high degree of tech­ni­cal flex­i­bil­i­ty in com­bi­na­tion with a scal­a­bil­i­ty for man­u­fac­tur­ing in extreme­ly high vol­umes. The pro­duc­tion process, includ­ing the car­bon growth machine which we are now order­ing, will there­fore over time be able to be used for man­u­fac­tur­ing of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent capac­i­tor types based on Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed CNF-MIM technology,” > > says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi. Smoltek con­ducts busi­ness oper­a­tions with­in devel­op­ment, indus­tri­al­iza­tion and licens­ing of tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions, based on the com­pa­ny’s patent pro­tect­ed car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy. The company’s tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions for the Semi­con­duc­tors busi­ness area are devel­oped by the Group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi. The focus is on indus­tri­al­iz­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing the com­pa­ny’s ultra-thin CNF-MIM capacitors. --- title: "Operational update for Smoltek’s electrolyzer technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/operational-update-for-smolteks-electrolyzer-technology/3702/" date: 2022-03-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cleantech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cleantech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" --- # Operational update for Smoltek’s electrolyzer technology Dur­ing the autumn of 2021, Smoltek announced that the com­pa­ny has achieved proof-of-con­cept for its high-per­form­ing, nanofiber-based cell mate­r­i­al for PEM-elec­trolyz­ers. At the same time, it was announced that the com­pa­ny intend­ed to ini­ti­ate a devel­op­ment col­lab­o­ra­tion for the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the cell mate­r­i­al, which has also tak­en place. > “At the end of 2021, prepara­to­ry steps were ini­ti­at­ed in a devel­op­ment col­lab­o­ra­tion with a large indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­er of mate­ri­als for elec­trolyz­ers. How­ev­er, some delays have occurred, which means that we have not yet been able to sign an agree­ment or start the main part of this project,“ > > says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Innovation. Smoltek is also in dis­cus­sions with oth­er poten­tial indus­tri­al part­ners ahead of the fur­ther devel­op­ment of the cell mate­r­i­al for PEM-elec­trolyz­ers. At the same time, the R&D team is test­ing dif­fer­ent types of anti-cor­ro­sion coat­ings, opti­miz­ing cat­a­lysts and more. > “The ambi­tion is to start a col­lab­o­ra­tion in 2023, or ear­li­er, with a large man­u­fac­tur­er of elec­trolyz­ers or com­po­nents for elec­trolyz­ers, where we togeth­er will build small-scale pro­to­types, so that Smoltek’s nanofiber-based cell mate­r­i­al can even­tu­al­ly be used in future generations,” > > Elli­nor Ehrn­berg concludes. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 72 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-72-now-granted/3695/" date: 2022-03-01 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_0dfbcc27209248c985d89508eff2b1c9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 72 now granted The patent, recent­ly grant­ed in Tai­wan, belongs to a patent fam­i­ly that cov­ers the company’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of inter­posers for advanced pack­ag­ing and het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion of semiconductors. The inven­tion as such facil­i­tates inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id-state devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, where the main advan­tage is that the ener­gy stor­ing devices can be placed clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chip, thus enabling more effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment solu­tions for the whole circuit. Minia­tur­ized or com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices, e.g. capac­i­tors, are in high demand in the field of today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and oth­er het­ero­ge­neous­ly inte­grat­ed semiconductors. Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy around inter­posers are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter, com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices which in turn can enable more effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment solutions. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 72 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "CNF-MIM technology license agreement extended – again" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-technology-license-agreement-extended-again/3704/" date: 2022-02-04 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_389d09a1d4ca49d3942392266e6b3f09mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # CNF-MIM technology license agreement extended – again The eval­u­a­tion license agree­ment that Smoltek signed in April 2020 with a glob­al man­u­fac­tur­er of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents has been extend­ed fur­ther, to the end of April. The work with­in this project is car­ried out in the sub­sidiary Smoltek Semi, whose main objec­tive is to devel­op and license the man­u­fac­ture of ultra-thin capac­i­tors based on Smoltek’s patent-pro­tect­ed car­bon nanofiber technology. Smoltek con­ducts oper­a­tions in the devel­op­ment, indus­tri­al­iza­tion and licens­ing of tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions, based on the com­pa­ny’s patent-pro­tect­ed car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy, for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try with­in the Group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi. Its main focus is the indus­tri­al­iza­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the company’s ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. The com­pa­ny has one active agree­ment for indus­tri­al eval­u­a­tion which was signed in the spring of 2020 with a glob­al man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive elec­tron­ic com­po­nents, includ­ing capac­i­tors. This agree­ment has now been fur­ther extend­ed until 30 April 2022. > “It is pos­i­tive for both par­ties that we have agreed upon a fur­ther exten­sion of the agree­ment. This will enable us and our cus­tomer to deep­en the work in the cur­rent devel­op­ment step with­in the frame­work of the coop­er­a­tion. Both par­ties con­tin­ue to see strong poten­tial in this coop­er­a­tion and Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. In par­al­lel with this coop­er­a­tion, we are also con­tin­u­ing our own work to build a sup­ply chain for the vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing of our first upcom­ing capac­i­tor prod­uct, and we are very pleased with how this is progressing,”  > > says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of the sub­sidiary Smoltek Semi AB. ![Wafer with CNF-MIM capacitors (mockups)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cnf-mim-wafer-01-1200x675-1.jpg) Wafer with CNF-MIM capac­i­tors (mock­ups) Back­ground: Smoltek demon­strat­ed a pro­to­type of the world’s small­est capac­i­tor in March 2021. All the work around the CNF-MIM (car­bon nanofiber MIM-capac­i­tors) are based on [Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy](https://www.smoltek.com/technology/carbon-nanotechnology/). --- title: "CEO buys shares for SEK 1.35 million" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/ceo-buys-shares-for-sek-1-35-million/2659/" date: 2022-01-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_be80ae83c5b244f4bcec028e5d47d056mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ceo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ceo.md" - name: "håkanpersson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hakanpersson.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # CEO buys shares for SEK 1.35 million Håkan Pers­son took over as CEO of Smoltek in Octo­ber 2021 as part of the com­pa­ny’s expand­ed efforts to indus­tri­al­ize and com­mer­cial­ize its two main devel­op­ment projects: extreme­ly thin and high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors (CNF-MIM capac­i­tors) for proces­sors in mobile phones and oth­er sim­i­lar appli­ca­tions, and a high­ly effi­cient new cell-mate­r­i­al for mem­branes in elec­trolyz­ers for more effi­cient pro­duc­tion of hydro­gen. Both of these projects are based on Smoltek’s unique and patent prot­edt­ed nanofiber technology. “The board of Smolteks views pos­i­tive­ly that our CEO buys shares in the com­pa­ny and thus fur­ther con­firms his pos­i­tive view of our poten­tial to cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant share­hold­er val­ue in the com­ing years,” says Smoltek’s chair­man Peter Augustsson. The trans­ac­tion was com­plet­ed on Jan­u­ary 20, 2022 at a price of SEK 27.10 per share, which was deter­mined on the basis of the vol­ume-weight­ed aver­age price of the Com­pa­ny’s share dur­ing the ten trad­ing days pre­ced­ing the trans­ac­tion date. The entire trans­ac­tion cor­re­sponds to a total pur­chase price of SEK 1,354,840.07. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 71 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-71-now-granted/2655/" date: 2022-01-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/smoltek-patent-no-71-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 71 now granted Smoltek’s 71st patent has been grant­ed in Korea and is cov­er­ing the inven­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing of extreme­ly thin ener­gy stor­age devices embed­ded in an inter­pos­er. Our ener­gy stor­age device con­cepts may take many forms e.g. dis­crete, inte­grat­ed, or it can take the form where the end result is an inter­pos­er with CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in it. “This is the fourth grant­ed patent from our sec­ond wave of patent fil­ings that pro­tect our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the area of semi­con­duc­tors and elec­tron­ics”, says Karl Lun­dahl, VP Prod­uct Man­age­ment and Indus­tri­al­iza­tion at Smoltek. Smoltek’s inven­tions in the area of semi­con­duc­tors and elec­tron­ics facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly low-pro­file sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM-tech­nol­o­gy offers the small­est form-fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies. Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits,. The present patent­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling a com­pact ener­gy stor­age to be fab­ri­cat­ed and embed­ded into an inter­pos­er substrate. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 71 [grant­ed patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek recruits Farzan Ghavanini as new CTO" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-recruits-farzan-ghavanini-as-new-cto/2651/" date: 2022-01-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/farzan-ghavanini-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek recruits Farzan Ghavanini as new CTO Farzan Gha­vani­ni has a sol­id expe­ri­ence from lead­ing posi­tions in tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment at inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies and a research back­ground in nan­otech­nol­o­gy. He has most recent­ly held the posi­tion as Direc­tor, Head of New Tech­nol­o­gy Devel­op­ment Depart­ment at the list­ed tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Fin­ger­print Cards. “I have fol­lowed the devel­op­ment of Smoltek’s impres­sive tech­nol­o­gy plat­form for a long time, and I look for­ward to now being able to con­tribute to fur­ther improv­ing its per­for­mance in exist­ing and future appli­ca­tion areas,” says Farzan Gha­vani­ni, Smoltek’s incom­ing CTO. In addi­tion to a suit­able pro­fes­sion­al back­ground, Farzan also has good knowl­edge of Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy plat­form and exten­sive knowl­edge in the indus­tri­al­iza­tion of nan­otech­nol­o­gy. Farzan holds a PhD in nanoscience and nan­otech­nol­o­gy from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology. “We are very pleased to be able to appoint Farzan Gha­vani­ni as our new CTO and we warm­ly wel­come him to the Smoltek team. We now have a per­ma­nent CTO on site who has a deep under­stand­ing of our tech­nol­o­gy plat­form and with expe­ri­ence of indus­tri­al­iza­tion of this type of tech­nol­o­gy. This com­bined with a strong dri­ve and proven lead­er­ship skills is exact­ly what we need as we are now increas­ing the pace in the indus­tri­al­iza­tion and thus also the tech­ni­cal devel­op­ment of our ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors and our high­ly effi­cient cell-mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers,” says Smoltek’s CEO Håkan Persson. --- title: "License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/license-agreement-for-evaluation-of-cnf-mim-technology-extended-5/2648/" date: 2022-01-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/waffer-with-smolteks-cnf-mim-capacitors-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended “I am very pleased to be able to extend this agree­ment, even if it hap­pens step by step, so that we can con­tin­ue the work with the next devel­op­ment step with­in the frame­work of the coop­er­a­tion. This exten­sion shows both par­ties’ will­ing­ness to take the coop­er­a­tion fur­ther with­out los­ing momen­tum. The cus­tomer still sees the great poten­tial in our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and has con­fi­dence in the Smoltek team’s abil­i­ty to devel­op the tech­nol­o­gy fur­ther”, says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of the sub­sidiary Smoltek Semi AB. Smoltek con­ducts oper­a­tions in the devel­op­ment, indus­tri­al­iza­tion and licens­ing of tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions, based on the com­pa­ny’s patent-pro­tect­ed car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy, for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try with­in the Group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi. Ini­tial­ly, the focus is on indus­tri­al­iz­ing the com­pa­ny’s extreme­ly small and ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, where two sep­a­rate agree­ments for indus­tri­al eval­u­a­tion were signed in the spring of 2020. One of these agree­ments was signed with a glob­al man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive elec­tron­ic com­po­nents, includ­ing capac­i­tors, and it is this agree­ment which has now been fur­ther extend­ed to 28 Feb­ru­ary 2022. ![Ola Tiverman, President Smoltek Semi](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_389d09a1d4ca49d3942392266e6b3f09mv2-600x338.webp) Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 70 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-70-now-granted/1428/" date: 2021-11-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_0dfbcc27209248c985d89508eff2b1c9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 70 now granted Smoltek’s 70th patent has been grant­ed in Tai­wan and relates to the Assem­bly plat­form fam­i­ly, and this par­tic­u­lar appli­ca­tion is in the field of inter­con­nects and het­ero­ge­neous integration. Our Assem­bly plat­form patent fam­i­ly is a path­way to tap into the ever-increas­ing demand for minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and inter­con­nect them in the form of an assem­bly to min­i­mize foot­print at the pack­ag­ing level. “Through this patent grant, we once again demon­strate our tech­ni­cal and inno­v­a­tive abil­i­ty to take advan­tage of the great poten­tial of our tech­nol­o­gy plat­form,” says Karl Lun­dahl, VP Prod­uct man­age­ment & Indus­tri­al­iza­tion at Smoltek. In the con­text of Assem­bly plat­form and inter­con­nects, the present appli­ca­tions con­cepts take advan­tage of the wet­ta­bil­i­ty prop­er­ties of nanos­truc­tures to form small sized com­pos­ite inter­con­nect bumps togeth­er with tra­di­tion­al solder/​metal mate­ri­als. Such com­pos­ite inter­con­nects pro­vide a means to improve the elec­tri­cal reli­a­bil­i­ty of the solder/​metal bumps since car­bon nanos­truc­tures are inher­ent­ly capa­ble of car­ry­ing high cur­rent at a much small­er footprint. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 70 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) Image: Karl Lun­dahl, VP Prod­uct Man­age­ment & Indus­tri­al­iza­tion at Smoltek --- title: "Carbon nanofibers in hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cells" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/electrolyzers-fuel-cells/14/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/h2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/articles/hydrogen.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" --- # Carbon nanofibers in hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cells Hydro­gen has emerged as a key to store renew­able ener­gy and mak­ing heavy indus­try car­bon-free. Two appli­ca­tion areas of imme­di­ate vital impor­tance. The core tech­nolo­gies that make this pos­si­ble are hydro­gen elec­trol­y­sis and fuel cells. Elec­trol­y­sis con­verts elec­tric­i­ty into hydro­gen, while fuel cells con­vert the hydro­gen back to elec­tric­i­ty. Nat­u­ral­ly, these con­ver­sions are sub­ject to ener­gy loss­es. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these loss­es can be pret­ty significant—up to eighty per­cent. How­ev­er, there are solu­tions, and [car­bon nanofiber (CNF)](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/carbon-nanofibers/) is part of them. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-need-for-hydrogen)**The need for hydrogen** The inter­mit­tent nature of renew­able ener­gy sources such as solar and wind pow­er cre­ates a demand for solu­tions to store sur­plus elec­tric­i­ty pro­duced on sun­ny or windy days for lat­er use. One method of stor­ing sur­plus elec­tric­i­ty is to con­vert it into hydro­gen by elec­trol­y­sis of water. Fuel cells can then con­vert the hydro­gen back into electricity. Hydro­gen is expect­ed to become increas­ing­ly impor­tant as a fuel. Hydro­gen-pow­ered vehi­cles are already on the road today. There are even hydro­gen-pow­ered pas­sen­ger cars avail­able for any­one to buy. Not least, hydro­gen is an increas­ing­ly essen­tial raw mate­r­i­al in heavy indus­try. For exam­ple, hydro­gen is replac­ing coal and coke in the pro­duc­tion of steel, enabling fos­sil-free steel production. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#industrially-production-of-hydrogen)**Industrially production of hydrogen** Hydro­gen is pro­duced indus­tri­al­ly in *elec­trolyz­ers*. Basi­cal­ly, an elec­trolyz­er can be described as a tank of water in which two elec­trodes are immersed. When an elec­tric volt­age is applied across the elec­trodes, a cur­rent flows through the water. The cur­rent breaks down the water into its con­stituent parts: hydro­gen and oxy­gen. Hydro­gen bub­bles up at one of the elec­trodes. Oxy­gen at the other. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#conventional-electrolysis)**Conventional electrolysis** The old­est and most con­ven­tion­al way of pro­duc­ing hydro­gen is *alka­line elec­trol­y­sis*. In this process, lye (potas­si­um hydrox­ide or sodi­um hydrox­ide) is added to the water, mak­ing it high­ly cor­ro­sive. The elec­trodes, made of nick­el alloy, are sep­a­rat­ed by a mem­brane which allows hydrox­ide ions (OH-) to flow through, on their way from the cath­ode to the anode, while sep­a­rat­ing the hydro­gen gas pro­duced at one elec­trode from the oxy­gen gas pro­duced at the other. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/alkaline-electrolysis.png) Schemat­ic of how alka­line hydrol­y­sis works. This tech­nique has sev­er­al dis­ad­van­tages. Main­ly is the low effi­cien­cy. The ener­gy val­ue of the hydro­gen gen­er­at­ed is only 45–65% of the ener­gy sup­plied. In addi­tion, the method works poor­ly for renew­able elec­tric­i­ty because of its inter­mit­tent nature. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#alternative-electrolyzers)**Alternative electrolyzers** There are alter­na­tives to con­ven­tion­al alka­line elec­trol­y­sis. The table below sum­ma­rizes the most com­mon solutions. | Type | Mem­brane | Elec­trolyte | Cat­a­lyst | Cur­rent den­si­ty \[A/​cm2] | Oper­a­tional tem­per­a­ture \[°C] | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------|------------------------------|-------------------------------------|------------------------------|------------------------------------| | Alka­line electrolyzer | Diaphragm | KOH dis­solved in water | Non-noble met­al alloys | 0.2–0.7 | 60–80 | | High-tem­per­a­ture electrolyzer | Diaphragm | Yttria-sta­bi­lized zirconia | Ni-YSZ alloys or per­ovskite oxides | 0.2–1.0 | 600–700 | | AEM elec­trolyz­er[1](https://www.smoltek.com#6bf9f394-f2dc-4422-a0e8-52e719a4a0e4) | Anion exchange membrane | Poly­mer | Non-noble met­al alloys | 0.1–0.5 | 50–70 | | PEM elec­trolyz­er[2](https://www.smoltek.com#d9656657-08f0-487a-8449-092e934e23cf) | Pro­ton exchange membrane | Poly­mer | Plat­inum and irid­i­um oxide | 1.0–2.2 | 50–84 | Char­ac­ter­is­tics of com­mon electrolyzers. *PEM elec­trolyz­ers* are con­sid­ered the most inter­est­ing going for­ward. So let’s take a clos­er look at them before delv­ing into how car­bon nanofibers (CNF) can improve them. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#pem-electrolyzer)**PEM** electrolyzer From the out­side and inwards, a PEM cat­a­lyst con­sists of the fol­low­ing parts: - An elec­trode that is con­nect­ed to a pow­er source. The elec­trode con­nect­ed to the pos­i­tive pole of the volt­age source is called the *anode*. The oth­er is called the *cath­ode*. - A porous mate­r­i­al that makes it eas­i­er for the gas form­ing on the cat­a­lysts to be released and facil­i­tates trans­porta­tion away from the cat­a­lysts to an outlet. - A cat­alyt­ic lay­er facil­i­tates the chem­i­cal reac­tions. It is in close con­tact with the poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane. Usu­al­ly, irid­i­um oxide is used on the anode side and plat­inum on the cath­ode side. - A mem­brane of an elec­trolyt­ic poly­mer (usu­al­ly *Nafion*) that allows pro­tons but not elec­trons to pass through. Water flows through the porous mate­r­i­al at the anode side. Oxy­gen is formed at the anode and hydro­gen at the cathode. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/PEM-electrolysis-1.png) Schemat­ic of how PEM hydrol­y­sis works. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-reactions-within-a-pem-electrolyzer)**The reactions within a PEM electrolyzer** At the anode-side, an *oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion* (*OER*) takes place: 1. Water flows in. Some of the water comes into con­tact with the cat­a­lyst. A water mol­e­cule that comes into con­tact with the cat­a­lyst splits into one oxy­gen atom, two elec­trons, and two hydro­gen ions (pro­tons). 2. The elec­trons are drawn to the anode and moves towards the pos­i­tive pole of the pow­er source. 3. The hydro­gen ions are drawn towards the cath­ode and must pass through the mem­brane on the way. 4. Oxy­gen atoms com­bine in pairs to form oxy­gen gas. At the cath­ode-side a *hydro­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion* (*HER*) takes place: 1. Elec­trons have been sup­plied to the catalyst. 2. Hydro­gen ions pass through the mem­brane and come into con­tact with the catalyst. 3. Hydro­gen ions and elec­trons com­bine to form hydro­gen atoms. 4. Hydro­gen atoms com­bine in pairs to form hydro­gen gas. Each indi­vid­ual reac­tion occurs with­in a micro­scop­ic region called the *triple-phase bound­ary* (*TPB*). You can think of TPB as a point where the reac­tion hap­pens because all nec­es­sary con­di­tions are met simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. For OER, this means that a water mol­e­cule comes into con­tact with the cat­a­lyst and the poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane. For HER, it means that a hydro­gen ion comes into con­tact with the cat­a­lyst and the poly­mer elec­trolyte membrane. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#major-advantages)**Major advantages** One of the most sig­nif­i­cant advan­tages of PEM elec­trol­y­sis is its high effi­cien­cy. Cur­rent­ly, the hydro­gen pro­duced has an ener­gy val­ue of up to 80% of the elec­tri­cal ener­gy sup­plied. The effi­cien­cy is expect­ed to be even high­er in the com­ing years—up to 86% by 2030. Anoth­er advan­tage to PEM elec­trol­y­sis is its abil­i­ty to cope with rapid changes in the cur­rent sup­ply, which is a chal­lenge with some renew­able ener­gy sources such as solar and wind. But PEM elec­trolyz­ers also have their share of problems. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#need-for-rare-and-precious-metals)**Need for rare and precious metals** PEM elec­trolyz­ers require plat­inum and irid­i­um oxide as cat­a­lysts. They are scarce and pre­cious met­als. For com­par­i­son, gold is 40 times more abun­dant in the Earth’s crust than iridium. So, to reduce the amount need­ed, a sup­port­ing struc­ture of a cheap­er mate­r­i­al is coat­ed with a thin lay­er of met­als. Alter­na­tive­ly, par­ti­cles of the met­als are dis­persed onto a porous and elec­tri­cal­ly con­duct­ing sup­port­ing material. How­ev­er, since the total sur­face area of a cat­a­lyst in an indus­tri­al appli­ca­tion is quite large, the cost of cat­a­lysts is still sig­nif­i­cant. And worse, most of it is nev­er used in the reac­tions because they are not at the triple-phase boundaries. So the main chal­lenge of the PEM elec­trolyz­er is to fur­ther reduce the use of plat­inum and irid­i­um oxide in rela­tion to the gen­er­at­ed current. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#gas-bubbles-block-the-reaction)**Gas bubbles block the reaction** The oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion and the hydro­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion result in gas that needs to be quick­ly trans­port­ed away from the cat­a­lyst. Oth­er­wise, the gas mol­e­cules may block the reactions. The porous mate­r­i­al between the elec­trodes and the poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane dis­si­pates the gas­es. Yet, on the anode side, prob­lems can arise with oxy­gen gas not being removed effi­cient­ly enough, thus form­ing gas bub­bles in the water, instead. So anoth­er chal­lenge of the PEM elec­trolyz­er is to fur­ther improve gas trans­porta­tion away from the cat­alyt­ic surfaces. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanofibers-cnfs-to-rescue)**Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) to rescue** A [*car­bon nanofiber* (*CNF*)](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/carbon-nanofibers/) is a car­bon-made mate­r­i­al so thin that its diam­e­ter is mea­sured in nanome­tres (1 nm = 0.001 µm). Its length is tens of thou­sands of times longer than its diam­e­ter. Typ­i­cal­ly a CNF has a diam­e­ter of 1–100 nm and a length of 1–100 μm. Smoltek has devel­oped and patent­ed a tech­nol­o­gy to pro­duce CNFs with extreme pre­ci­sion by chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (CVD). The tech­nique allows the cre­ation of straight rows and columns of ver­ti­cal CNFs. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cultivation-of-precisely-placed-carbon-nanofibres-1200x800.webp) An array of car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) pre­cise­ly placed in rows and columns. In addi­tion, the tech­nique allows nano-par­ti­cles, such as a few atoms of plat­inum or irid­i­um oxide, to be placed on each indi­vid­ual fiber. In con­junc­tion with CNFs elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty with low resis­tance, that can be used to solve both issues of the PEM electrolyzer. The solu­tion is sim­ple. Start from the porous mate­r­i­al that will dif­fuse the gas that will be formed. On its sur­face towards the mem­brane, place a large num­ber of CNFs arranged in rows and columns. Attach to each of them nano-par­ti­cles of the cat­alyt­ic met­al. Embed the pre­pared CNFs in the poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane. Each CNF becomes a “cru­cible” where the reac­tion takes place. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/catalytic-nanoparticles-embedded-in-ion-exchange-membrane-1200x737.png) Schemat­ic pre­sen­ta­tion of a mem­brane with embed­ded car­bon nanofibers with nano-par­ti­cles of cat­alyt­ic metal. The advan­tage of this is that the amount of plat­inum or irid­i­um oxide need­ed is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced, as very lit­tle of these rare and expen­sive met­als are used and only where they are instrumental. More­over, the array of CNFs improves the gas trans­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the anode side where the prob­lem of gas bub­bles in water block­ing the trans­port may occur. This tech­nol­o­gy pro­duces two to three times more hydro­gen com­pared to exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy. This is because two to three times more cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles can be in con­tact with the mem­brane simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This, in turn, can lead to sav­ings of up to 30 per­cent for hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plants. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fuel-cells-and-other-applications)**Fuel cells and other applications** It’s not only the PEM elec­trolyz­er that uses an *ion exchange mem­brane (IEM)* such as a poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane. They are also used in fuel cells. Thus, Smoltek’s CNF solu­tion applies to those as well. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#read-more)**Read more** Read more about how car­bon nanofibers can improve PEM elec­trolyz­ers in our whitepa­per [*Intro­duc­ing Smoltek Elec­trolyz­er Tech­nol­o­gy*](https://www.smoltek.com/introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology/1976/). --- title: "Miniaturized capacitors with carbon nanofibers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/miniaturized-capacitors/13/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-250253567-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/articles/semiconductor.md" tags: - name: "carbon nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/carbon-nanotechnology.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" --- # Miniaturized capacitors with carbon nanofibers The world’s thinnest dis­crete capac­i­tor has a total build­ing height is less than thir­ty microm­e­ters (30 µm). The capac­i­tor itself, with­out encap­su­la­tion, is a mere 0.5 to 10 µm. It can be built direct­ly onto an inte­grat­ed circuit’s die or built into its inter­pos­er. One square mil­lime­ter has a capac­i­tance of a whop­ping 650 nano­farads (650 nF/​mm2). Its inter­nal resis­tance (ESR) is less than forty mil­liohms (40 mΩ), and its inter­nal induc­tance (ESL) is below fif­teen pico­hen­ry (15 pH). ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#carbon-nanofiber-capacitors)Carbon nanofiber capacitors We describe our capac­i­tor as a *CNF-MIM capac­i­tor* since it is a met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor where [car­bon nanofibers (CNF)](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/carbon-nanofibers/) are used to cre­ate a much larg­er sur­face area hence high­er capac­i­tance than the form fac­tor suggest. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-1200x800.webp) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#technical-data)Technical data - Sol­id-state construction - Capac­i­tance den­si­ty: > 650 nF/​mm2 - Equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR): < 40 mΩ - Equiv­a­lent series induc­tance (ESL): < 15 pH - Break­down volt­age: Up to ~ 25 V - Leak­age cur­rent: ~ 4 mA/​F - Excel­lent capac­i­tance sta­bil­i­ty up to 150 °C ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#applications-for-discrete-cnf-mim-capacitors)Applications for discrete CNF-MIM capacitors A dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tor has a small­er foot­print (area) and much thin­ner pro­file (z‑dimension) than any oth­er capac­i­tor with the same capac­i­tance. CNF-MIM capac­i­tors up to more than 650 nF can be made less than 30 µm in height. The actu­al form fac­tor can be var­ied accord­ing to the design and need. As shown in the illus­tra­tions, a dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can be - mount­ed on print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) - embed­ded in PCB - mount­ed on chip interposer - embed­ded in chip interposer - mount­ed on chip die Dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are com­pat­i­ble with wafer to wafer (W2W) or die to wafer bond­ing (D2W). [![cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on a print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) [![cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-pcb-or-slb-embedded-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in a print­ed cir­cuit board (PCB) [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on a chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-embedded-discrete.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in a chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete-1.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-discrete-1.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors mount­ed on chip die Click on an image to see it in full size. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#applications-for-integrated-cnf-mim-capacitors)Applications for integrated CNF-MIM capacitors A CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can be inte­grat­ed direct­ly into chip die or chip inter­pos­er. The height of the inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors is a mere 0.5 to 10 µm. The ben­e­fits with inte­grat­ed CNF-MIM are many: - CMOS-com­pat­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing process - Unpar­al­leled design free­dom for cir­cuit designers - Pos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture direct­ly on-chip - Clos­er to the cir­cuit where it is needed - Extreme­ly small 2D footprint - Very com­pact 3D volume - Elim­i­nates the need for inte­grat­ed dis­crete capacitors As shown in the illus­tra­tions, a CNF-MIM capac­i­tor can be - inte­grat­ed with chip interposer - inte­grat­ed with built on-chip die [![cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-interposer-integrated.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors inte­grat­ed with chip interposer [![cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated.png)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cnf-mim-on-chip-die-integrated.png) CNF-MIM capac­i­tors inte­grat­ed with chip die Click on an image to see it in full size. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#discrete-cnf-mim-capacitor-compared-to-alternatives)Discrete CNF-MIM capacitor compared to alternatives *Mul­ti­lay­er Ceram­ic Capac­i­tors* (*MLCC*) form the indus­try stan­dard for sur­face-mount­ed device (SMD) capac­i­tors. Every year, tril­lions of MLCCs are built into all kinds of elec­tron­ic devices. They are 300 µm high. CNF-MIM offers the same capac­i­tance at a tenth of that height. The minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ics is cre­at­ing a grow­ing need for ever small­er capac­i­tors. And some cir­cuits (such as Apple’s) use capac­i­tors that are state of the art. These use improve­ments of MLCC and *Low Induc­tance Chip Capac­i­tors* (*LICCs*) and *Trench Sil­i­con Capac­i­tors* (*TSCs*), all of which have a height of 80–100 µm. How­ev­er, MLCC, LICC, and TSC strug­gle to go down in height due to mate­ri­als involved, pro­cess­ing schemes, and the cost of raw mate­ri­als and pro­cess­ing. At the same time, SiP and SoC con­tin­ue to become more com­pact. There is less and less space between inter­con­nects (bumps), and they are get­ting short­er. To fit capac­i­tors between the bumps, the capac­i­tors must have a small­er foot­print and, above all, be shorter—preferably less than 20 µm. This is the prob­lem that CNF-MIM capac­i­tors solve. They have a much small­er foot­print and, above all, a much low­er height. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-a-mim-capacitor-works)How a MIM capacitor works A met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al capac­i­tor, or MIM capac­i­tor for short, has par­al­lel met­al plates with a thin lay­er of an elec­tric insu­la­tor between them. The sim­plest form of a MIM-capac­i­tor is the par­al­lel plate capacitor. Now, imag­ine we con­nect a bat­tery to a MIM-capac­i­tor. Since no cur­rent can pass through the iso­la­tor, the elec­trons pushed into the plate on one side of the iso­la­tor build up a pos­i­tive charge. The elec­trons pulled out from the plate on the oth­er side of the iso­la­tor build a neg­a­tive charge. The charges increase respec­tive­ly decrease the elec­tri­cal poten­tial on the plates. The buildup con­tin­ues until the dif­fer­ence between the poten­tial is the same as the battery’s volt­age. The dif­fer­ence in charge between the two plates cre­ates an elec­tric field between them. When the bat­tery is removed, the elec­tric field remains since the charges have nowhere to go. Only when the capac­i­tor is con­nect­ed to a closed cir­cuit, the charges in the capac­i­tor can flow. The capac­i­tor thus stores ener­gy in the form of an elec­tric field. Any mate­r­i­al that does not con­duct cur­rent can be used as an elec­tri­cal insu­la­tor. But gen­er­al­ly, dielec­tric mate­ri­als are used. Dielec­tric *mate­r­i­al* con­sists of atoms whose elec­trons can­not move freely enough to car­ry cur­rent like all insu­la­tors. But unlike mate­ri­als that are com­mon­ly called insu­la­tors, such as ceram­ics, dialec­tic mate­ri­als become polar­ized in the pres­ence of an elec­tric field. They have elec­trons that are so free to move that the elec­tric field pulls them away from the nucle­us. Fig­u­ra­tive­ly, the atom becomes elon­gat­ed, with one end being neg­a­tive­ly charged and the oth­er being pos­i­tive­ly charged. Dielec­tric in a MIM capac­i­tor becomes polarised when the elec­tric field is built up due to the plates’ dif­fer­ent charges. Because of the polar­iza­tion, the pos­i­tive­ly charged plate comes into con­tact with the neg­a­tive ends of the atoms clos­est to it. That reduces its elec­tri­cal poten­tial. The oppo­site is hap­pen­ing at the neg­a­tive­ly charged plate. The bat­tery responds by push­ing in even more charges to main­tain the elec­tric poten­tials. Since capac­i­tance is a mea­sure of how much charge a capac­i­tor can store, the effect of using a dielec­tric is an increase in capacitance. The ease with which a mate­r­i­al becomes polar­ized is pro­por­tion­al to its rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty *κ*. The high­er the rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty, the eas­i­er the mate­r­i­al becomes polar­ized. Thus, a dielec­tric with a high rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty should be cho­sen to make a small capacitor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#how-to-make-the-worlds-thinnest-capacitor)How to make the worlds thinnest capacitor To cre­ate a capac­i­tor with a min­i­mal foot­print and height, we use [car­bon nanofibers (CNFs)](https://www.smoltek.com/technologies/carbon-nanofibers/) to mul­ti­ply the con­tact area between the two met­als and the inter­me­di­ary dielectric. Con­sid­er a sin­gle CNF with a diam­e­ter of 10 nm and a length of 5 µm. Its man­tle sur­face is 2,000 times larg­er than the area it occu­pies.[1](https://www.smoltek.com#d509c301-00b7-434b-bee9-312a7c07f700) Thus, a for­est of such CNFs would mul­ti­ply the sur­face, but not by as much as 2,000. We can’t cov­er the entire orig­i­nal sur­face with CNFs; there must be space between them to allow access to the con­tact sur­face. But if the for­est of CNFs cov­ers about half the sur­face, then the sur­face mul­ti­pli­ca­tion would be in the range of 1,000 times. CNF has many metal­lic prop­er­ties, includ­ing being a good con­duc­tor of cur­rent. There­fore a met­al plate cov­ered to fifty per­cent by CNFs is a sin­gle elec­trode with a sur­face area about 1,000 times larg­er than the area of the met­al plate itself. By coat­ing this elec­trode with a uni­form­ly thick lay­er of a dielec­tric and then coat­ing this in turn with a met­al, a MIM capac­i­tor is obtained. Of course, the dielec­tric should have a high rel­a­tive per­mit­tiv­i­ty to max­i­mize the capacitance. Since the CNF has a length much larg­er than the diam­e­ter, we can neglect what hap­pens to the elec­tric field near the base and top of each CNF. Essen­tial­ly it will be a uni­form field, just as in a par­al­lel plate capacitor. Since the capac­i­tance of a par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor is direct­ly pro­por­tion­al to the sur­face area, we con­clude that CNFs have increased the capac­i­tance den­si­ty by 1,000 times. But it doesn’t end there. If the sec­ond lay­er of met­al is made uni­form­ly thick, both sides of it will have the same shape as the first elec­trode. So by coat­ing it with anoth­er lay­er of dielec­tric and then coat­ing this in turn with a met­al, anoth­er MIM capac­i­tor is obtained. It will have the same capac­i­ty as the first. And by elec­tri­cal­ly con­nect­ing the first and the third met­al lay­er, we achieve a par­al­lel con­nec­tion, which dou­bles the capac­i­tance. This can be repeat­ed as long as desired and there is space between the car­bon nanofibers. The last lay­er of met­al does not need to be uni­form­ly thick but can fill in any remain­ing spaces between the car­bon nanofibers. The fig­ure below shows a dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tor with three CNF-shaped capac­i­tors con­nect­ed in par­al­lel. Using the same assump­tions about diam­e­ter, length, and den­si­ty as above, this capac­i­tor has 3,000 times the capac­i­tance pos­si­ble with a par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor in the same location. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/crossection-of-cnf-mim-capacitor-by-smoltek-1200x675.png) A schemat­ic cross-sec­tion of a dis­crete CNF-MIM capacitor. --- title: "Smoltek—from carbon nanofibers to mind-controlled robotic prostheses" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/from-carbon-nanofibers-to-mind-controlled-robotic-prostheses/1/" date: 2021-11-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/smoltek-og-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" tags: - name: "cnf" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" --- # Smoltek—from carbon nanofibers to mind-controlled robotic prostheses Finn Gram­naes was in the oper­at­ing room when his daugh­ter was deliv­ered by planned cesare­an sec­tion. But instead of hear­ing the new­born announce its arrival into the world with a scream, he heard noth­ing. “There was a strange silence in the room,” Finn Gram­naes remem­bers. “It made me ter­ri­fied, and I froze.” After what seemed like an eter­ni­ty, the girl began to scream. But still, some­thing wasn’t right. “I felt there was some­thing in the room that…,” says Finn Gram­naes with­out fin­ish­ing the sentence. Even­tu­al­ly, he got to see his long-await­ed baby girl. He was filled with relief and love at the sight of her. She was won­der­ful. But he also real­ized that life had tak­en an unex­pect­ed turn. She had a severe­ly deformed right leg. The knee joint was miss­ing as well as the tib­ia, and the foot was twisted. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#life-changing-decision)**Life-changing decision** After more than six years of well-meant but unsuc­cess­ful attempts to recon­struct the knee joint and tib­ia, the girl’s par­ents faced a life-chang­ing deci­sion. Sac­ri­fice their daughter’s child­hood for more lengthy and painful attempts at recon­struc­tion. Or per­suade her to cut off the leg above the non-exis­tent knee joint. After much delib­er­a­tion, they per­suad­ed the girl to ampu­tate. “But it did not go as expect­ed,” says her father. When he con­vinced his daugh­ter to ampu­tate, he didn’t know there were no knee joint pros­the­ses for chil­dren. “Instead, they hand­made some­thing, with basi­cal­ly a hinge,” he explains. ![Fading color photograph of father and daughter on her bed.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/finn-gramnaes-and-lisa-gramnaes-mid-1980s-1200x841.webp) Finn Gram­naes and his daugh­ter Lisa in 1991. Pho­to: Private. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#took-matters-into-his-own-hands)**Took matters into his own hands** The girl stum­bled and fell fre­quent­ly and often came home with abra­sions all over her body. “She was scared and inse­cure. It was men­tal­ly bad for her,” says her father. He expe­ri­enced ter­ri­ble remorse for “trick­ing” his daugh­ter into some­thing that didn’t work out. “We can fly to the moon, but we can’t make knee replace­ments for chil­dren,” he says. Finn Gram­naes took mat­ters into his own hands. In the evenings, until late at night, and every week­end, he stud­ied anato­my and exper­i­ment­ed with designs that mim­ic a knee joint’s move­ments and force dis­tri­b­u­tion. His efforts paid off, and he could give his daugh­ter bet­ter and bet­ter prostheses. ![Riveted together pieces of sheet metal illustrating the movements of a knee joint prosthesis](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/knee-joint-prosthesis-early-model-developed-by-finn-gramnaes-1200x900.webp) An ear­ly mod­el of a knee joint pros­the­sis devel­oped by Finn Gram­naes. Pho­to: Gramtec. **Arti­fi­cial knee joint** Finn Gram­naes con­tin­ued to devel­op his pros­the­sis. In April 1990, he applied for patents for his “arti­fi­cial knee joint” and an “arti­fi­cial foot.” For more peo­ple to ben­e­fit from his pros­the­ses, he looked for busi­ness part­ners with good access to cap­i­tal and a large mar­ket. He found them in the Unit­ed States. Togeth­er they found­ed Cen­tu­ry XXII Inno­va­tions Inc. in Michi­gan, where many advanced con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers serve the avi­a­tion indus­try. Finn Gram­naes became respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment and indus­tri­al­iza­tion of his knee and foot prostheses. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#to-sweden-from-bangladesh)**To Sweden from Bangladesh** ![Portrait of Dr. Shafiq Kabir.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/shafiq-kabir-smoltek-300x300.webp) Dr. Shafiq Kabir Mean­while, in Bangladesh, Moham­mad Shafiqul Kabir was study­ing sci­ence. Shafiqul—called Shafiq by friends—nurtured a desire to study abroad. When his stud­ies at the uni­ver­si­ty were com­ing to an end, he tried to fig­ure out  what to do next. He con­tact­ed the Swedish Embassy to find out which master’s pro­grams might be of inter­est. “Swedish uni­ver­si­ties must have good pro­grams, and after­all, the Nobel prize was estab­lished in Swe­den,” Shafiq Kabir remembers. A master’s pro­gram at the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy in Gothen­burg caught his inter­est. It focused on nan­otech­nol­o­gy. “I remem­ber think­ing: ‘There it is! I’ll give it a shot’,” says Shafiq Kabir and explains: “Nan­otech­nol­o­gy was new and very hyped at the time.” Shafiq Kabir arrived in Swe­den on a sun­ny day in August 1998. Two years lat­er, in 2000, he grad­u­at­ed with a Mas­ter of Sci­ence degree. Short­ly after that, Shafiq Kabir was offered doc­tor­al stu­dent employ­ment at the [Depart­ment of Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience at the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy](https://www.chalmers.se/sv/institutioner/mc2/Sidor/default.aspx). He was delight­ed. Since child­hood, he had dreamed of doing research. Shafiq Kabir began this new chap­ter in his life in the area of mol­e­c­u­lar elec­tron­ics but even­tu­al­ly moved to research on car­bon nanos­truc­tures. In par­tic­u­lar, he stud­ied how car­bon nanos­truc­tures can be made com­pat­i­ble with the man­u­fac­tur­ing process of semi­con­duc­tors. His super­vi­sor, Pro­fes­sor Peter Enoks­son, was pio­neer­ing and lead­ing in that area. ![A hand holds a silicon wafer with a grid pattern of carbon nanofibres.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/100-mm-silicon-wafer-with-selectively-grown-carbon-nanofibers-by-paul-wennerholm-1200x775.webp) A 100 mm sil­i­con wafer with selec­tive­ly grown car­bon nanofibers. Pho­to: Paul Wennerholm. ### **Semiconductor** A semi­con­duc­tor is a mate­r­i­al that con­ducts elec­tric cur­rent, but not very well except in areas that are *doped*. By dop­ing adja­cent regions in dif­fer­ent ways, a *tran­sis­tor* is obtained. It’s an elec­tron­ic com­po­nent that can, among oth­er things, turn the pow­er on and off—making ones and zeros—which is fun­da­men­tal to all dig­i­tal technology. An *inte­grat­ed cir­cuit,* or *chip* in every­day lan­guage, is obtained by mak­ing many tran­sis­tors on a sin­gle semi­con­duc­tor wafer and con­nect­ing them*.* A computer’s micro­proces­sor (CPU) and ran­dom access mem­o­ry (RAM) are exam­ples of chips. Chips, and there­fore semi­con­duc­tors, are in every elec­tron­ic gad­get around you. Usu­al­ly, chips are made of sil­i­con using a tech­nol­o­gy called CMOS. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#nanostructures-on-semiconductors)**Nanostructures on semiconductors** Shafiq Kabir’s research at the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy was about using car­bon atoms to cre­ate small struc­tures direct­ly on CMOS semi­con­duc­tors. He had to tack­le many challenges. One chal­lenge is that the struc­tures we are talk­ing about are extreme­ly small. They are mea­sured in *nanome­tres* (*nm*). That’s why they are called *nanos­truc­tures*. It is dif­fi­cult to under­stand how small they are. But imag­ine tak­ing one of your hairs and split­ting it length­wise, and then divid­ing each half again and so on until you have about 50,000 strips of your sin­gle hair strand. Each such strip is now about one nanome­tre in diam­e­ter. How can struc­tures that are so incred­i­bly small be built with pre­ci­sion? That was one of the ques­tions Shafiq Kabir searched for an answer to. Anoth­er chal­lenge is that CMOS semi­con­duc­tors break down at the tem­per­a­tures need­ed to fab­ri­cate nanos­truc­tures. To make it pos­si­ble to fab­ri­cate nanos­truc­tures direct­ly on CMOS semi­con­duc­tors, the fab­ri­ca­tion tem­per­a­ture must be low­ered by sev­er­al hun­dred degrees. But how? That was anoth­er of Shafiq Kabir’s research questions. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#versatile-carbon-nanostructures)**Versatile carbon nanostructures** One form of a nanos­truc­ture, in par­tic­u­lar, attract­ed the inter­est of Shafiq Kabir: *car­bon nanofibers (CNFs)*. They have many unique mate­r­i­al prop­er­ties that are inter­est­ing in all sorts of contexts. ### **Carbon nanofibers** Imag­ine a chick­en wire where the knots are car­bon atoms, and the threads between them are chem­i­cal bonds between the car­bon atoms. Such mate­r­i­al is called *graphene*. Imag­ine that you roll the “chick­en wire”, which is only one car­bon atom thick, into a tube. Since the diam­e­ter of such a car­bon tube is mea­sured in nanome­tres, they are called *car­bon nan­otubes* (*CNTs*). If you roll the mesh so tight that it becomes a rod rather than a tube, it is called a *car­bon nanofi­bre* (*CNF*). These are incred­i­bly nar­row. Their diam­e­ter can be as lit­tle as 1 nanome­tre. Car­bon nanofibers can also be thicker—up to 100 nanome­tres. Their length is much larg­er in com­par­i­son to their diam­e­ter, typ­i­cal­ly between 0.1 and 100 micrometers. [![graphene](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/graphene-450x253.webp)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/graphene.jpg) A sin­gle lay­er of car­bon atoms. Car­bon in this arrange­ment is called *graphene*. [![carbon-nano-tube-cnt](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/carbon-nano-tube-cnt-450x300.webp)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/carbon-nano-tube-cnt.jpg) Car­bon nan­otube (CNT) can be under­stood as graphene rolled into a tube. [![carbon-nano-fibre-cnf](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/carbon-nano-fibre-cnf-450x337.webp)](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/carbon-nano-fibre-cnf.jpg) Car­bon nanofi­bre (CNF) can be under­stood as a car­bon nan­otube rolled so tight that the axi­al cav­i­ty in the mid­dle disappears. Click on an image to see it larger. Car­bon nanofibers are sur­pris­ing­ly durable and can be used as a sup­port or rein­force­ment bar (“rebar”) for mate­ri­als that become brit­tle at small sizes. They can also be used as minia­ture spac­ers between lay­ers of mate­ri­als. Or as nee­dles that make micro­scop­ic holes in membranes. Car­bon nanofibers are very good at con­duct­ing heat—but only in one direc­tion. That prop­er­ty can be used to solve one of the biggest prob­lems as more and more tran­sis­tors are squeezed onto a chip: Heat dis­si­pa­tion. A chip can become mad­ly hot, short­en­ing its lifes­pan and increas­ing the risk of fail­ure. But car­bon nanofibers from the chip to the cap­sule that enclos­es the chip can effec­tive­ly dis­si­pate the heat. And it’s not just heat that car­bon nanofibers con­duct effi­cient­ly, but also elec­tric­i­ty. That’s why they can be used as con­tacts and con­duc­tors on chips instead of sol­der­ing cop­per con­tacts and con­duc­tors. The good con­duc­tiv­i­ty, com­bined with their small size, also opens up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­nect­ing biosen­sors direct­ly to indi­vid­ual nerve cells. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#large-surface-area-with-small-fiber)**Large surface area with small fiber** But above all, car­bon nanofibers arranged in rows and columns can be used to mul­ti­ply a sur­face area. Each car­bon nanofi­bre increas­es the sur­face area by ? times its diam­e­ter times its height. So a “for­est” of car­bon nanofibers will grow the sur­face area thou­sands of times. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cultivation-of-precisely-placed-carbon-nanofibres-300x200.webp) Scan­ning elec­tron micro­scope image of car­bon nanofi­bres arranged in rows and columns with tremen­dous precision. Imag­ine a square sur­face with a width and height of one mil­lime­ter. It can eas­i­ly hold 100,000 rows and as many columns of car­bon nanofibers that are 5 nanome­tres in diam­e­ter and 50 microm­e­ters in length. The sur­face area of those car­bon nanofibers increas­es the total sur­face area 7 855 times. In oth­er words, with car­bon nanofibers, you can eas­i­ly shrink an area of 88 × 88 mil­lime­ters to just 1 × 1 millimeters. This abil­i­ty to increase the sur­face area many thou­sand­folds is ben­e­fi­cial in var­i­ous appli­ca­tions. For exam­ple, with car­bon nanofibers coat­ed with tita­ni­um on the sur­face of a tita­ni­um implant, the implant’s sur­face area increas­es, mak­ing it eas­i­er to grow togeth­er with bone. Anoth­er exam­ple is the minia­tur­iza­tion of capacitors. **Car­bon nanofi­bre capacitors** A capac­i­tor is an elec­tron­ic com­po­nent that tem­porar­i­ly stores ener­gy in the form of an elec­tric field between two sep­a­rat­ed con­duc­tive sur­faces. A “for­est” of car­bon nanofibers pro­vides a lot of sur­face areas between which ener­gy can be stored in a tiny space. There­fore, capac­i­tors with car­bon nanofibers can be made much small­er with­out degrad­ing their abil­i­ty to store ener­gy (capac­i­tance). This is espe­cial­ly use­ful in chip appli­ca­tions, where capac­i­tors are need­ed very close to—or prefer­ably on—the chip to damp­en the noise that results when thou­sands of tran­sis­tors rapid­ly turn the pow­er on and off to make ones and zeros. The damp­en­ing effect comes from the fact that it takes a lit­tle while to charge and dis­charge a capacitor. ![The chip sits on a circuit board with the bottom facing up.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/capacitors-connected-to-underside-chip-by-sergei-starostin-1200x799.webp) Capac­i­tors mount­ed on the under­side of a chip. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-birth-of-smoltek)**The birth of Smoltek** How­ev­er, all these excit­ing appli­ca­tions of car­bon nanofibers require the abil­i­ty to man­u­fac­ture them to a spe­cif­ic diam­e­ter and length, place them with extreme pre­ci­sion, and do so at a tem­per­a­ture that does not dam­age the sub­strate. How to achieve this was the focus of Shafiq Kabir’s research. His research efforts bore fruit, and in 2005, while fin­ish­ing his Ph.D. the­sis, he start­ed Smoltek to devel­op the meth­ods fur­ther to make them avail­able to the indus­try. He was accom­pa­nied by his Ph.D. advi­sor, Pro­fes­sor Peter Enoksson. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#professor-meets-his-adept)**Professor meets his adept** ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/peter-enoksson-smoltek-300x300.webp) Dr. Peter Enoksson When Peter Enoks­son was offered a chair at the [Depart­ment of Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience at the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy](https://www.chalmers.se/sv/institutioner/mc2/Sidor/default.aspx), he glad­ly accept­ed the pro­fes­sor­ship. He start­ed in Octo­ber 2001. He came to work close­ly with Ste­fan Bengts­son (now Pres­i­dent and CEO of the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy) and Eleanor Camp­bell (who cur­rent­ly holds a Chair of Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh). Their com­mon area of inter­est was car­bon nanos­truc­tures. One of the Ph.D. stu­dents who also worked on this was Shafiq Kabir. “Shafiq was very much into apply­ing ‘help lay­ers’ to con­trol where car­bon nanos­truc­tures grow and to make them faster and more con­trolled,” Peter Enoks­son remem­bers. Peter Enoks­son became Shafiq Kabir’s supervisor. “We saw many appli­ca­tions of tech­nol­o­gy and thought it would take over every­thing,” recalls Peter Enoks­son. They called it “the new electronics.” But they also real­ized that it had to be made com­pat­i­ble with CMOS—the pre­dom­i­nant man­u­fac­tur­ing method for semi­con­duc­tor devices. It had to be pos­si­ble to man­u­fac­ture the car­bon nanos­truc­tures at tem­per­a­tures that CMOS can withstand—which is much low­er than need­ed to cre­ate car­bon nanos­truc­tures. So this became the focus of their fur­ther research. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#huge-in-few-years)**Huge in few years** When Shafiq Kabir lat­er found­ed Smoltek, Peter Enoks­son, Ste­fan Bengts­son, and Eleanor Camp­bell became the company’s sci­en­tif­ic advi­sors. And when Smoltek raised seed cap­i­tal from Chalmers Inno­va­tion (now [Chalmers Ven­ture](https://www.chalmersventures.com/)), a busi­ness incu­ba­tor asso­ci­at­ed with the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Peter Enoks­son was involved in invest­ing in the company. “Shafiq and I thought Smoltek would be huge in just a few years,” says Peter Enoks­son with a laugh. Because it turned out not to be as easy as they thought. Despite unprece­dent­ed results and excel­lent prop­er­ties, it was dif­fi­cult to con­vince the elec­tron­ics industry. After a few years, it was high time to bring indus­try expe­ri­ence to the board of direc­tors. The ques­tion went to Finn Gramnaes—the father who built a knee pros­the­sis to help his daugh­ter and then took it to the world market. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#time-for-industrial-experience)**Time for industrial experience** In the same year as Shafiq Kabir began his doc­tor­al stud­ies, the com­pa­ny that Finn Gram­naes co-found­ed in the US was sold to the Ice­landic pros­thet­ics man­u­fac­tur­er Össur. Finn Gramnae’s com­pa­ny had received many takeover offers. Even­tu­al­ly, the bids were so high that some of Finn’s senior part­ners decid­ed it was time to sell. Finn was now with­out a job but with a good deal of mon­ey in his pock­et. He spent a lot of time in Spain, played golf, went to cock­tail par­ties, and tried to live the life expect­ed of some­one who had made an exit and was finan­cial­ly inde­pen­dent. But some­thing was miss­ing in his life. ![Product image showing four different versions of The Total Knee®.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/finn-gramnaes-seven-axis-knee-replacement-the-total-knee-1200x791.webp) Finn Gram­naes cre­at­ed the sev­en-axis knee pros­the­ses that are sold world­wide under the name The Total Knee®. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#searching-for-meaning-in-life)**Searching for meaning in life** Finn Gram­naes want­ed some­thing tan­gi­ble to do—something that helped oth­ers and gave him mean­ing in life. So he start­ed to help oth­er inno­va­tors and entre­pre­neurs devel­op their businesses. Finn Gram­naes had some good con­tacts in the finan­cial world. They offered their con­tacts in the hope of shar­ing risk with some­one with mon­ey. In this way, Finn came to sit on the boards of a wide range of businesses. “I was look­ing for a com­pa­ny that real­ly could con­tribute to human­i­ty,” Finn Gram­naes says. But years passed with­out him find­ing the “right” com­pa­ny. He did, how­ev­er, learn some hard lessons. But one day, he found on his desk a doc­u­ment that would change everything. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#it-clicked)**It clicked** “One day, some­one gave me a text by Smoltek,” Finn Gram­naes says. “It ‘clicked’ when I read it, and I thought, ‘Wow! There it is.’” Smoltek had a pend­ing patent that cov­ered many appli­ca­tion areas. There were many thoughts and visions about what was pos­si­ble to do with it. “I saw the pos­si­bil­i­ties and was extreme­ly fas­ci­nat­ed,” says Finn Gram­naes. “Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to solve many of the prob­lems I encoun­tered dur­ing my jour­ney devel­op­ing pros­the­ses.” He adds: “If I hadn’t made that jour­ney, which made me real­ize that there is a lack of advanced tech­nol­o­gy in sev­er­al areas, I prob­a­bly wouldn’t have fall­en for Smoltek.” So when Chalmers Inno­va­tion asked him if he would con­sid­er join­ing Smoltek’s board, he accept­ed with­out hes­i­ta­tion. Even­tu­al­ly, he and Peter Enoks­son bought out Chalmers Inno­va­tion and became the company’s largest shareholders. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#business-concept)**Business concept** Smoltek’s busi­ness con­cept is to license the tech­nol­o­gy in var­i­ous degrees of refine­ment. From the most basic lev­el, that can be used in indus­tri­al research projects, to fin­ished appli­ca­tions, such as car­bon nanofi­bre capacitors. The busi­ness mod­el is to seek part­ner­ships with com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions that want to eval­u­ate or use Smoltek’s technology. The focus now and in the future will be on cre­at­ing more and deep­er rela­tion­ships with part­ners. And not least broad­en the search for partners. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#working-with-a-conservative-industry)**Working with a conservative industry** Until recent­ly, Smoltek has only focused on the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, but since the for­ma­tion in autumn 2020 of the sub­sidiary Smoltek Inno­va­tion, the search for part­ners in new sec­tors has gath­ered pace—not least in green ener­gy and green industry. There are two rea­sons for Smoltek’s broad­en­ing. First, Smoltek’s core tech­nol­o­gy, for which it holds a world patent, is com­pre­hen­sive and can be used in many and diverse indus­tries far beyond the semi­con­duc­tor industry. The sec­ond rea­son is that the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is very con­ser­v­a­tive and cau­tious. It is not sur­pris­ing. Com­pa­nies in the indus­try are mak­ing huge invest­ments, count­ed in bil­lions of dol­lars, which increase dra­mat­i­cal­ly with each new gen­er­a­tion of CPUs and oth­er semi­con­duc­tor com­po­nents. There­fore, com­pa­nies are extreme­ly cau­tious about what tech­nol­o­gy they bring in. It has to be estab­lished and already proved itself in the real world. The last rea­son is also why Smoltek has cho­sen to focus on car­bon nanofi­bre capac­i­tors. It gives Smoltek a chance to show what the tech­nol­o­gy is capa­ble of, in a way vis­i­ble to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, but with no risk for them. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-1200x800.webp) Car­bon nanofi­bre met­al-insu­la­tion-met­al (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tor only 38 µm thick. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#battle-testing-the-technology)**Battle-testing the technology** Many chips have attached capac­i­tors that com­pete with con­nec­tors for space. If the capac­i­tors can be made small­er, the chip can be made small­er or have more connectors. Smoltek’s strat­e­gy is to help the world’s largest capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers use car­bon nanofibers to pro­duce capac­i­tors that take up less sur­face area and, more impor­tant­ly, less height than the minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors avail­able today. In this way, Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy is bat­tle-test­ed in a way that is “harm­less” to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try but vis­i­ble to them. In par­al­lel, Smoltek talks with all major com­pa­nies in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try to con­vince them to dare the leap. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#next-step)**Next step** Once the car­bon nanofi­bre capac­i­tors have proven them­selves as dis­crete com­po­nents, the next step will be to move them into the chip. The final goal is to build them direct­ly on the sil­i­con. Smoltek already has the tech­nol­o­gy for this. Once on sil­i­con, Smoltek can help the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try with many oth­er things too. For exam­ple, cre­at­ing chips with mul­ti­ple sil­i­con lay­ers where Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers can act as minia­ture spac­ers, sol­der joint rein­force­ment bars, or elec­tri­cal con­duc­tors. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy can also dis­si­pate the heat gen­er­at­ed inside the chip, there­by mak­ing cool­ing easier. ![A woman stands with her arms outstretched and her face turned towards the sky in a sea of green ferns.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/person-standing-on-grass-field-while-opening-hands-by-kourosh-qaffari-edited-1920x600.webp) Clean­tech enables car­bon foot­print reduc­tion. Pho­to: Kourosh Qaffari. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#new-opportunities-in-the-green-industry-and-energy-sectors)**New opportunities in the green industry and energy sectors** Smoltek has focused on the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try from the very begin­ning. It came nat­u­ral­ly; Shafiq’s research was about cre­at­ing car­bon nanos­truc­tures on CMOS semi­con­duc­tors, and the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try needs new solu­tions to keep dou­bling the num­ber of tran­sis­tors every two years. But Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy has many appli­ca­tions far beyond the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. There­fore, Smoltek has moved the semi­con­duc­tor endeav­or into its own busi­ness unit, called [Smoltek Semi](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-semi), and added a new busi­ness unit, called [Smoltek Inno­va­tion](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-innovation), with the mis­sion to pur­sue oth­er applications. Just as Smoltek Semi has strate­gi­cal­ly cho­sen to focus on car­bon nanofi­bre capac­i­tors, Smoltek Inno­va­tion has strate­gi­cal­ly placed hydro­gen pro­duc­tion in its focal point. Hydro­gen has emerged as *the* key to mak­ing heavy indus­try car­bon-free and stor­ing renew­able ener­gy. Two appli­ca­tion areas of imme­di­ate vital importance. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#fossil-free-steel)**Fossil-free steel** In heavy indus­try, projects are under­way to reduce their use of fos­sil fuels and green­house gas emissions. In Swe­den, for exam­ple, the min­ing com­pa­ny LKAB, the steel man­u­fac­tur­er SSAB and the ener­gy com­pa­ny Vat­ten­fall are work­ing on a joint project to [devel­op fos­sil-free steel](https://www.hybritdevelopment.se/en/). Hydro­gen gas has an essen­tial func­tion in this con­text; the gas replaces coal and coke in steel production. The tech­nol­o­gy can reduce car­bon diox­ide emis­sions from the Swedish indus­try by a third, and in the future, help reduce emis­sions from iron and steel pro­duc­tion worldwide. How­ev­er, there is a catch. If the steel is to be fos­sil-free, the hydro­gen must be pro­duced in a renew­able way. ![A steelworker stands next to a blast furnace.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/pexels-kateryna-babaieva-3361235-1200x800.webp) *The steel indus­try accounts for a large share of today’s emis­sions of the green­house gas car­bon diox­ide. Pho­to: Katery­na Babaie­va*. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-dilemma-of-intermittent-power-supply)**The dilemma of intermittent power supply** Hydro­gen can be pro­duced by run­ning elec­tric­i­ty through water. In this process, water, con­sist­ing of two hydro­gen atoms and one oxy­gen atom, is splin­tered into hydro­gen gas and oxy­gen gas. But for this hydro­gen pro­duc­tion to be fos­sil-free, the elec­tric­i­ty used must also be fos­sil-free and prefer­ably pro­duced from renew­able sources. Thus, the pro­duc­tion of hydro­gen must use elec­tric­i­ty pro­duced by solar, wind, or water. Such elec­tric­i­ty is not always in con­stant sup­ply; the sun goes into the clouds, the wind slack­ens, and water reser­voirs dry up. So the process of pro­duc­ing hydro­gen must work in the pres­ence of an inter­mit­tent pow­er supply. There are two main ways to pro­duce hydro­gen by run­ning elec­tric­i­ty through water. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolysis-the-old-way)**Electrolysis the old way** The old­est and most con­ven­tion­al way of pro­duc­ing hydro­gen is *alka­line elec­trol­y­sis*. In this process, lye (potas­si­um hydrox­ide or sodi­um hydrox­ide), which is high­ly cor­ro­sive, is added, and elec­tric­i­ty is applied through two elec­trodes made of a nick­el alloy. These elec­trodes are sep­a­rat­ed by a mem­brane which allows hydrox­ide ions (OH-) to flow through, on their way from one elec­trode to the oth­er, while sep­a­rat­ing the hydro­gen gas pro­duced at one elec­trode from the oxy­gen gas pro­duced at the other. ![Schematic of alkaline electrolysis.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/alkaline-electrolysis-1-600x400.png) Alka­line electrolysis. This tech­nique has sev­er­al dis­ad­van­tages. Main­ly is the low effi­cien­cy. The ener­gy val­ue of the hydro­gen gen­er­at­ed is only 65% of the ener­gy sup­plied. In addi­tion, the method works poor­ly when the avail­abil­i­ty of elec­tric­i­ty varies. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#electrolysis-with-carbon-nanofibers)**Electrolysis with carbon nanofibers** A bet­ter tech­nique is *poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane* (*PEM)* elec­trol­y­sis. Its main advan­tages are high effi­cien­cy, cur­rent­ly upwards of 80%, and expect­ed to reach 86% by 2030. In addi­tion, the method works even when the elec­tric­i­ty is fluc­tu­at­ing, mak­ing it suit­able for use with renew­able ener­gy sources such as solar and wind. ![Schematic of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolysis.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/proton-exchange-membrane-pem-electrolysis-600x400.png) *Poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane* (*PEM)* electrolysis. But the elec­trodes immersed in water on either side of the mem­brane must be coat­ed with the scarce and pre­cious met­als plat­inum and irid­i­um. For com­par­i­son, gold is 40 times more abun­dant in the Earth’s crust than irid­i­um. The annu­al pro­duc­tion is just three tonnes. This is where Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy comes in. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy allows par­ti­cles of the rare and pre­cious met­als to be placed at the tip of car­bon nanofibers, which in turn are placed in a way that max­i­mizes expo­sure. In this way, the elec­trodes can be made up to three times more effi­cient while reduc­ing the amount of pre­cious met­al need­ed. This, in turn, can lead to sav­ings of up to 30 per­cent for hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plants. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#energy-storage-with-carbon-nanofibers)**Energy storage with carbon nanofibers** The same method can be used for ener­gy storage. A sore point for renew­ables like solar and wind is the dif­fi­cul­ty of stor­ing the ener­gy pro­duced. Solar ener­gy can be stored in bat­ter­ies for short peri­ods, but to save the ener­gy pro­duced dur­ing the many hours of sun­shine in sum­mer for the dark and cold sea­son requires an entire­ly dif­fer­ent stor­age tech­nol­o­gy. This is where hydro­gen comes in. When renew­able sources pro­duce excess elec­tric­i­ty, the sur­plus is con­vert­ed into hydro­gen stored for lat­er use. The oxy­gen emit­ted as a by-prod­uct is released or used for var­i­ous purposes. The hydro­gen thus cre­at­ed can then be used in fuel cells. They pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty from hydro­gen, with only water vapor as a by-product. ![Two buses in city traffic marked with "H2 Hydrogen"](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/hydrogen-busses-1200x800.webp) The by-prod­uct of hydro­gen fuel cells is water vapour. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#one-father-and-two-godfathers)**One father and two godfathers** ![Portrait of Shaiq Kabir.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/shafiq-kabir-smoltek-150x150.webp) Dr. Shafiq Kabir Smoltek was found­ed in 2005 by Shafiq Kabir. It is his research and inno­va­tions that are the foun­da­tion on which Smoltek is built. He left Smoltek in Jan­u­ary 2013 to try his wings as a con­sul­tant but returned in Octo­ber 2015. In Jan­u­ary 2021, he tran­si­tioned to an advi­so­ry role to free up time for his Exec­u­tive MBA stud­ies and per­son­al projects. ![Portrait of Professor Peter Enoksson.a](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/peter-enoksson-smoltek-150x150.webp) Dr. Peter Enoksson Peter Enoks­son, Pro­fes­sor of Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience at the Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, has been on board all the way. His jour­ney began even before Smoltek was found­ed. At his depart­ment, Shafiq Kabir received his master’s degree, and it was under his super­vi­sion, Shafiq Kabir earned his Ph.D. Peter Enoks­son con­tributes knowl­edge, net­works, and not least con­tacts with promis­ing researchers in the field. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/finn-gramnaes-smoltek-150x150.webp) Finn Gram­naes Finn Gram­naes also got on board ear­ly. When Smoltek’s time in the incu­ba­tor was over, he and Peter Enkos­son bought out Chalmers Inno­va­tion and became the company’s largest shareholders. As active own­ers, Finn Gram­naes and Peter Enkos­son have tak­en on the task of lift­ing their gaze to see the for­est for the trees. And what they are glimps­ing at the end of the for­est is an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly prod­uct line—made pos­si­ble with Smoltek’s technology. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#robotic-prosthetic-legs)**Robotic prosthetic legs** In the ear­ly 2000s, when Finn Gram­naes was still look­ing for some­thing mean­ing­ful to do, and his daugh­ter Lisa had just grad­u­at­ed with a bachelor’s degree in mechan­ics, the two began devel­op­ing an arti­fi­cial leg. Their ambi­tious goal was to cre­ate a pros­the­sis that even bet­ter mim­ics human move­ment using advanced sen­sor tech­nol­o­gy and elec­tric motor technology. “We par­tic­i­pat­ed in some uni­ver­si­ty projects and learned bit by bit how to build a robot­ic leg pros­the­sis,” Finn Gram­naes says. They were even­tu­al­ly able to patent an advanced robot­ic pros­thet­ic leg. But the effort was in vain. The pros­the­sis could not be made; the tech­nol­o­gy wasn’t com­mer­cial­ly avail­able. “We were way ahead of our time,” Finn Gram­naes says, adding, “The bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy was not devel­oped. There were not the kind of motors that were need­ed. Micro­proces­sors need­ed to be small­er and more pow­er­ful. In par­tic­u­lar, sen­sors were need­ed that could detect dif­fer­ent move­ment pat­terns and sur­faces under real-life conditions.” ![Sketch of an electric knee joint prosthesis.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/patent-sketch-electronic-knee-joint-and-foot-600x493.webp) Sketch from the patent appli­ca­tion for an elec­tric knee joint pros­the­sis by Finn Gramnaes. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#around-the-corner-biosensors)**Around the corner: Biosensors** Short­ly after Finn Gram­naes real­ized that the advanced tech­nol­o­gy he need­ed was not avail­able, some­one gave him the text writ­ten by Smoltek—the one that made him cry out, “Wow! There it is.” What clicked when he read about their tech­nol­o­gy was the poten­tial to solve many of the prob­lems he and his daugh­ter had iden­ti­fied. One exam­ple is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing biosen­sors. Car­bon nanofibers are sig­nif­i­cant­ly small­er than cells. There­fore, they can be used to con­nect indi­vid­ual neu­rons to elec­tron­ics elec­tri­cal­ly. Some­thing nec­es­sary to con­trol a robot­ic pros­thet­ic leg with only the mind. Pre­cise­ly this, cre­at­ing a tiny chip with car­bon fiber sen­sors, sig­nal ampli­fi­ca­tion, and an elec­tri­cal inter­face, is among the things Smoltek Inno­va­tion is look­ing at right now, in 2021. So maybe tomorrow’s par­ents, who in the past had to per­suade their chil­dren to remove a body part, can instead com­fort their child with the fact that there are robot­ic pros­the­ses that, thanks to Smoltek, can be con­trolled with the pow­er of thought. May the force be with them. --- title: "Advances in our technology for new cell material for electrolyzers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/advances-in-our-technology-for-new-cell-material-for-electrolyzers/1426/" date: 2021-11-04 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_4b07dc60e40d4c13a45ea6f414d0f121mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cleantech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cleantech.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" --- # Advances in our technology for new cell material for electrolyzers Smoltek’s R&D‑team has car­ried out sol­id and deter­mined work in order to achieve proof-of-con­cept of Smoltek’s nanofiber-based cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers. This also con­sti­tutes a fur­ther con­fir­ma­tion of the oppor­tu­ni­ties with our patent pro­tect­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form for con­trolled nanofiber growth. The tech­nol­o­gy has sub­stan­tial poten­tial to be used to con­tribute to a new gen­er­a­tion of PEM (Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane) elec­trolyz­ers, where either sur­face effi­cien­cy (high­er cur­rent den­si­ty) or reduced need of cost­ly irid­i­um-based cat­a­lyst are in focus. “We have now shown that our cell mate­r­i­al is an excel­lent car­ri­er for the cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles used in PEM elec­trolyz­ers, and some of these results have already been pre­sent­ed to poten­tial indus­tri­al part­ners in the form of large inter­na­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ers in the elec­trolyz­er field. Our mate­r­i­al works as an inter­face lay­er with very low con­tact resis­tance for cat­alyt­ic nanopar­ti­cles, for both elec­trons and hydro­gen ions, and this is exact­ly what is in-demand in this seg­ment,” says Fabi­an Wenger, Tech­nol­o­gy Lead at Smoltek Innovation. The prop­er­ties of the cell mate­r­i­al also makes it suit­able for oth­er relat­ed appli­ca­tions, includ­ing fuel cells. “Our mate­r­i­al con­sti­tutes a pos­si­ble solu­tion which can be applied broad­ly in the field of elec­tro­chem­i­cal cells. This includes fuel cells, which are expect­ed to play an impor­tant role in the com­ing years for heavy trans­ports. Water elec­trolyz­ers on the oth­er hand are key for pro­duc­ing green hydro­gen gas that allows ener­gy-inten­sive indus­tries, like steel pro­duc­tion, to become fos­sil free. Just look­ing at our home mar­ket Swe­den, we are notic­ing very large invest­ments in green steel pro­duc­tion,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of the group com­pa­ny Smoltek Inno­va­tion, which is respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment of the cell material. Smoltek is con­duct­ing dis­cus­sions with poten­tial indus­tri­al part­ners ahead of the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the cell mate­r­i­al. At the same time, the devel­op­ment team is work­ing to cre­ate a suit­able anti-cor­ro­sion coat­ing. This is required to make sure that the mate­r­i­al is not dam­aged by the aggres­sive envi­ron­ment on the anode side of the PEM electrolyzer. Image: Amin, Hen­ri, Qi, Simin and Elisa – parts of Smoltek R&D‑team --- title: "CNF-MIM Technology, Enabling the Worlds Thinnest Capacitor" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim-technology-enabling-the-worlds-thinnest-capacitor/7714/" date: 2021-10-02 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" tags: - name: "awarded" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/awarded.md" --- # CNF-MIM Technology, Enabling the Worlds Thinnest Capacitor This paper will present a nov­el tech­nol­o­gy (CNF-MIM) com­bin­ing Car­bon Nanofiber (CNF) mate­ri­als and MIM (metal-insulator-metal)-like tech­nol­o­gy, enabling capac­i­tors with total thick­ness low­er than 40 µm suit­able for use in future minia­tur­ized electronics. The ultra-thin and dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors have been man­u­fac­tured and char­ac­ter­ized on sev­er­al sub­strates, show­ing excel­lent elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties such as high capac­i­tance den­si­ty of sev­er­al hun­dreds of nF/​mm2, ESR (equiv­a­lent series resis­tance) in the mOhm range, low ESL (equiv­a­lent series induc­tance) on the order of 10 pH thus being promis­ing for a mul­ti­tude of appli­ca­tions with­in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. To assess the long-term dura­bil­i­ty, CNF-MIM capac­i­tors have also been sub­ject­ed to pro­longed expo­sure to high tem­per­a­ture and con­stant volt­age bias envi­ron­ments fol­low­ing a HTS (high tem­per­a­ture stor­age) and BTS (biased tem­per­a­ture stress) stan­dard. The CNF-MIM capac­i­tor show ini­tial robust­ness against degra­da­tion in these scenarios.  The paper was pre­sent­ed by Maria Bylund, Smoltek AB, Gothen­burg, Swe­den at the 3rd PCNS 7–10th Sep­tem­ber 2021, Milano, Italy as paper No.5.3. and vot­ed by atten­dees as: BEST PAPER AWARD. [Read more](https://epci.eu/cnf-mim-technology-enabling-the-worlds-thinnest-capacitor/) --- title: "Update on the operational activities in Smoltek Innovation" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/update-on-the-operational-activities-in-smoltek-innovation/1425/" date: 2021-09-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Update on the operational activities in Smoltek Innovation “We are notic­ing a strong inter­est in our unique cell mate­r­i­al from glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ers as well as rel­e­vant researchers, which is pos­i­tive for our oppor­tu­ni­ties to build a well-func­tion­ing ecosys­tem around the con­cept. To main­tain a strong momen­tum, we are now work­ing to estab­lish a col­lab­o­ra­tion for the devel­op­ment with a major inter­na­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­er, as well as to strength­en the Smoltek Inno­va­tion team, both with­in the com­pa­ny and through con­sul­tants and exter­nal researchers,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Innovation. **Tech­ni­cal development** Since the update in May, Smoltek has con­tin­ued to work on the pre-study which is aimed at devel­op­ing a tech­ni­cal proof-of-con­cept for a cell mate­r­i­al for elec­trolyz­ers based on the company’s nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy. The pre-study is man­aged by Smoltek, and it is car­ried out in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al Euro­pean research groups. Ini­tial­ly, the work was focused on ensur­ing patent pro­tec­tion for our inno­va­tions, but now the scope has been expand­ed to eval­u­ate crit­i­cal tech­ni­cal para­me­ters and to assess the pos­si­ble pro­duc­tion cost. The pre-study has also been expand­ed to include var­i­ous meth­ods for cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion, as Smoltek has shift­ed its focus to the anode side of the elec­trolyz­er, where a low pH val­ue pro­vides an aggres­sive envi­ron­ment. The tech­ni­cal results and per­for­mance obtained so far have been pos­i­tive, and the fibers pro­duced in a lab­o­ra­to­ry envi­ron­ment have an appro­pri­ate shape when inspect­ed under a scan­ning elec­tron microscope. With­in the tech­ni­cal devel­op­ment, Smoltek Inno­va­tion are in the process of con­clud­ing the fol­low­ing near-term milestones: - Cre­ate a col­lab­o­ra­tion project with a large man­u­fac­tur­er of elec­trolyz­ers or com­po­nents for elec­trolyz­ers for fur­ther devel­op­ment of the company’s con­cept. Dia­logues are cur­rent­ly ongo­ing with sev­er­al glob­al mar­ket- and tech­nol­o­gy-lead­ing companies. - Proof-of-con­cept for the company’s nanofiber-based cell mate­r­i­al for electrolyzers. --- title: "Operational update on the activities in Smoltek Semi" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/operational-update-on-the-activities-in-smoltek-semi/1424/" date: 2021-09-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_389d09a1d4ca49d3942392266e6b3f09mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Operational update on the activities in Smoltek Semi “We have made great progress in 2021 in terms of the fur­ther devel­op­ment and indus­tri­al­iza­tion of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. Not least, I feel much more con­fi­dent today when it comes to the sta­tus of the pro­cure­ment of the indus­tri­al car­bon fiber machine required to be able to begin mass pro­duc­tion. Ini­tial­ly, we are focus­ing on devel­op­ing a pro­duc­tion process for dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors used in mobile appli­ca­tion proces­sors, which is a niche that essen­tial­ly all major play­ers are inter­est­ed in,” says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi , which is respon­si­ble for licens­ing Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy to com­pa­nies in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. **Busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty for CNF-MIM capacitors** As the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try has been able to con­tin­ue to minia­tur­ize the tran­sis­tors in proces­sor chips, the chips achieve increased per­for­mance, which gives us faster and increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful com­put­ers, tablets, mobile phones, etc. A con­se­quence of this devel­op­ment is that the chip volt­age must be low­ered, and the fre­quen­cy increased. This entails an increased need for so-called decou­pling capac­i­tors near the chip. In order to be placed close enough to the chip, these capac­i­tors need to be extreme­ly thin. Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber based capac­i­tors (CNF-MIM) can solve these spe­cif­ic prob­lems, espe­cial­ly for mobile phone chips (appli­ca­tion proces­sors). Tar­get cus­tomers for Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy are the largest capac­i­tor manufacturers. **Pro­cure­ment of a high-vol­ume machine for grow­ing car­bon nanofibers** Spec­i­fy­ing and procur­ing a machine for grow­ing car­bon nanofibers is required for mass pro­duc­tion of Smoltek’s car­bon nanofibers to the company’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. This is an impor­tant part of Smoltek’s ongo­ing indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the tech­nol­o­gy for dis­crete capac­i­tors. The company’s goal is to be able to pro­cure and install such a machine on site at a con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er (foundry) that will mass-pro­duce the capac­i­tors. This means that the entire process of man­u­fac­tur­ing CNF-MIM capac­i­tors is gath­ered under one roof, while Smoltek retains own­er­ship of the pro­duc­tion step that is unique to CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. The com­pa­ny has received quotes from eight man­u­fac­tur­ers of indus­tri­al machines for grow­ing car­bon nanofibers, and the pro­cure­ment is now con­tin­u­ing with tests and negotiations. **Indus­tri­al­iza­tion and cre­ation of a sup­ply chain** Smoltek has pre­vi­ous­ly worked with the con­cept phase for how mass pro­duc­tion of the company’s dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors should take place at con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers (foundry) in terms of vari­ables such as price, per­for­mance and pro­duc­tion yield. The indus­tri­al­iza­tion process is now enter­ing a design phase togeth­er with con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers to design the com­po­nents which are to be man­u­fac­tured. If suc­cess­ful, this design phase, which con­sti­tutes phase three of five before mass pro­duc­tion can begin, will lead to an engi­neer­ing phase where the process steps are opti­mized and approved for high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion. This will result in a com­plete man­u­fac­tur­ing process that will be pos­si­ble to use for sev­er­al prod­ucts and by sev­er­al cus­tomers. The goal is to com­plete the man­u­fac­tur­ing process around the spe­cial­ly man­u­fac­tured car­bon fiber machine at a con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er. The last step before mass pro­duc­tion can begin is to approve the actu­al prod­uct or prod­ucts which are to be man­u­fac­tured by sub­ject­ing it/​them to a num­ber of well-defined tests. **Cus­tomer rela­tion­ships with major man­u­fac­tur­ers of capacitors/​product solutions** The poten­tial cus­tomer base of com­pa­nies that may be inter­est­ed in mass-pro­duc­ing dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors at a con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er with access to Smoltek’s car­bon nanofiber machine and man­u­fac­tur­ing process con­sists of a small num­ber of very large play­ers. These include the licensee in Smoltek’s ongo­ing eval­u­a­tion col­lab­o­ra­tion. The goal is to reach one or sev­er­al cus­tomer agree­ments with the aim of uti­liz­ing the devel­oped process for mass pro­duc­tion of dis­crete CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. The main track is to license Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy to one or more large man­u­fac­tur­ers, but our devel­op­ment of an indus­tri­al process also opens up for a prod­uct-based busi­ness mod­el. Smoltek could thus in the future sell a license, and as a com­ple­ment deliv­er phys­i­cal com­po­nents to the capac­i­tor manufacturer. **Fur­ther tech­ni­cal devel­op­ment of the CNF-MIM technology** In par­al­lel with the indus­tri­al­iza­tion of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues its suc­cess­ful work to fur­ther improve the concept’s per­for­mance. For exam­ple, the com­pa­ny recent­ly attract­ed great inter­est and received a men­tion for best presentation/​paper at the inter­na­tion­al PCNS con­fer­ence in Milan, which is an impor­tant Euro­pean event for the capac­i­tor industry. In 2021, Smoltek has focused a lot on improv­ing the prop­er­ties of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy that are impor­tant in addi­tion to the capac­i­tance den­si­ty, which can be said to be the capacitor’s horse­pow­er, but in the future the goal is to put more effort into fur­ther improv­ing this impor­tant para­me­ter and to demon­strate how thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors Smoltek is able to manufacture. > “It felt incred­i­bly inspir­ing to be present dur­ing the PCNS con­fer­ence in Milan this Sep­tem­ber, and to be able to meet peo­ple in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try again. I am con­vinced that phys­i­cal meet­ings are nec­es­sary in order to secure the sig­nif­i­cant agree­ments that we are ulti­mate­ly aim­ing for. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet phys­i­cal­ly again is also an advan­tage when we are now sub­stan­tial­ly strength­en­ing Smoltek Semi’s team with addi­tion­al skill sets and expe­ri­ence from the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. Sev­er­al recruit­ment process­es are now under­way dur­ing the autumn, and they will be fol­lowed by addi­tion­al recruit­ments in 2022,” Ola Tiver­man, concludes. Image: Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi --- title: "Smoltek has made investments in R&D equipment" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-made-investments-in-rd-equipment/1423/" date: 2021-09-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_8cf4aa5decc84893a496b42b15ae3419mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "laboratory" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/laboratory.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "rnd" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/rnd.md" --- # Smoltek has made investments in R&D equipment Smoltek has invest­ed in a new CVD-sys­tem for more effec­tive and ver­sa­tile growth of car­bon nanos­truc­tures. The com­ple­tion of the instal­la­tion and sub­se­quent com­mis­sion­ing of our new CVD-sys­tem to our research lab at Chalmers MC2-build­ing allows us to increase our CNF-MIM R&D capac­i­ty, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to pro­duce our CNF-MIM pro­to­type capac­i­tors on 150 mm wafers. Fur­ther­more, the addi­tion of the new CVD-sys­tem pro­vides the nec­es­sary redun­dan­cy and process repro­ducibil­i­ty in order to meet the increas­ing num­ber of cus­tomer requests in terms of proof-of-con­cept and pro­to­types. This applies to semi­con­duc­tors as well as to the devel­op­ment of new tech­nol­o­gy appli­ca­tions in the field of ener­gy con­ver­sion and ener­gy stor­age (ie. elec­trolyz­ers and fuel cells). R&D engi­neer Amin Saleem has made the first growth in this new sys­tem – a 150 mm wafer filled with CNF-MIM capacitors **New mea­sure­ment system** Smoltek has also invest­ed in a new mea­sur­ing instru­ment sys­tem, which pro­vides increased pos­si­bil­i­ties, not only for mea­sur­ing and elec­tri­cal­ly char­ac­ter­iz­ing of dif­fer­ent pro­to­types, but also assess the time and tem­per­a­ture sta­bil­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of our devices. The invest­ment will fur­ther increase the oppor­tu­ni­ties and cost effi­cien­cy of tech­nol­o­gy development. R&D engi­neer Vic­tor Marknäs char­ac­ter­iz­ing CNF-MIM samples “We will ben­e­fit great­ly from this expand­ed mea­sure­ment capac­i­ty where we can, for exam­ple, per­form reli­a­bil­i­ty tests and have a more ded­i­cat­ed mea­sure­ment set­up for CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. For all sam­ples we pro­duce, sev­er­al para­me­ters need to be char­ac­ter­ized, such as fre­quen­cies, leak­age cur­rent, volt­age depen­dence, tem­per­a­ture depen­dence and so on,” says Vic­tor Marknäs, R&D engi­neer at Smoltek. Top image: R&D engi­neers at Chalmers MC2 laboratory --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 69 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-69-now-granted/1421/" date: 2021-09-02 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_2a66409171d7471d9f169e3915b44599mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 69 now granted Smoltek’s patent pro­tect­ed con­cepts around inter­posers are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter, com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices which in turn can enable more effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment solutions. This par­tic­u­lar patent belongs to our patent fam­i­ly that cov­ers the company’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of inter­posers for advanced pack­ag­ing and het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion of semiconductors. The inven­tion as such facil­i­tates inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id-state devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, where the main advan­tage is that the ener­gy stor­ing devices can be placed clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chip, thus enabling more effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment solu­tions for the whole circuit. Minia­tur­ized or com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices e.g. capac­i­tors are in high demand in the field of today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and oth­er het­ero­ge­neous­ly inte­grat­ed semiconductors. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 69 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) Image: Smoltek R&D engi­neers at Chalmers MC2 laboratory --- title: "Interview with Håkan Persson, incoming CEO of Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interview-with-hakan-persson-incoming-ceo-of-smoltek/1419/" date: 2021-08-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_be80ae83c5b244f4bcec028e5d47d056mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ceo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ceo.md" - name: "håkanpersson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hakanpersson.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Interview with Håkan Persson, incoming CEO of Smoltek **Q: Can you pro­vide a short descrip­tion of your pro­fes­sion­al back­ground and chal­lenges you have been drawn to in the past?** A: I have worked in the IT indus­try my whole career. Both large and small com­pa­nies. Start­ed once at IBM as trainee. I have broad gen­er­al man­age­ment expe­ri­ence and capa­bil­i­ties from var­i­ous posi­tions as CEO, Sales & Mar­ket­ing Direc­tor and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Exec­u­tive from large, mid-size and small orga­ni­za­tions. I have been CEO for Aspiro, Day­dream, Scal­a­do, Pre­cise Bio­met­rics and Neon­ode Inc, com­pa­nies work­ing with new and nov­el tech­nolo­gies try­ing to find their place in the mar­ket. In addi­tion, I have been Pres­i­dent Emea at Tele­l­og­ic and Coun­try man­ag­er for IBM Soft­ware Group in Sweden. Most of my assign­ments have been cen­tered around change and growth, estab­lish­ing new busi­ness­es, or turn­ing around busi­ness­es that not yet have found their way to the market. **Q: What was it about Smoltek and its tech­nol­o­gy plat­form that made you inter­est­ed in becom­ing the company’s new CEO?** A: I like work­ing with excit­ing tech­nolo­gies. My edu­ca­tion­al back­ground is marketing/​sales and finance, but I have always had a good abil­i­ty to under­stand the val­ue of dif­fer­ent tech­nolo­gies, and this is what trig­gers me, how to make com­mer­cial use of the tech­nol­o­gy and to cre­ate cus­tomer and company/​shareholder value. With respect to Smoltek I believe they have a dis­rup­tive tech­nol­o­gy and plat­form that can play an instru­men­tal part going for­ward in sev­er­al indus­tries to cre­ate more capac­i­ty in a small­er foot­print with less resource con­sump­tion cost effec­tive­ly. Prob­a­bly the chal­lenge here is not to find appli­ca­tion areas, there are many, but to decide on which to focus on. **Q: What are the main per­son­al strengths and expe­ri­ences you will bring to the Smoltek team?** A: I have worked a lot with commercializing/​industrializing tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies in the past, find­ing the rel­e­vant use cas­es to pur­sue and how to struc­tural­ly “pack­age” them to make an impact and to find the right customers/​partners to address. **Q: Can you give some exam­ples of what you have learned from your pre­vi­ous roles as CEO for list­ed tech­nol­o­gy companies?** A: To my expe­ri­ence the key ques­tions nor­mal­ly boils down to What – what is our val­ue propo­si­tion, what prob­lem do we solve? Who – who are the customers/​partners we should address? How – how do we address them most efficiently? and the over­ar­ch­ing question Why – why are we rel­e­vant, what is it that makes us stand out, our unique sell­ing points? If you can answer these ques­tions cor­rect­ly and build the accom­pa­ny­ing mate­r­i­al, plan and actions around these, you have cre­at­ed a good plat­form to become successful. **Q: How will you pre­pare for your new role before join­ing the com­pa­ny in October?** **I will try to read up on the com­pa­ny and technology/​offering and meet as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble before I start so I can come in “fly­ing” with a view of my own when I start.** A: Based on your expe­ri­ence, what are the most impor­tant chal­lenges to over­come for small tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies when tak­ing dis­rup­tive new tech­nol­o­gy from con­cept to commercialization? In my expe­ri­ence many com­pa­nies that I have worked with didn’t have clear answers to the ques­tions list­ed above but were too broad in their approach with­out a clear focus. A small com­pa­ny is very small in this con­text, so you need to focus, do the analy­sis, decide where you want to pri­or­i­tize, decide where to tar­get, get an angle and pur­sue it the whole way through. **Q: What is your view on the dis­rup­tive poten­tial of nan­otech­nol­o­gy in areas such as semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions, ener­gy storage/​conversion and biotechnology?** A: I need to more about the com­pa­ny, the team and the tech­nol­o­gy to pro­vide a good answer to this ques­tion but, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy is a “hot” top­ic and have been so for some time. Nan­otech­nol­o­gy pro­vides the capa­bil­i­ties that every­body is look­ing for, more capac­i­ty in ever small­er for­mats con­sum­ing less pow­er. Prob­a­bly the appli­ca­tion areas over time will be end­less, hence the need to focus to get an inroad and plat­form to build from. **Q: What do you enjoy doing when not working?** A: I like to exer­cise, be with my fam­i­ly and to trav­el. I have my daugh­ter and grand­son in Gothen­burg, so I look for­ward to meet­ing them more frequently. **Q: Any­thing you would like to add that could be of inter­est to Smoltek’s shareholders?** A: I am very much look­ing for­ward to tak­ing on this assign­ment. This is the kind of com­pa­ny I real­ly enjoy work­ing with. I see the poten­tial in the com­pa­ny and the tech­nol­o­gy and is look­ing for­ward to the jour­ney mak­ing the com­pa­ny a suc­cess and to cre­ate sub­stan­tial val­ue for all stakeholders. As I am liv­ing in Höl­lviken, out­side Malmö, I will find an apart­ment in Gothenburg. The Smoltek team wel­comes Håkan, and is looks for­ward to work­ing with him. --- title: "Flip chip interconnects based on carbon nanofibers-solder composites" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/flip-chip-interconnects-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-solder-composites/892/" date: 2021-08-10 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/19980-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Flip chip interconnects based on carbon nanofibers-solder composites In this paper, we pro­pose the intro­duc­tion of ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (CNF) direct­ly grown on the bond­ing pad by chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion at CMOS com­pat­i­ble tem­per­a­tures as a solu­tion to rein­force and con­fine the sol­der joint between two chips bond­ed by sol­der. This con­cept poten­tial­ly enables the reduc­tion of pitch­es and size of the sol­der inter­con­nects. The sol­der joints are real­ized by ther­mal com­pres­sion bond­ing tech­nique and the assem­blies are char­ac­ter­ized by means of elec­tri­cal mea­sure­ments of daisy chains and kelvin struc­tures formed by the con­nec­tion of the two chips. Flip chip inter­con­nects based on two sol­der com­pos­ite solu­tions (CNFs/​SnAg and CNFs/​SAC305) are ana­lyzed in terms of elec­tri­cal resis­tance, and dif­fer­ent growth con­di­tions for the CNFs and a post-growth treat­ment have been test­ed. The addi­tion of the car­bon nanofibers to the sol­der led to an addi­tion­al resis­tance low­er than 10 % of the total resis­tance, while pos­si­bly improv­ing the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the joint. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9501698) --- title: "Reliability, solderability and electrical performance of high density ultra thin capacitors based on carbon nanofibers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/reliability-solderability-and-electrical-performance-of-high-density-ultra-thin-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers/865/" date: 2021-08-10 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/dpzbpyxdx_y-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Reliability, solderability and electrical performance of high density ultra thin capacitors based on carbon nanofibers This paper inves­ti­gates the suit­abil­i­ty of the Car­bon Nano-Fiber Met­al-Insu­la­tor-Met­al (CNF-MIM) capac­i­tor for inte­gra­tion in future minia­tur­ized elec­tron­ics. The CNF-MIM has pre­vi­ous­ly shown elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties suit­able for use in a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions such as dig­i­tal elec­tron­ics. The CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are sub­ject­ed to high ambi­ent tem­per­a­ture and con­stant volt­age bias envi­ron­ments over long peri­ods of time to assess their long-term dura­bil­i­ty. The devices are also sub­ject­ed to stan­dard sur­face-mount sol­der reflow pro­ce­dure to inves­ti­gate the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with indus­try-stan­dard assem­bly tech­niques. The capac­i­tors are char­ac­ter­ized in both DC and RF and are shown to be robust against degra­da­tion in these sce­nar­ios. Final­ly, ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors are man­u­fac­tured, show­ing that the estab­lished tech­nol­o­gy can be fur­ther shrunk for fur­ther minia­tur­iza­tion and future applications. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9501724) --- title: "High-frequency electrical circuit model for integrated capacitors utilizing lossy nanostructures" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/high-frequency-electrical-circuit-model-for-integrated-capacitors-utilizing-lossy-nanostructures/840/" date: 2021-08-10 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/3870974-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # High-frequency electrical circuit model for integrated capacitors utilizing lossy nanostructures A physics-based mod­el is pre­sent­ed that cap­tures the elec­tri­cal high-fre­quen­cy behav­ior of low-dimen­sion­al nanos­truc­tures used in emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies such as the ultra-high-den­si­ty capac­i­tor. Derived from trans­mis­sion line the­o­ry the ana­lyt­i­cal expres­sion pro­vides a fre­quen­cy-depen­dent admit­tance of a lossy nanos­truc­ture, which can be numer­i­cal­ly inte­grat­ed over arbi­trary areas com­pris­ing the nanos­truc­ture. Edge effects, a dis­trib­uted nature of resis­tiv­i­ty or dimen­sions of the nanos­truc­ture com­pris­ing the device can be tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion and make it a pow­er­ful tool for design­ing future inte­grat­ed cir­cuits. The mod­el pre­dic­tions show an excel­lent match with hard­ware mea­sure­ments up to 3 GHz on state-of-the-art car­bon nanofiber based MIM-capac­i­tors with capac­i­tance den­si­ties up to 500 nF/​mm2 at 6 μm device height. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9501815) --- title: "Håkan Persson appointed new CEO of Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hakan-persson-appointed-new-ceo-of-smoltek/1417/" date: 2021-07-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_2ee74ad5bd4a409ab0ec82daa9d677e8mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "hydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/hydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Håkan Persson appointed new CEO of Smoltek Håkan Pers­son most recent­ly comes from the posi­tion as Inter­im SVP Sales & Strat­e­gy for the bio­met­rics com­pa­ny Next Bio­met­rics, which is list­ed in Nor­way. He has pre­vi­ous­ly been CEO or inter­im CEO of oth­er list­ed tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies such as Neon­ode, Pre­cise Bio­met­rics and Scal­a­do, and has held sev­er­al lead­ing posi­tions with sales and oper­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty with­in the north­ern Euro­pean part of IBM. > “Smoltek is in an expan­sive and excit­ing phase with poten­tial to reach the mar­ket with its ultra-thin CNF-MIM capac­i­tors for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, as well as in new focus areas where elec­trolyz­ers for indus­tri­al hydro­gen pro­duc­tion is the lead­ing project so far. It will be an excit­ing chal­lenge to real­ize this poten­tial togeth­er with the tech­ni­cal­ly skilled and inno­v­a­tive Smoltek team, and I look for­ward to con­tribute with my knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence from sim­i­lar situations” > , says Håkan Persson. “Håkan Pers­son has a sol­id expe­ri­ence from the fur­ther devel­op­ment of list­ed tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and their busi­ness oper­a­tions, with excel­lent struc­tur­al and finan­cial results. This makes him well suit­ed to take the helm as Smoltek’s CEO, and con­tin­ue the process of indus­tri­al­iz­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing our busi­ness areas and appli­ca­tions based on our unique car­bon nanofiber tech­nol­o­gy,” says Peter Augusts­son, Smoltek’s Chair­man of the Board. Smoltek’s inter­im CEO Marie Land­fors will be avail­able to the com­pa­ny to ensure a smooth han­dover to the Company’s new CEO. Håkan Pers­son will assume the posi­tion of CEO of Smoltek by Octo­ber. More infor­ma­tion about his acces­sion will be pub­lished continuously. This con­tent is an out­take from a press-release pub­lished on July 16. --- title: "Smoltek has been granted three new patents" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-granted-three-new-patents/1415/" date: 2021-06-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_905647a8198245d78eeedede9de9540fmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has been granted three new patents Smoltek’s 66th patent was grant­ed in Chi­na and it fur­ther strength­ens the posi­tion of our growth-relat­ed patent fam­i­ly of Inter­con­nects in the form­ing of nanos­truc­tures and nanos­truc­ture devices. “Through these three new patents, Smoltek again proves our abil­i­ty both in tech­ni­cal and inno­v­a­tive capa­bil­i­ties of widen­ing our IP foot­print,” says Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek. Smoltek’s 67th patent has been grant­ed in Japan and relates to the Assem­bly plat­form fam­i­ly in the field of inter­con­nects and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion. This par­tic­u­lar patent fam­i­ly is a path­way to tap into the ever-increas­ing demand for minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and inter­con­nect them in the form of an assem­bly to min­i­mize foot­print at the pack­ag­ing level. Smoltek’s 68th patent has been grant­ed in the US and is cov­er­ing the con­cept and man­u­fac­tur­ing of extreme­ly thin ener­gy stor­age devices embed­ded in an inter­pos­er. Our ener­gy stor­age device con­cepts may take many forms e.g. dis­crete, inte­grat­ed or it can take the form where the end result is an inter­pos­er with CNF-MIM capac­i­tors embed­ded in it. And the Com­pact ener­gy stor­age inter­pos­er fam­i­ly is devel­oped to cap­ture around that concept. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 68 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) Image: Smoltek CTO, Vin­cent Desmaris --- title: "Introducing Smoltek Electrolyzer Technology" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology/1976/" date: 2021-06-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/smoltek-whitepaper-introducing-smoltek-electrolyzer-technology-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Whitepapers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/whitepapers.md" tags: - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "whitepaper" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/whitepaper.md" --- # Introducing Smoltek Electrolyzer Technology ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp) # Introducing Smoltek Electrolyzer Technology Hydro­gen has proven to be a key to stor­ing renew­able ener­gy and mak­ing heavy indus­try car­bon-free. But there is a catch. The hydro­gen is pro­duced by elec­trol­y­sis. Con­ven­tion­al alka­line elec­trol­y­sis has poor effi­cien­cy. And the much more high-per­form­ing poly­mer elec­trolyte mem­brane (PEM) elec­trol­y­sis requires rare earth met­als. This is where Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy comes in. Our solu­tion, pre­sent­ed in this whitepa­per, makes the elec­trodes in PEM elec­trol­y­sis up to three times more effi­cient while reduc­ing the amount of pre­cious met­al needed. The inter­mit­tent nature of renew­able ener­gy sources such as solar and wind pow­er cre­ates a demand for solu­tions to store sur­plus elec­tric­i­ty pro­duced on sun­ny or windy days for lat­er use. One method of stor­ing sur­plus elec­tric­i­ty is to con­vert it into hydro­gen by elec­trol­y­sis of water. Fuel cells can then con­vert the hydro­gen back into elec­tric­i­ty. The pro­duc­tion of hydro­gen by elec­trol­y­sis of water with fos­sil elec­tric­i­ty is also vital for reduc­ing the car­bon foot­print of indus­tries such as steel and cement manufacturing. The demand for large-scale ener­gy stor­age solu­tions and the industry’s need for hydro­gen cre­ate a demand for water elec­trolyz­er technology. But con­vec­tion­al elec­trolyz­ers have issues with both cor­ro­sive elec­trolytes and poor efficiency. There are more mod­ern elec­trolyz­ers that are both clean and high­ly effi­cient. But they have their own issues; their elec­trodes must be coat­ed with the scarce and pre­cious met­als plat­inum and irid­i­um. For com­par­i­son, gold is 40 times more abun­dant in the Earth’s crust than irid­i­um. The annu­al pro­duc­tion is just three tonnes. This is where Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy comes in. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy allows par­ti­cles of the rare and pre­cious met­als to be placed at the tip of car­bon nanofibers, which in turn are placed in a way that max­i­mizes expo­sure. In this way, the elec­trodes can be made up to three times more effi­cient while reduc­ing the amount of pre­cious met­al need­ed. This, in turn, can lead to sav­ings of up to 30 per­cent for hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plants. Read more in the whitepaper! --- title: "Smoltek is recruiting operational advisor" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-recruiting-operational-advisor/1413/" date: 2021-05-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_1e3af8024b98438dbf29892c3946b91emv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Smoltek is recruiting operational advisor Mar­t­ing Lenart has over 30 years of expe­ri­ence from var­i­ous roles in devel­op­ment, mar­ket­ing, sales and man­age­ment in the USA, Europe and Japan in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. This recruit­ment means that Smoltek is pro­vid­ed with valu­able knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence in its con­tin­ued invest­ment in reach­ing indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion of the company’s ultra-thin CNF-MIM capacitors. “Smoltek’s board sees a sig­nif­i­cant need to con­tin­ue the ongo­ing process of strength­en­ing the company’s indus­tri­al knowl­edge and devel­op­ment capac­i­ty in the semi­con­duc­tor area,” says Smoltek’s chair­man Peter Augustsson. The chair­man elab­o­rates: “This process was ini­ti­at­ed in 2020, and it has so far includ­ed efforts such as the cre­ation of our two oper­a­tive group com­pa­nies Smoltek Semi AB and Smoltek Inno­va­tion AB, where we are now build­ing sep­a­rate organ­i­sa­tions for our dif­fer­ent devel­op­ment projects, and the appoint­ment of Marie Land­fors as inter­im CEO, which gives us a more process indus­tri­al focus. The recruit­ment of Mar­tin Lenart, who will work active­ly with the con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of our oper­a­tions relat­ed to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try togeth­er with Smoltek Semi AB’s Pres­i­dent Ola Tiver­man, is anoth­er step forward.” The Board is cur­rent­ly work­ing very active­ly with the opti­miza­tion of Smoltek’s way for­ward togeth­er with the new­ly appoint­ed CEO, and will report more com­pre­hen­sive­ly on the plan­ning for Smoltek’s focus areas and goals for the rest of 2021 shortly. **About Mar­tin Lenart** Mar­tin has over 30 years of expe­ri­ence from var­i­ous roles in devel­op­ment, mar­ket­ing, sales and busi­ness man­age­ment. He has been active in the Unit­ed States, Ger­many, Nor­way and Japan and has held lead­ing posi­tions in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, includ­ing as vice pres­i­dent with world sales respon­si­bil­i­ty for Renesa’s Indus­tri­al Busi­ness Unit. Today, Mar­tin works as a board advi­sor for tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies that want to estab­lish them­selves and grow in a glob­al mar­ket. He is basi­cal­ly a grad­u­ate engi­neer in com­put­er tech­nol­o­gy at Lund University. Image: Mar­tin Lenart This con­tent is an out­take from a press-release pub­lished on May 10. --- title: "License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/license-agreement-for-evaluation-of-cnf-mim-technology-extended-4/1412/" date: 2021-04-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_1745a29e5aef4b4fa07a689dbc630ff2mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended The license agree­ment signed in April 2020 with a world-lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive elec­tron­ic com­po­nents, includ­ing capac­i­tors, has pre­vi­ous­ly been extend­ed until March 2021. One of the rea­sons behind this exten­sion has been a spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal chal­lenge that took longer than expect­ed to solve. Anoth­er rea­son is that the ongo­ing pan­dem­ic sit­u­a­tion has affect­ed the time required for sev­er­al work process­es in the project. Smoltek has recent­ly suc­ceed­ed in deliv­er­ing very good results which have con­vinced the cus­tomer of the poten­tial for capac­i­tors based on Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tor technology. “I am very pleased to be able to extend this impor­tant next devel­op­ment stage in the col­lab­o­ra­tion, where the cus­tomer con­tin­ues to believe in the great poten­tial of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and that they have con­fi­dence in the Smoltek team’s abil­i­ty to devel­op the tech­nol­o­gy fur­ther” says Ola Tiver­man, CEO of the sub­sidiary Smoltek Semi AB, which is respon­si­ble for licens­ing Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy to com­pa­nies in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. “We are now in a great posi­tion to final­ize this phase of the project accord­ing to their spec­i­fi­ca­tions,” Ola Tiver­man concludes. Image: Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent at Smoltek Semi This con­tent is from a press-release pub­lished on April 16. --- title: "Revolutionizing electrolyzer technology to meet future needs for cost-effective hydrogen" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/revolutionizing-electrolyzer-technology-to-meet-future-needs-for-cost-effective-hydrogen/1410/" date: 2021-04-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_5a5b8aed346149fb9fdb6eaa9cc532b9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "electrolyzers" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/electrolyzers.md" - name: "fossilfreehydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/fossilfreehydrogen.md" - name: "greenhydrogen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/greenhydrogen.md" - name: "sustainabletech" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/sustainabletech.md" --- # Revolutionizing electrolyzer technology to meet future needs for cost-effective hydrogen “A grow­ing new area that we are look­ing at right now is tech­nol­o­gy for ener­gy con­ver­sion, specif­i­cal­ly elec­trolyz­ers for hydro­gen-based ener­gy sys­tems, where we have already filed sev­er­al patent appli­ca­tions,” says Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, head of Smoltek Innovation. Dis­trib­uted hydro­gen pro­duc­tion will play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the future, includ­ing as an infra­struc­ture com­po­nent for heavy vehi­cles that in the future will be pow­ered by fuel cells, as well as in fos­sil-free steel pro­duc­tion, where sev­er­al Swedish projects are cur­rent­ly under­way. More and more play­ers are review­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of stor­ing ener­gy when oth­er renew­able ener­gy sources such as solar, wind and water do not deliver. The Swedish Ener­gy Agency has, on behalf of the gov­ern­ment, devel­oped a nation­al hydro­gen strat­e­gy to facil­i­tate the tran­si­tion to fossil-free. > “There are many that are talk­ing about stor­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing hydro­gen, but few are inter­est­ed in mod­ern­iz­ing the pro­duc­tion technology,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg continues. Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est is Pro­ton Exchange Mem­brane (PEM) elec­trol­y­sis where the cells con­tain a water-absorb­ing elec­trolyte of a poly­mer mem­brane. Expen­sive met­als such as plat­inum or irid­i­um are used as cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als, but these par­ti­cles are placed ran­dom­ly and part­ly hid­den in cur­rent PEM cells. Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy enables these expen­sive par­ti­cles to be orga­nized to come into full con­tact with the mem­brane and thus reach­es full hydro­gen pro­duc­tion with a less­er amount of expen­sive metals. > “Our tech­nol­o­gy should be able to pro­duce two to three times more hydro­gen per cell com­pared to exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy. This is because two to three times more cat­a­lyst par­ti­cles can be in con­tact with the mem­brane at the same time.” > “It is all based on the fact that our tech­nol­o­gy can grow the nanos­truc­tures in a way that gives a ver­ti­cal 3D effect, which opti­mizes the func­tion­al sur­face lay­er. This makes our tech­nol­o­gy both eco­nom­i­callay and envi­ron­men­tal­ly sustainable.” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg explains. In the auto­mo­tive indus­try, it is said that per­haps 20 per­cent of the elec­tric cars of the future will not be pow­ered by bat­ter­ies, but fuel cells. Espe­cial­ly in heavy trans­ports, as the hydro­gen reduces weight per stored ener­gy, which makes it more suit­able than a bat­tery when you need a longer range. Elli­nor Ehrn­berg exem­pli­fies with the Vol­vo Group, which recent­ly formed a joint ven­ture with Daim­ler Truck AG for large-scale pro­duc­tion of fuel cells. > “This is very much some­thing that is on the rise. The same applies, of course, to the marine and aero­space indus­tries, where they also want to invest in sus­tain­able, ener­gy- dense alter­na­tives, which are suit­able for long dis­tances and which can be stored direct­ly in vehi­cles with­out sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­ing weight,” Elli­nor Ehrn­berg concludes. Smoltek is still in an ear­ly research phase, Proof of con­cept, to demon­strate the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the tech­nol­o­gy, but since the con­cept is so promis­ing and the poten­tial mar­ket is so large, the com­pa­ny wants to act quick­ly and is now look­ing for part­ners with whom they want to real­ize the new elec­trolyz­er concept. Image: Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Pres­i­dent at Smoltek Innovation This con­tent is trans­lat­ed from an edi­to­r­i­al ad in Ny Teknik, April 15 2021. --- title: "Vinnova project completed according to plan" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/vinnova-project-completed-according-to-plan/1409/" date: 2021-03-31 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_1745a29e5aef4b4fa07a689dbc630ff2mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Vinnova project completed according to plan > “We are pleased to have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the project as we have gained use­ful expe­ri­ences and also ben­e­fit­ed great­ly from the project,” says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent at Smoltek Semi. “Among oth­er things, we have broad­ened our net­work of con­tacts with­in the exist­ing cus­tomer base for CNF-MIM technology.” The project has increased the pos­si­bil­i­ties for faster inte­gra­tion of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors on 200 and 300 mm wafers through the devel­oped con­tacts with both high-vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ers of CVD sys­tems and semi­con­duc­tor foundries. Col­lab­o­ra­tions and inter­ac­tions between Smoltek and a num­ber of these par­ties are now con­tin­u­ing with­out the Vin­no­va framework. **Back­ground to the project:** In Novem­ber, Smoltek was grant­ed finan­cial sup­port for fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies by Vin­no­va with­in the frame­work of their pro­gram “Smarter elec­tron­ic sys­tems”. The announce­ment launched the project “Towards the inte­gra­tion of car­bon-based capac­i­tors in indus­tri­al wafer pro­duc­tion,” which took place between Novem­ber 2020 and March 2021. The goal was to cre­ate the nec­es­sary con­di­tions for form­ing a con­sor­tium, which was the first part to then apply to the next step with­in Vinnova’s “Smarter elec­tron­ics sys­tem” program. How­ev­er, due to the short project time, com­bined with the cur­rent Covid-pan­dem­ic sit­u­a­tion, and the fact that poten­tial part­ners were not con­sid­ered qual­i­fied as co-appli­cants to par­tic­i­pate in a con­sor­tium accord­ing to the mod­el for the next step in the “Smarter elec­tron­ics sys­tems” announce­ment, no new appli­ca­tion has been made for the announce­ment that start­ed in March this year. Image: Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent at Smoltek Semi --- title: "Smoltek demonstrates the thinnest capacitor in the world" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-demonstrates-the-thinnest-capacitor-in-the-world/1408/" date: 2021-03-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_2a66409171d7471d9f169e3915b44599mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek demonstrates the thinnest capacitor in the world Smoltek can today show a capac­i­tor pro­to­type that is only a few microm­e­ters high and togeth­er with the nec­es­sary sub­strate (com­po­nent car­ri­er) bare­ly reach­es 40 microm­e­ters in total height. This at the same time as one can show a capac­i­tance den­si­ty of 500nF/​mm2 (nano­farad per square mil­lime­ter), an equiv­a­lent series resis­tance below 10 mΩ (mil­liohm) and an inter­nal induc­tance below 15 pH (pico­hen­ry). > “We have always known that our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy enables extreme­ly thin capac­i­tor com­po­nents, but see­ing is believ­ing. Being able to show this high-per­for­mance pro­to­type helps a lot in our work in sell­ing the tech­nol­o­gy,” says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of Smoltek Semi. The need for thin­ner high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors for advanced semi­con­duc­tor inte­gra­tion will con­tin­ue to grow with new gen­er­a­tions of proces­sors, not least for 5G applications. > “Such a thin capac­i­tor proof-of con­cept that at the same time shows excel­lent per­for­mance is a result of Smoltek’s own R&D efforts. This also demon­strates the scal­a­bil­i­ty of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy and the applic­a­bil­i­ty of the tech­nol­o­gy for use in cut­ting-edge appli­ca­tions. And not least, the unique advan­tage that CNF-MIM pro­vides com­pared to com­pet­ing tech­nol­o­gy by meet­ing the need for increas­ing­ly thin­ner capac­i­tors with high per­for­mance even in the longer term,” says Vin­cent Des­maris, Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer at Smoltek. **Based in Gothen­burg – Chal­leng­ing the glob­al semi­con­duc­tor industry** Smoltek, in Gothen­burg, Swe­den, has since the start devel­oped a num­ber of appli­ca­tion con­cepts, based on the company’s unique and patent-pro­tect­ed car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy plat­form, aimed towards the glob­al semi­con­duc­tor industry. Since 2017, when the indus­try first began to show a clear inter­est in Smoltek’s capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy in par­tic­u­lar, the company’s tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment has been direct­ed with the aim of mak­ing these micro­scop­i­cal­ly small capac­i­tors even small­er, while main­tain­ing per­for­mance with­in impor­tant para­me­ters; such as high capac­i­tance den­si­ty, low leak­age cur­rent, low equiv­a­lent series resis­tance and low inductance. With this demon­stra­tion of the oppor­tu­ni­ties with Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, the com­pa­ny chal­lenges the major play­ers in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try about who has the tech­nol­o­gy to man­u­fac­ture the thinnest capac­i­tors in a com­pa­ra­ble per­for­mance segment. [Link to press release on Cision News](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/smoltek-demonstrates-the-world-s-thinnest-capacitor,c3304967) --- title: "Smoltek wins the ‘Best of Session Paper’ at virtual IMAPS 2020" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-wins-the-best-of-session-paper-at-virtual-imaps-2020/1406/" date: 2021-01-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_3f4a48274ea04fe0b595f88bcc353beemv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "imaps2020" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/imaps2020.md" --- # Smoltek wins the ‘Best of Session Paper’ at virtual IMAPS 2020 The IMAPS 2020 all vir­tu­al sym­po­sium con­sist­ed of over 75 tech­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tions across 5 tracks and 17 ses­sion cat­e­gories. The pre­sen­ta­tions was avail­able for on-demand view­ing com­ple­ment­ed by a live Q&A session. At the sym­po­sium R&D engi­neer Vic­tor Marknäs pre­sent­ed the Smoltek paper: “Elec­tri­cal per­for­mance and robust­ness of ultra thin high-den­si­ty car­bon nano fiber capac­i­tors on sil­i­con, alu­mi­na and glass sub­strate materials”. The tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee has select­ed the Smoltek paper (by Vic­tor Marknäs, Vin­cent Des­maris, Amin Saleem, Maria Bylund, Rickard Ander­s­son, Elisa Pas­salac­qua and Shafiq Kabir) to be ‘Best of Ses­sion Paper’. Image: Vic­tor Marknäs, R&D engi­neer at Smoltek, lead author and pre­sen­ter of the award­ed paper --- title: "Impact of electrode geometry and thickness on planar on-chip microsupercapacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/impact-of-electrode-geometry-and-thickness-on-planar-on-chip-microsupercapacitors/7766/" date: 2020-12-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/electrode-geometry-cnf.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Impact of electrode geometry and thickness on planar on-chip microsupercapacitors We report an assess­ment of the influ­ence of both fin­ger geom­e­try and ver­ti­cal­ly-ori­ent­ed car­bon nanofiber lengths in pla­nar micro-super­ca­pac­i­tors. Increas­ing the fin­ger num­ber leads to an up-scal­ing in are­al pow­er den­si­ties, which increas­es with scan rate. Grow­ing the nanofibers longer, how­ev­er, does not lead to a pro­por­tion­al growth in capac­i­tance, pro­pos­ed­ly relat­ed to lim­it­ed ion pen­e­tra­tion of the electrode. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9011624) --- title: "License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/license-agreement-for-evaluation-of-cnf-mim-technology-extended-3/1405/" date: 2020-12-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_389d09a1d4ca49d3942392266e6b3f09mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended This spring, Smoltek announced two sep­a­rate license agree­ments for tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial eval­u­a­tion of the company’s patent­ed CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions. The eval­u­a­tion projects that were then start­ed dur­ing the spring have tak­en longer to com­plete than expected. The license that was signed in March 2020 with one of the world’s largest capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers, [which was pre­vi­ous­ly announced to have been extend­ed to the end of Octo­ber](https://news.cision.com/smoltek-nanotech-holding-ab/r/license-agreement-for-evaluation-of-cnf-mim-technology-extended,c3193414), is now extend­ed to the end of the year with­out any addi­tion­al cost for the licensee. The for­mal­i­sa­tion of the agree­ment was time-con­sum­ing, but it has now been signed. The exten­sion enables the par­ties to focus on the com­ple­tion of the eval­u­a­tion, while at the same time dis­cussing a pos­si­ble con­tin­u­a­tion of the collaboration. “It is sat­is­fy­ing that we have now come to an agree­ment to extend this license agree­ment, so that we can com­plete the eval­u­a­tion in a pur­pose­ful man­ner. When this is done, the licensee will be in an opti­mal posi­tion to decide on a pos­si­ble con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion to facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy in upcom­ing prod­ucts,” says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of the group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi AB, which is in charge of licens­ing in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. Smoltek is also in a sim­i­lar dia­logue regard­ing a pos­si­ble con­tin­u­a­tion of the col­lab­o­ra­tion with the licensee which has been grant­ed an eval­u­a­tion license valid until March 31, 2021. The com­pa­ny expects to be able to update on this col­lab­o­ra­tion dur­ing the sec­ond quar­ter of 2021. Image: Ola Tiver­man, CRO at Smoltek & Pres­i­dent at Smoltek Semi --- title: "Smoltek’s IP strategy explained" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interview-with-shafiq-kabir/1182/" date: 2020-11-30 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/youtube-interview-shafiq-kabir-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" --- # Smoltek’s IP strategy explained --- title: "Interview: Shafiq Kabir on Smolteks evolvement and IP strategy" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interview-shafiq-kabir-on-smolteks-evolvement-and-ip-strategy/1403/" date: 2020-11-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_e681d6b73b87412c9966a44a394dc7e4mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Interview: Shafiq Kabir on Smolteks evolvement and IP strategy In decem­ber 2005 Shafiq Kabir found­ed a lit­tle com­pa­ny he liked to call “Shafiq’s Mol­e­c­u­lar Tech­no­log­i­cal Com­pa­ny”. The com­pa­ny name soon trans­formed into Smoltek and the first patent on how to grow nanos­truc­tures was filed. And ever since, there has been a con­stant evolve­ment of the company. In this inter­view, Shafiq takes us on a jour­ney down mem­o­ry lane. From how every­thing start­ed, the evolve­ment of IP strat­e­gy and the com­pa­ny busi­ness model. **Video:**Shafiq Kabir on IP and com­pa­ny evolvement --- title: "Electrical Performance and Robustness of Ultrathin High-Density Carbon Nanofiber Capacitors on Silicon, Alumina and Glass Substrate Materials" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/electrical-performance-and-robustness-of-ultrathin-high-density-carbon-nanofiber-capacitors-on-silicon-alumina-and-glass-substrate-materials/7763/" date: 2020-11-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" tags: - name: "awarded" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/awarded.md" --- # Electrical Performance and Robustness of Ultrathin High-Density Carbon Nanofiber Capacitors on Silicon, Alumina and Glass Substrate Materials We demon­strate the fea­si­bil­i­ty of imple­ment­ing car­bon nano fiber based met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (CNFMIM) capac­i­tors on dif­fer­ent sub­strates such as glass, alu­mi­na and sil­i­con for use as inte­grat­ed or dis­crete pas­sive com­po­nents on chips or inter­posers. The effects of bias­ing volt­age and high oper­at­ing tem­per­a­tures on the per­for­mance of the devices are also inves­ti­gat­ed. Capac­i­tance den­si­ties of 300 nF/​mm2 are demon­strat­ed on all sub­strates at a device thick­ness of only 5 μm. The man­u­fac­tured capac­i­tors fea­ture ESR val­ues at or below 100 mΩ, ESL below 15 pH and show lit­tle change in capac­i­tance den­si­ty when sub­ject­ed to bias­ing volt­age below break­down and tem­per­a­tures up to 150°C, mak­ing them a promis­ing can­di­date for both inte­grat­ed and dis­crete minia­tur­ized elec­tron­ic com­po­nents for future technology. The paper was pre­sent­ed by Vic­tor Marknäs, Smoltek AB, Gothen­burg, Swe­den at the 53rd Inter­na­tion­al Sym­po­sium on Micro­elec­tron­ics, IMAPS 2020, Octo­ber 5–8, 2020. Due to covid-19 this was a vir­tu­al sym­po­sium. Pre­sent­ed by Vic­tor Marknäs, with hon­ors. Pre­sen­ta­tion award­ed the ‘Best of Ses­sion Paper’. [Read more](https://imapsource.org/article/57159) --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 65 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-65-now-granted/1401/" date: 2020-11-25 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_77ee156d933b4d52aaa90bd585345889mv2_d_2000_1331_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 65 now granted Smoltek’s 65th patent has been grant­ed in the US and relates to the Assem­bly plat­form fam­i­ly, and this par­tic­u­lar appli­ca­tion is in the field of inter­con­nects and het­ero­ge­neous integrations. Our Assem­bly plat­form patent fam­i­ly is a path­way to tap into the ever-increas­ing demand for minia­tur­iza­tion of elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and inter­con­nect them in the form of an assem­bly to min­i­mize foot­print at the pack­ag­ing level. “Through this patent grant, we are again show­cas­ing both our tech­ni­cal and inno­v­a­tive capa­bil­i­ties of exploit­ing our plat­form tech­nol­o­gy towards the future”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. In the con­text of Assem­bly plat­form and inter­con­nects, the present appli­ca­tions con­cepts take advan­tage of the wet­ta­bil­i­ty prop­er­ties of nanos­truc­tures to form small sized com­pos­ite inter­con­nect bumps togeth­er with tra­di­tion­al solder/​metal mate­ri­als. Such com­pos­ite inter­con­nects pro­vide a means to improve the elec­tri­cal reli­a­bil­i­ty of the solder/​metal bumps since car­bon nanos­truc­tures are inher­ent­ly capa­ble of car­ry­ing high cur­rent at a much small­er footprint. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 65 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) Image: Smoltek R&D engi­neers at Chalmers MC2 laboratory --- title: "License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/license-agreement-for-evaluation-of-cnf-mim-technology-extended-2/1400/" date: 2020-11-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_1745a29e5aef4b4fa07a689dbc630ff2mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended This spring, Smoltek announced two sep­a­rate license agree­ments for tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial eval­u­a­tion of the company’s patent­ed CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for semi­con­duc­tor appli­ca­tions. The eval­u­a­tion projects that were then start­ed have tak­en longer to com­plete than expected. The license that was signed in April 2020 with a world lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­er of pas­sive elec­tron­ic com­po­nents, includ­ing capac­i­tors, is now extend­ed with­out any addi­tion­al cost for the licensee. This is due to the agree­ment pri­mar­i­ly being based on oth­er fac­tors and oblig­a­tions than the time peri­od of the project, as well as the fact that some of these oblig­a­tions have tak­en longer than expect­ed to fulfil. The exten­sion lasts until March 31 next year, and as both par­ties have a pos­i­tive out­look on this oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue the eval­u­a­tion of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, while at the same time dis­cussing a way for­ward for the col­lab­o­ra­tion after the eval­u­a­tion period. “It is encour­ag­ing that we have come to an agree­ment to extend this license agree­ment, which shows that the cus­tomer sees a val­ue in invest­ing addi­tion­al time and resources in a con­tin­ued eval­u­a­tion of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy. Our top pri­or­i­ty is to thor­ough­ly com­plete the eval­u­a­tion project, so that the licensee is then in an opti­mal posi­tion to decide on a pos­si­ble con­tin­u­a­tion with the aim to facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion into upcom­ing prod­ucts,” says Ola Tiver­man, Pres­i­dent of the group com­pa­ny Smoltek Semi AB, which is in charge of licens­ing in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. Smoltek is also in dis­cus­sions regard­ing a sim­i­lar exten­sion of the eval­u­a­tion license agree­ment that was signed in March 2020 with one of the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­ers of capacitors. Image: Ola Tiver­man, CRO at Smoltek & Pres­i­dent at Smoltek Semi --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 64 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-64-now-granted/1398/" date: 2020-11-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_a34ef0811ebc4b918d8c14aae9ebd038mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 64 now granted Smoltek’s 64th patent has been grant­ed in Tai­wan and relates to the Inter­pos­er fam­i­ly, and the claim cov­er con­cepts of minia­tur­ized com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices, e.g. capacitors. This inven­tion facil­i­tates inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id-state devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. The main advan­tage is that the ener­gy stor­ing devices can be placed clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chip, thus enabling more effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment solu­tions for the whole circuit. “The tim­ing of this grant could not be bet­ter since the CNF-MIM con­cept receiv­ing sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion from the indus­try play­ers. I view this grant as an impor­tant mile­stone to achieve, help­ing us to solid­i­fy our IP foot­print around the world, spe­cial­ly in Tai­wan, the largest semi­con­duc­tor hub”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Our Inter­pos­er patent fam­i­ly pro­tects the field of com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices based on our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor con­cept. The claims in the Inter­pos­er fam­i­ly cov­er device struc­tures which may be on a sub­strate of choice, or on an inter­pos­er, or con­nect­ed to an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit. One aspect also cov­ers the appli­ca­tion of capac­i­tor devices where it is con­nect­ed to an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and/​or a bat­tery like ener­gy source. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 64 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/) Image: Dr. Shafiq Kabir, Founder and CIO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek has been granted feasibility study support by Vinnova" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-has-been-granted-feasibility-study-support-by-vinnova/1396/" date: 2020-11-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_2a66409171d7471d9f169e3915b44599mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek has been granted feasibility study support by Vinnova Through Vin­no­va, Smoltek has been grant­ed finan­cial sup­port for fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies for the project: “Towards the inte­gra­tion of car­bon-based capac­i­tors in indus­tri­al wafer production”. The sup­port cor­re­sponds to 50% of the project cost (a max­i­mum of SEK 400,000). In addi­tion, a com­plet­ed fea­si­bil­i­ty study is a pre­req­ui­site for being able to apply for sup­port for future announce­ments with­in the pro­gram Smarter Elec­tron­ic Systems. Read more about the Swedish [strate­gic inno­va­tion pro­gram for elec­tron­ic com­po­nents and sys­tems](https://www.vinnova.se/en/calls-for-proposals/the-strategic-innovation-programme-smarter-electronic-systems/). Image: Smoltek R&D engi­neers at Chalmers MC2 laboratory --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 63 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-63-now-granted/1394/" date: 2020-10-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_c8f90ce8a3434e66a692a791eb99a32amv2_d_2000_1400_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 63 now granted Smoltek’s 63rd patent has been grant­ed in India and relates to the core tech­nol­o­gy of grow­ing car­bon nanos­truc­tures. It also com­pletes the patent fam­i­ly for Cat­a­lyst dif­fu­sion which now con­tain eight (8) grant­ed patents worldwide. > “With this patent grant­ed, our fun­da­men­tal growth-relat­ed patent port­fo­lio is now com­plete with a world­wide foot­print. This enables us to focus on the next stage of patent port­fo­lio devel­op­ment”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Cat­a­lyst dif­fu­sion fam­i­ly is one of the patent fam­i­lies that cov­ers an aspect of a method for man­u­fac­tur­ing nanos­truc­tures on a giv­en sub­strate. The pro­tect­ed method cov­ers the con­cepts of stack­ing essen­tial thin film mate­ri­als in dif­fer­ent con­fig­u­ra­tions to facil­i­tate grow­ing nanos­truc­ture on a sub­strate once sub­ject­ed to suit­able CVD gas environment. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 63 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). Image: Smoltek R&D engi­neers in the Chalmers MC2 laboratory --- title: "Founder and current CIO shifts role in the company" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/founder-and-current-cio-shifts-role-in-the-company/1393/" date: 2020-10-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_4fcd45c4296847a59e3ac6fb88e4e041mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Founder and current CIO shifts role in the company Smoltek does not expect that Shafiq Kabir’s tran­si­tion to a new role will affect the company’s day-to-day busi­ness, as Smoltek has built a broad knowl­edge base around its tech­nol­o­gy plat­form from research and devel­op­ment to com­mer­cial­iza­tion and licensing. The company’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for capac­i­tors to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try is cur­rent­ly being eval­u­at­ed by large poten­tial com­mer­cial part­ners, and the work relat­ed to fur­ther devel­op­ment, financ­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion and licens­ing in new appli­ca­tion areas is con­duct­ed in the whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary Smoltek Inno­va­tion AB with assis­tance from the strate­gic advi­so­ry part­ner DC Advisory. “Smoltek’s board and man­age­ment are grate­ful for the suc­cess­ful con­tri­bu­tions of Shafiq Kabir as founder and CIO of Smoltek, and we look for­ward to a con­tin­ued fruit­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion as he tran­si­tions into an advi­so­ry role. Both par­ties view this step as a nat­ur­al part of Smoltek’s devel­op­ment from being a pri­mar­i­ly inno­va­tion-dri­ven com­pa­ny to today’s pri­ma­ry focus on estab­lish­ing us as an inno­v­a­tive provider to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, while we at the same time broad­en the fur­ther devel­op­ment of our tech­nol­o­gy plat­form to new appli­ca­tion areas,” says Peter Augusts­son, chair­man of Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB. Image: Shafiq Kabir, Founder and CIO at Smoltek --- title: "CNF-capacitors explained" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interview-with-karl-lundahl/1192/" date: 2020-09-29 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/youtube-interview-karl-lundahl-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" --- # CNF-capacitors explained --- title: "Interview: Karl Lundahl on the next steps for CNF-MIM" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interview-karl-lundahl-on-the-next-steps-for-cnf-mim/1391/" date: 2020-09-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_37a4b7683af24dbfb1891842295e847bmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Interview: Karl Lundahl on the next steps for CNF-MIM How will Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy be scaled to extreme high-vol­ume production? Which CNF-MIM based capac­i­tor type will like­ly reach the mar­ket first? What kind of appli­ca­tion is the most suit­ed for this technology? These, and some oth­er ques­tions will our VP Prod­uct Man­age­ment, Karl Lun­dahl unrav­el in this interview. **Video:**Karl Lun­dahl on the next steps for CNF-MIM --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 62 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-62-now-granted/1389/" date: 2020-09-25 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_7645ba11813047eeaaa10fbded14bc54mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 62 now granted Smoltek’s inven­tions facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id-state ener­gy stor­age devices, CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy offers the industry’s small­est form­fac­tor for high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors by pro­vid­ing a very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of the height com­pared to today’s technologies. In the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try the Advanced Pack­ag­ing and Het­ero­ge­neous Inte­gra­tion con­cepts offers archi­tec­tures for increased func­tion­al­i­ty and enhanced per­for­mances on a sys­tem lev­el togeth­er with an ever-small­er foot­print. Inter­posers are impor­tant build­ing-blocks in these archi­tec­tures. Sil­i­con inter­posers have so far main­ly been uti­lized for high-end semi­con­duc­tors such as high-per­for­mance GPUs, CPUs, FPGAs, and HBMs, while the mid-end seg­ment has a greater share of organ­ic inter­posers due to cost issues. The point is that inter­posers today is a key sub-com­po­nent and a main sta­ple technology. With this new­ly grant­ed patent, we are expand­ing our inter­pos­er-relat­ed pro­tec­tion scheme on the US market. > “Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly and increas­ing­ly used in advanced semi­con­duc­tor prod­ucts. We are hap­py to make our tech­nol­o­gy even more rel­e­vant to the indus­try by facil­i­tat­ing fur­ther improved per­for­mance and there­by adding sig­nif­i­cant val­ue.”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, an inter­pos­er has been used only for pas­sive redis­tri­b­u­tions lay­ers (RDL) or inter­con­nects for oth­er dies to be con­nect­ed. Over time oth­er pas­sive func­tion­al­i­ty has been added, such inter­posers are often referred to as “smart inter­posers”. Our patent­ed con­cept com­pris­es ener­gy stor­age devices, e.g. capac­i­tors, sol­id state micro bat­ter­ies etc., to be embed­ded in the inter­pos­er structure. The mar­ket for such inter­posers is antic­i­pat­ed to steadi­ly grow in the field of Advanced Pack­ag­ing and Het­ero­ge­neous Inte­gra­tion. Our Com­pact Ener­gy Stor­age Inter­pos­er fam­i­ly is com­ple­men­tary to our oth­er Inter­pos­er fam­i­lies and offers an addi­tion­al path to uti­lize our CNF-MIM technology. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 62 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). Image: Shafiq Kabir, CIO at Smoltek --- title: "Ola Tiverman new head of Smoltek Semi" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/ola-tiverman-new-head-of-smoltek-semi/1388/" date: 2020-09-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_389d09a1d4ca49d3942392266e6b3f09mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Ola Tiverman new head of Smoltek Semi Today Smoltek announces that Ola Tiver­man will take on a new role as Pres­i­dent of the whol­ly owned sub­sidiary Smoltek Semi AB, a busi­ness area com­pa­ny entire­ly focused on licens­ing tech­nol­o­gy con­cepts to the semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics industry. “This is a step in ensur­ing the break­through of CNF-MIM and oth­er appli­ca­tions aimed at the semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics indus­try,” says Ola Tiverman. Smoltek Semi AB was estab­lished in Jan­u­ary 2019, with the aim of util­is­ing the sub­sidiary as a con­trac­tu­al par­ty vis-à-vis exter­nal licensees through sub­li­cens­ing of Smoltek AB’s patent port­fo­lio and know-how. Image: Ola Tiver­man, CRO & Pres­i­dent at Smoltek Semi --- title: "Helplayer IP-family expands with new granted patent" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/helplayer-ip-family-expands-with-new-granted-patent/1387/" date: 2020-09-14 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_19ae472b765a4644bf326a0a66b6dcebmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Helplayer IP-family expands with new granted patent This, our 61st patent, is grant­ed in India which is a fast-grow­ing mar­ket with­in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. The patent belongs to the Helplay­er fam­i­ly – one of our hard­core tech­nol­o­gy and con­cept fam­i­lies. The Helplay­er tech­nol­o­gy essen­tial­ly is a method to pro­tect the under­lay­ing sub­strate or mate­ri­als from being dam­aged dur­ing the nanos­truc­ture growth process. > India is a fast-grow­ing semi­con­duc­tor mar­ket in the field of con­sumer elec­tron­ics. Fur­ther­more, India is emerg­ing as a new impor­tant semi­con­duc­tor fab source in Asia. Hence it becomes a strate­gic choice to have a core IP foot­print also in India.”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio has today devel­oped into sev­er­al patent fam­i­lies, start­ing from fun­da­men­tal tech­nol­o­gy that enables con­trolled growth of nanos­truc­tures. Since then, the port­fo­lio has fur­ther expand­ed into the domain of devices/​components based on, or enabled by, nanostructures. Dur­ing the ini­tial phase of Smoltek’s devel­op­ment of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, the first set of patent fam­i­lies was designed to pro­tect essen­tial indus­try-com­pat­i­ble process­es. One of these ear­ly fam­i­lies is a method patent fam­i­ly named Helplayer. The Helplay­er patent fam­i­ly offers a method to pro­tect the under­ly­ing sub­strate and mate­ri­als when grow­ing nanos­truc­tured mate­r­i­al on the sur­face. Sub­se­quent­ly, after­wards the helplay­er can be removed from the unwant­ed areas in a con­trolled way with­out dam­ag­ing under­lay­ing mate­ri­als, or cir­cuits (i.e. tran­sis­tors). This method, for exam­ple, pro­vides the pos­si­bil­i­ty to man­u­fac­ture small­er and thin­ner high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors not only as dis­crete capac­i­tor com­po­nents but also as inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors at wafer fab pro­duc­tion of for exam­ple micro­proces­sors, smart inter­posers or chiplets. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 61 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents/). Image: Shafiq Kabir, CIO at Smoltek --- title: "License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/license-agreement-for-evaluation-of-cnf-mim-technology-extended/1385/" date: 2020-09-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_389d09a1d4ca49d3942392266e6b3f09mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # License agreement for evaluation of CNF-MIM technology extended At the end of March this year, Smoltek announced that the com­pa­ny had signed an eval­u­a­tion agree­ment with one of the world’s largest capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­ers. The agree­ment, which relates to a license where the company’s patent­ed car­bon nanofiber-based CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is eval­u­at­ed through a joint project, was orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to run until the end of August this year. This agree­ment has now been extended. “The scope of the project has been expand­ed and thus the project peri­od is extend­ed to the end of Octo­ber. The cus­tomer has request­ed addi­tion­al tests for their analy­sis of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy and its appli­ca­tions. Although we can­not trav­el and meet in per­son at present, the col­lab­o­ra­tion works very well,” says Ola Tiver­man, CRO & COO at Smoltek. With the exten­sion of the project, the order val­ue has increased from approx­i­mate­ly SEK 1 mil­lion to SEK 1.35 million. Image: Ola Tiver­man, CRO & COO at Smoltek --- title: "Zooming into Semicon West with Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/zooming-into-semicon-west-with-smoltek/1383/" date: 2020-09-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_1745a29e5aef4b4fa07a689dbc630ff2mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" --- # Zooming into Semicon West with Smoltek 3D InCites is an online media resource focus­ing on 3D inte­gra­tion and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion. As a com­mu­ni­ty, 3D InCites brings to life the peo­ple, the per­son­al­i­ties, and the minds behind het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion and relat­ed tech­nolo­gies in a unique­ly per­son­al way. The goal is to inform key deci­sion-mak­ers about progress in tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, design, stan­dards, infra­struc­ture, and implementation. The inter­view was made over Zoom and got our CRO & COO, Ola Tiver­man to get into the 3DInCites vir­tu­al booth at this year’s SEMICON West. Thank’s for the invitation! Video: Ola Tiver­man, CRO & COO at Smoltek and Fran­coise Von Trapp, 3DInCites --- title: "Ultrathin High-Density Capacitors based on Carbon Nanofibers Fabricated on Silicon, Alumina and Glass Interposer Materials" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/ultrathin-high-density-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-fabricated-on-silicon-alumina-and-glass-interposer-materials/897/" date: 2020-09-01 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-69817383-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Ultrathin High-Density Capacitors based on Carbon Nanofibers Fabricated on Silicon, Alumina and Glass Interposer Materials We demon­strate the suit­abil­i­ty of car­bon nanofiber based MIM capac­i­tors (CNF-MIM) to be imple­ment­ed on var­i­ous sub­strates such as sil­i­con, glass and alu­mi­na for prospec­tive use as dis­crete or inte­grat­ed pas­sives on chips or inter­posers. The capac­i­tors them­selves are only 5 μm thick. How­ev­er, capac­i­tance den­si­ties larg­er than 300 nF/​mm2 have been mea­sured on all sub­strates includ­ing a 30-μm thick sil­i­con sub­strate. The 5 μm thick capac­i­tors fea­ture ESR val­ues in the range of 100 mΩ, ESL below 10 pH and leak­age cur­rents as low as 0.01 nA/​nF at 1 V with device break­down at 6 V, which makes them a promis­ing can­di­date both for high­ly inte­grat­ed, mul­ti­func­tion­al on-chip and dis­crete minia­tur­ized elec­tron­ic components. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9183403) --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 60 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-60-now-granted/1382/" date: 2020-08-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_4fcd45c4296847a59e3ac6fb88e4e041mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 60 now granted The new US patent pro­tects com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices based on our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor con­cepts. In this par­tic­u­lar patent, claims cov­er device struc­tures which may be on a sub­strate, or on an inter­pos­er, or con­nect­ed to an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit. One aspect of the patent also cov­ers the appli­ca­tion of ener­gy stor­age device where it is con­nect­ed to an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and/​or a bat­tery like ener­gy source. > ‘’We are delight­ed by the fact that our ener­gy stor­age relat­ed patent plat­form is grow­ing into an even big­ger foot­print. This new patent fur­ther enhances our IP stand­point and strength­ens our posi­tion as an inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy leader.”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Minia­tur­ized or com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices e.g. capac­i­tors are in high demand in the field of today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and oth­er het­ero­ge­neous­ly inte­grat­ed semi­con­duc­tors. The present patent­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter, com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices which in turn can enable more effi­cient pow­er man­age­ment solutions. Smoltek’s inven­tions facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id-state ener­gy stor­age devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy offers industry’s small­est form­fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors, this by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared to today’s technologies. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 60 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). Image: Shafiq Kabir, CIO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek goes beyond Silicon" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-goes-beyond-silicon/1381/" date: 2020-08-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_905647a8198245d78eeedede9de9540fmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "ieee" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ieee.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek goes beyond Silicon “At this con­fer­ence we showed for the first time in pub­lic that our CNF-MIM can be fab­ri­cat­ed on oth­er sub­strates than Sil­i­con. Demon­strat­ing CNF-MIM on glass and alu­mi­na sub­strates clear­ly widens the poten­tial imple­men­ta­tion and appli­ca­tions of our capac­i­tors,” says Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek. This was pre­sent­ed in a new tech­ni­cal paper by Smoltek’s R&D‑engineer Elisa Pas­salac­qua in the vir­tu­al pre­sen­ta­tions at the IEEE Nano 2020, held in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da July 29–31. Image: Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek strengthens the R&D‑team" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-strengthens-the-rd-team/1379/" date: 2020-08-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_03d911beb3de4d02be67cf1032786c0emv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "grow_with_smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grow_with_smoltek.md" - name: "smoltek_staff" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek_staff.md" --- # Smoltek strengthens the R&D‑team Qi Li holds a PhD in Microtech­nol­o­gy and Nanoscience from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology. Qi will be a valu­able con­trib­u­tor to our tech-team as he has more than 8 years of expe­ri­ence in ener­gy stor­age mate­ri­als research (syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion), Lithi­um ion bat­ter­ies and super­ca­pac­i­tors design towards appli­ca­tion needs. --- title: "Robustness of carbon nanofiber-based MIM capacitors with ultra-high capacitance density to electrical and thermal stress" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/robustness-of-carbon-nanofiber-based-mim-capacitors-with-ultra-high-capacitance-density-to-electrical-and-thermal-stress/905/" date: 2020-08-05 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/scanning-electron-microscope-image-carbon-nano-fibre-metal-insulator-metal-cnf-mim-capacitor-including-substrate-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Robustness of carbon nanofiber-based MIM capacitors with ultra-high capacitance density to electrical and thermal stress In this paper, we present car­bon nanofiber (CNF)-based capac­i­tors in a MIM con­fig­u­ra­tion, a CNF-MIM, with a small foot­print, low pro­file height, and high capac­i­tance den­si­ty that can be used both as inte­grat­ed and as dis­crete com­po­nent. Being pro­duced in a ful­ly CMOS com­pat­i­ble process it is like­ly to play a major role as fur­ther minia­tur­iza­tion of future elec­tron­ics moves on. The devices were char­ac­ter­ized from 25 °C to 150 °C and from 0 V to 5 V. It was demon­strat­ed that a CNF-MIM with a total CNF height of 6 μm achieved a capac­i­tance den­si­ty of about 400 nF/​mm2. Also shown was an ESR of about 45 mΩ. It was found that the capac­i­tance increased slight­ly with tem­per­a­ture by 0.03−0.06 %/​K and that the capac­i­tance was sta­ble for bias­ing volt­age with an increase between 0.5−4 %/​V. Hence, it meets well with the X7R spec­i­fi­ca­tions. This behav­ior makes it a good com­peti­tor com­pared to MLCCs whose capac­i­tance decreas­es with tem­per­a­ture and applied volt­age and the CNF-MIM does this at the frac­tion of the device thick­ness of the MLCC. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9159356) --- title: "Integrated and Discrete Ultra-Thin Capacitors Based on Carbon Nanofibers with High Capacitance Density" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-and-discrete-ultra-thin-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-with-high-capacitance-density/903/" date: 2020-08-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-250253567-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" tags: - name: "awarded" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/awarded.md" --- # Integrated and Discrete Ultra-Thin Capacitors Based on Carbon Nanofibers with High Capacitance Density Ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) have been used to enhance the elec­trodes of the clas­si­cal met­al-insu­la­tor-met­al (MIM) capac­i­tor con­cept to form ful­ly sol­id-state CNF-MIM capac­i­tors with a large 3D sur­face area. The man­u­fac­tured devices are char­ac­ter­ized with regards to the capac­i­tance den­si­ty, the equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR) and induc­tance (ESL), and leak­age cur­rent. The process flow allows for the devices to be either inte­grat­ed or dis­crete com­po­nents, and the low height pro­file of about 7 μm makes the devices read­i­ly avail­able for inte­gra­tion on a chip, in 3D stack­ing, or onto an inter­pos­er. A test vehi­cle is designed and used to demon­strate the simul­ta­ne­ous val­ues of 420 nF/​mm2 (per foot­print area) capac­i­tance den­si­ty, an ESR of 35 mΩ, and an ESL of 3.4 pH. Fur­ther­more, the leak­age cur­rent is found to be below 0.01 nA/​nF. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9159373) --- title: "Interview: Ola Tiverman comments on CNF-MIM evaluation licensing agreements" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interview-ola-tiverman-comments-on-cnf-mim-evaluation-licensing-agreements/1377/" date: 2020-06-01 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_1745a29e5aef4b4fa07a689dbc630ff2mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Interview: Ola Tiverman comments on CNF-MIM evaluation licensing agreements Smoltek COO, Ola Tiver­man is pri­mar­i­ly man­ag­ing sales and busi­ness devel­op­ment, share his thoughts about our busi­ness strate­gies regard­ing licens­ing and cus­tomer projects. **Video:**Ola Tiver­man com­ments on CNF-MIM eval­u­a­tion licens­ing agreements Image: Ola Tiver­man, COO at Smoltek --- title: "Watch our virtual presentations at ECTC 2020" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/watch-our-virtual-presentations-at-ectc-2020/1375/" date: 2020-05-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_fa20c2cd20aa4558965df42420d93ca9mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "ectc" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ectc.md" --- # Watch our virtual presentations at ECTC 2020 ECTC is the pre­mier event where the entire sup­ply chain, from semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies, design hous­es, foundry and OSAT ser­vice providers, sub­strate mak­ers, equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers, mate­r­i­al sup­pli­ers, research insti­tu­tions, and uni­ver­si­ties meet. This year the con­fer­ence will be an all-vir­tu­al event. And reg­is­tra­tion is free of charge, which makes it pos­si­ble for every­one to fol­low the tech­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tions made at the event. This also means that you are avail­able to fol­low our pre­sen­ta­tions – from open­ing day June 3 until clos­ing June 30. So, if you are curi­ous about how we can improve the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try with the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, which enables man­u­fac­tur­ing of the thinnest capac­i­tors in the world, reg­is­ter today at www.ectc.net! **Smoltek pre­sen­ta­tions at IEEE ECTC 2020 – vir­tu­al conference** Ses­sion 35: Addi­tive Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Inno­v­a­tive Mate­ri­als for Packaging Pre­sen­ta­tion #6 Link: [https://www.ectc.net/program/session35.cfm](https://www.ectc.net/program/session35.cfm) Ses­sion 43: Reli­a­bil­i­ty and Fail­ure Analy­ses of Emerg­ing Materials Pre­sen­ta­tion #5 Link: [https://www.ectc.net/program/session43.cfm](https://www.ectc.net/program/session43.cfm) --- title: "Smoltek’s 59th patent now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-59th-patent-now-granted/1373/" date: 2020-05-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_8cf4aa5decc84893a496b42b15ae3419mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Smoltek’s 59th patent now granted The patent cov­ers our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the field of inter­posers for advanced pack­ag­ing and het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion of semiconductors.  “It is very reward­ing that the ded­i­cat­ed efforts to gen­er­ate a new wave of inven­tions now starts to pay off. This patent is a recog­ni­tion of that our tech­no­log­i­cal approach­es and con­cepts are cut­ting edge and inno­v­a­tive”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors and het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tions. The present patent­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling smarter inter­posers that inte­grates one or sev­er­al com­pact ener­gy stor­age devices. Smoltek’s inven­tions facil­i­tate inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly thin sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices, such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the inter­con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy offers industry’s small­est form­fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors, this by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies.  Dr Shafiq Kabir con­cludes: “South Korea is an impor­tant mar­ket for our tech­nol­o­gy, hence it is of high impor­tance to have a foot­print with our new set of IP in such mar­ket. This goes in line with our con­stant strive for sol­id IP pro­tec­tion of our R&D schemes that bring new dis­rup­tive solu­tions to prob­lems that tra­di­tion­al tech­nolo­gies can­not effi­cient­ly address.”   Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 59 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/) Image: Smoltek R&D engi­neers in the Chalmers MC2 lab --- title: "New Smoltek patent granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-smoltek-patent-granted/1371/" date: 2020-05-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_054d81273464450385539f54a16a67d7mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # New Smoltek patent granted The company’s third grant­ed patent in 2020 is a Euro­pean (EPO) patent. It is an inven­tion that relates to how to grow nanos­truc­tures on sub­strate with­out destroy­ing the under­ly­ing mate­ri­als for exam­ple CMOS cir­cuit ele­ments, sen­sors etc., which may be sen­si­tive to such a growth process.  The patent cov­ers an essen­tial aspect of method of pro­duc­ing nanos­truc­tures on a sub­strate where the sur­face con­sti­tutes both con­duc­ing and non-con­duct­ing struc­tures and devices out of the same.“This new patent cov­ers essen­tial aspects of a pro­duc­tion method that enables growth of nanos­truc­tures on any giv­en sur­face includ­ing pres­ence of sen­si­tive cir­cuit ele­ments under­neath. The beau­ty of the tech­nol­o­gy lies in its sim­plic­i­ty. It is easy to imple­ment in, and com­pat­i­ble with vol­ume pro­duc­tion set-ups. The new patent adds to our growth-relat­ed part of our patent port­fo­lio, and pro­vides addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion of our key tech­nol­o­gy.”, says Shafiq Kabir, CIO at Smoltek.   Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 58 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/) Image: Smoltek CEO, CTO, COO and CIO --- title: "Smoltek signs evaluation license agreement with leading passive components manufacturer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-signs-evaluation-license-agreement-with-leading-passive-components-manufacturer/1369/" date: 2020-04-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_2a66409171d7471d9f169e3915b44599mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "passivecomponents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/passivecomponents.md" --- # Smoltek signs evaluation license agreement with leading passive components manufacturer This is the sec­ond eval­u­a­tion license agree­ment that Smoltek has signed for its car­bon nanofiber-based capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy in 2020. The first agree­ment was signed in late March with one of the world’s largest man­u­fac­tur­ers of capacitors. “In a short time, we have now signed two eval­u­a­tion license agree­ments for our car­bon nanofiber-based capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy with sig­nif­i­cant play­ers in the elec­tron­ics and semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. This shows that we have now reached a point where there is a firm com­mer­cial inter­est in this tech­nol­o­gy. Fur­ther­more, the fact that we sign this agree­ment under pre­vail­ing cir­cum­stances makes it clear that the elec­tron­ics indus­try is not paus­ing its for­ward-look­ing busi­ness due to the coro­n­avirus sit­u­a­tion,” says Smoltek’s CEO Anders Johansson. “We have been work­ing with this cus­tomer for some time, and it is excit­ing that we now have been able to sign a for­mal eval­u­a­tion license agree­ment. This means that we can now inten­si­fy the col­lab­o­ra­tion with the aim of sup­port­ing them in the devel­op­ment of com­mer­cial prod­ucts based on Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy,” says Smoltek’s COO Ola Tiverman. Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy enables the pro­duc­tion of high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors which can be made much thin­ner than with con­ven­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy, which is high­ly sought after for advanced 2.5D and 3D pack­ag­ing solu­tions for semi­con­duc­tor circuits. Image: Smoltek R&D facilities --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 57 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-57-now-granted/1367/" date: 2020-03-30 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_0f127e0126c24cb3985959d55ae67b93mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 57 now granted This is the sec­ond grant­ed patent in 2020 and as it is a Euro­pean (EPO) patent that will be val­i­dat­ed in rel­e­vant Euro­pean countries. The actu­al inven­tion is a bond­ing film that uti­lizes con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures, and there­by pro­vide prop­er­ties that enable fur­ther minia­tur­iza­tion of semi­con­duc­tor assemblies. “The patent cov­ers essen­tial aspects of a bond­ing film com­pris­ing nanos­truc­tures that enables con­nec­tion between two adja­cent semi­con­duc­tor chips/​components for both mechan­i­cal and elec­tri­cal pur­pos­es. Such imple­men­ta­tion brings sub­stan­tial ben­e­fits in  advanced pack­ag­ing of semi­con­duc­tor com­po­nents, with poten­tial to replace todays thick and bulky bond­ing films,” says Shafiq Kabir, CIO at Smoltek. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 57 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/) Image: Shafiq Kabir, CIO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek signs evaluation license agreement with leading capacitor manufacturer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-signs-evaluation-license-agreement-with-leading-capacitor-manufacturer/1365/" date: 2020-03-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_3f862956f1b94762bec76e58fe5f5221mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Smoltek signs evaluation license agreement with leading capacitor manufacturer The agree­ment will be valid until August 2020, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty to exten­sion. Dur­ing this time, the lead­ing capac­i­tor man­u­fac­tur­er will eval­u­ate Smoltek’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy from both a tech­ni­cal and com­mer­cial per­spec­tive with the ambi­tion to sign a pro­duc­tion license agree­ment as a next step. “This is the first license agree­ment that we have signed for our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, mak­ing it an impor­tant mile­stone for Smoltek. Both par­ties under­stand that our tech­nol­o­gy has great poten­tial in the mar­ket for minia­tur­ized high-per­form­ing capac­i­tors,” says Smoltek’s CEO Anders Johansson. Dur­ing the autumn of 2019, Smoltek was able to demon­strate that the company’s CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is com­pet­i­tive from an indus­tri­al per­spec­tive as it offers improved per­for­mance while using just a frac­tion of the space need­ed for con­ven­tion­al capacitors. “A sub­stan­tial reduc­tion of the capac­i­tor thick­ness is high­ly cov­et­ed in advanced 2.5D and 3D semi­con­duc­tor cir­cuit pack­ag­ing solu­tions,” says Smoltek’s COO Ola Tiverman. **Video: CEO, Anders Johans­son com­ments on the agreement** Image: Anders Johans­son, CEO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek’s carbon based capacitors turns out to be right on target for the semiconductor industry" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-carbon-based-capacitors-turns-out-to-be-right-on-target-for-the-semiconductor-industry/2681/" date: 2020-03-06 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/vincent-desmaris-at-impas-device-packaging-2020-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" --- # Smoltek’s carbon based capacitors turns out to be right on target for the semiconductor industry Smoltek attend­ed the IMAPS 2020 Device Pack­ag­ing Con­fer­ence March, 2–5 2020, togeth­er with semi­con­duc­tor giants like Sam­sung, Qual­comm and ASE Group. And the main mes­sage of the con­fer­ence was that con­tin­u­ous col­lab­o­ra­tion is nec­es­sary for inno­va­tion as Rich Rice, ASE’s Senor VP of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, empha­sized in his open­ing keynote. Fol­low­ing up on the need for inno­va­tion, Chris­t­ian Hoff­mann, prin­ci­pal engi­neer at Qual­comm stat­ed in his keynote that: *”The sin­gle most impor­tant ques­tion for semi­con­duc­tor pack­ages for mobile phones is: How thin can we make it?”* *”This res­onates quite well with Smolteks CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy as the thick­ness of the active capac­i­tor stack of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy is in the sin­gle dig­it microm­e­ter range. This ultra- low thick­ness of the active capac­i­tive ele­ment enables Smoltek’s licensees to man­u­fac­ture dis­crete capac­i­tors with an unprece­dent­ed low pro­file.”*, Karl Lun­dahl VP Prod­uct Man­age­ments at Smoltek states. Anders Johans­son, CEO of Smoltek, fills in: *“This shows how our car­bon based capac­i­tor con­cept is right on tar­get for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, a new dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion that will sup­port con­tin­u­ous devel­op­ment of advanced pack­age architectures.”* ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#interactive-sessions)Interactive sessions On Wednes­day March 4, Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO of Smoltek, held an appre­ci­at­ed pre­sen­ta­tion in the pleas­ant Ari­zona after­noon spring. Hov­er­ing Vin­cent and the Smoltek poster were numer­ous curi­ous con­fer­ence atten­dants inquir­ing about the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy and its advan­tages for the pack­ag­ing industry. Besides the shar­ing the lat­est updates of our capac­i­tor inno­va­tion at the IMAPS Device Pack­ag­ing Con­fer­ence Smoltek also made sev­er­al new and sig­nif­i­cant con­nec­tions with new indus­try entities/​players that can be inter­est­ed for licensing/​development of the CNF-MIM-concept. “IMAPS in Phoenix gath­ered the right com­pa­nies for one-on-one meet­ings as well as an envi­ron­ment for busi­ness intel­li­gence. And not at least great net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, all impor­tant for our future jour­ney”, Anders Johans­son, CEO of Smoltek, concluded. --- title: "Ultra-Thin Capacitors based on Carbon nanofibers with Ultra-High Capacitance Density" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/ultra-thin-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-with-ultra-high-capacitance-density/907/" date: 2020-02-27 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/kj2sanhg-hg-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Ultra-Thin Capacitors based on Carbon nanofibers with Ultra-High Capacitance Density In this paper, we present the cur­rent state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy of sol­id-state capac­i­tors based on car­bon nanofibers (CNFs). Tak­ing advan­tage of the large 3D sur­face fea­tured by ver­ti­cal­ly aligned and tight­ly spaced car­bon nanofibers direct­ly grown on the capac­i­tor’s elec­trode, capac­i­tance den­si­ties in excess of 650 nF/​mm2 have been achieved at a pro­file height of only 7 μm, when employ­ing medium‑k field dielec­tric mate­ri­als such as HfO2 and Al2O3 , to form the MIM-like capac­i­tors. The inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors were fab­ri­cat­ed on high-resis­tive Si sub­strate, while employ­ing ful­ly CMOS com­pat­i­ble process­es. For the devices with high­est capac­i­tance den­si­ty, the leak­age cur­rents are typ­i­cal­ly below 0.01 nA/​nF at 1V, while sus­tain­ing volt­ages up to 6 V as well as very good tem­per­a­ture and volt­age sta­bil­i­ty. For the largest devices, the equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR) and induc­tance (ESL) are as low as 60 mΩ and 6 pH, respec­tive­ly, as well as very good tem­per­a­ture and volt­age sta­bil­i­ty. The results of the exten­sive DC and RF char­ac­ter­i­za­tions strong­ly sup­port the poten­tial for CNF-based sol­id-state capac­i­tors to com­pete with estab­lished high capac­i­tance den­si­ty tech­nolo­gies and are suit­able both in inte­grat­ed on-chip solu­tions as well as in dis­crete elec­tron­ic appli­ca­tions at a min­i­mal com­po­nent volume. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9011624) --- title: "Smoltek wins the Best Oral Paper Award at EDAPS 2019" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-wins-the-best-oral-paper-award-at-edaps-2019/1363/" date: 2020-02-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_905647a8198245d78eeedede9de9540fmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "edaps2019" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/edaps2019.md" - name: "ieee" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ieee.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "vincentdesmaris" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/vincentdesmaris.md" --- # Smoltek wins the Best Oral Paper Award at EDAPS 2019 The EDAPS sym­po­sium con­sists of tech­ni­cal paper pre­sen­ta­tion, poster ses­sions, indus­try exhibits, work­shops and tuto­ri­als. Design­ers, engi­neers and researchers across the world come forth to share and dis­cuss their work on all aspects of elec­tri­cal sig­nal integri­ty includ­ing mod­el­ing, design and sim­u­la­tion, fab­ri­ca­tion, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and packaging. At the con­fer­ence, Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO of Smoltek, pre­sent­ed the Smoltek paper: “Ultra Thin Capac­i­tors based on Car­bon nanofibers with Ultra High Capac­i­tance Den­si­ty,” in which he said: “We are tak­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present the lat­est achieve­ments of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy, empha­siz­ing our lat­est tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment. The CNF-MIM elec­tri­cal data now fea­ture an equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR) of about 40 mΩ, which rep­re­sents more than a twofold improve­ment com­pared to data released at SEMICON Tai­wan 2019. This tech­no­log­i­cal step also put us on a par with the oth­er com­pet­ing tech­nolo­gies when it comes to elec­tri­cal data but at a frac­tion of their volume.” At the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the con­fer­ence Vincent’s pre­sen­ta­tion was award­ed ‘Best Oral Paper’-presentation. How­ev­er, by then the Smoltek team had already left the con­fer­ence for busi­ness meet­ings in Tai­wan. In fact, it wasn’t until yes­ter­day, when Vin­cent received an e‑mail from the EDAPS 2019 sec­re­tari­at inform­ing him on the award, that we became aware of the achievement. Still, late news can be good news. Image: Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek demonstrates CNF-growth on a 200mm silicon wafer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-demonstrates-cnf-growth-on-a-200mm-silicon-wafer/1361/" date: 2020-01-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_ab98088d633745d39bce8f1f68d3ec28mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek demonstrates CNF-growth on a 200mm silicon wafer This great achieve­ment opens up for bet­ter and sim­pler pro­to­typ­ing for cus­tomers uti­liz­ing 200mm pro­duc­tion processing. This great acheive­ment opens up new meth­ods for bet­ter and sim­pler pro­to­type man­u­fac­tur­ing for cus­tomers uti­liz­ing 200mm pro­duc­tion processes. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 56 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-56-now-granted/1359/" date: 2020-01-21 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_4fcd45c4296847a59e3ac6fb88e4e041mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 56 now granted “This is the sec­ond grant­ed patent from our sec­ond wave of patent fil­ings that pro­tect our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics spaces,” says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for micro­proces­sors. The present patent­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by enabling a com­pact ener­gy stor­age interposer. Smoltek’s inven­tions facil­i­tate such inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly low-pro­file sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. CNF-MIM offers industry’s small­est form­fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors, this by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies. Dr Shafiq Kabir concludes: “We are now wit­ness­ing the first grant­ed patents relat­ed to CNF-MIM in inter­pos­er appli­ca­tions, and this is hap­pen­ing in line with indus­tri­al needs. We are con­stant­ly striv­ing for R&D and IP pro­tec­tion schemes that bring new dis­rup­tive solu­tions to prob­lems that tra­di­tion­al tech­nolo­gies can­not address efficiently.” Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 56 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents.](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/) Image: Shafiq Kabir, CIO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek presents new improved electrical data for CNF-MIM" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-presents-new-improved-electrical-data-for-cnf-mim/1357/" date: 2019-12-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_d7c7c5948573429789a0e9f5fdedb139mv2_d_2000_1277_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "componentsystems" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/componentsystems.md" - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "edaps2019" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/edaps2019.md" - name: "ieee" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ieee.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "semiconductorindustry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductorindustry.md" - name: "vincentdesmaris" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/vincentdesmaris.md" --- # Smoltek presents new improved electrical data for CNF-MIM Today Tues­day, Decem­ber 17, Smoltek has pre­sent­ed the lat­est advances of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy con­cept. Now we can show a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment of the ESR para­me­ter since SEMICON Tai­wan in September. “We are tak­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present our CNF-MIM at EDAPS 2019, empha­siz­ing our lat­est tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment. Our CNF-MIM now fea­tures an equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR) of about 40 mΩ, which rep­re­sents more than a twofold improve­ment com­pared to data released at SEMICON Tai­wan 2019. This tech­no­log­i­cal step also put us on a par with the oth­er com­pet­ing tech­nolo­gies when it comes to elec­tri­cal data but at a frac­tion of their vol­ume.”, says Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek. The offi­cial name of the con­fer­ence is “2019 IEEE Elec­tri­cal Design of Advanced Pack­ag­ing and Sys­tems Sym­po­sium ([EDAPS](https://edaps.org/))”. It is an annu­al flag­ship event in the Asia-Pacif­ic region and has con­sis­tent­ly served as a plat­form for dis­sem­mi­na­tion of lat­est research in the areas of elec­tri­cal design of chip, pack­age and system. Image: Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek enters into agreement with DC Advisory as strategic advisor for the company’s expansion" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-enters-into-agreement-with-dc-advisory-as-strategic-advisor-for-the-companys-expansion/1355/" date: 2019-12-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_095e3d544e2748bc9d3b41a5ac6805d5mv2_d_2000_1333_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "businessdevelopment" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/businessdevelopment.md" - name: "ceo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ceo.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "dcadvisory" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/dcadvisory.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" - name: "smoltekboard" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltekboard.md" --- # Smoltek enters into agreement with DC Advisory as strategic advisor for the company’s expansion In recent years, Smoltek has main­ly focused on its CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for pro­duc­tion of minia­tur­ized capac­i­tors. In the company’s assess­ment, this tech­nol­o­gy has now reached the lev­el of matu­ri­ty nec­es­sary for sign­ing licens­ing agree­ments in the semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics indus­try. Smoltek’s broad tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, accom­pa­nied by an exten­sive patent port­fo­lio, has also opened new pos­si­bil­i­ties in addi­tion­al areas of high interest. “Our tech­nol­o­gy has a fan­tas­tic poten­tial, and we are becom­ing an even more inter­est­ing actor in the large and grow­ing mar­ket we are oper­at­ing in. With DC Advisory’s exper­tise and net­work behind us, we will increase our pres­ence in the glob­al mar­ket,” says Anders Johansson. **For fur­ther infor­ma­tion in the agree­ment contact:** Anders Johans­son, CEO of Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB, Tele­phone: 0708–39 36 93 Mail: anders@www.smoltek.com Top image: Smoltek Board and Smoltek CEO Anders Johansson --- title: "Smoltek strengthens the organization with new CFO" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-strengthens-the-organization-with-new-cfo/1353/" date: 2019-12-06 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_b07a1d7f55e24366961896276f73e77fmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cfo" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cfo.md" - name: "piategborg" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/piategborg.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" --- # Smoltek strengthens the organization with new CFO Smoltek is fur­ther strength­en­ing the orga­ni­za­tion from the turn of the year. Start­ing Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, we will have a full-time CFO. For the posi­tion, we have recruit­ed Pia Tegborg, who will play a key role in the orga­ni­za­tion and will be an impor­tant resource in Smoltek’s con­tin­ued jour­ney. In addi­tion to assum­ing the role of CFO, Pia will also be respon­si­ble for the company’s IR communication. Pia Tegborg holds a master’s degree in eco­nom­ics from Han­delshögskolan (the Gothen­burg School of Busi­ness). She has sol­id expe­ri­ence of entre­pre­neur­ship and growth com­pa­nies and has a back­ground from the IT and com­mu­ni­ca­tions industry. \- Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy has an enor­mous poten­tial and I can’t imag­ine a more excit­ing time to step into the com­pa­ny. I am very much look­ing for­ward to tak­ing on the role of CFO and con­tribut­ing to the company’s con­tin­ued devel­op­ment togeth­er with my new col­leagues. This is going to be a lot of fun, says Pia Tegborg, incom­ing CFO at Smoltek. Top image: Pia Tegborg, CFO Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek is attending EDAPS 2019 in Taiwan" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-attending-edaps-2019-in-taiwan/1351/" date: 2019-11-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_280cf77d283943869787c1492238f230mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "componentsystems" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/componentsystems.md" - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "edaps2019" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/edaps2019.md" - name: "ieee" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ieee.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "semiconductorindustry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductorindustry.md" - name: "vincentdesmaris" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/vincentdesmaris.md" --- # Smoltek is attending EDAPS 2019 in Taiwan The offi­cial name of the con­fer­ence is “2019 IEEE Elec­tri­cal Design of Advanced Pack­ag­ing and Sys­tems Sym­po­sium ([EDAPS](https://edaps.org/))”. It is an annu­al flag­ship event in the Asia-Pacif­ic region and has con­sis­tent­ly served as a plat­form for dis­sem­mi­na­tion of lat­est research in the areas of elec­tri­cal design of chip, pack­age and system. This sym­po­sium con­sists of tech­ni­cal paper pre­sen­ta­tion, poster ses­sions, indus­try exhibits, work­shops and tuto­ri­als. Design­ers, engi­neers and researchers across the world come forth to share and dis­cuss their work on all aspects of elec­tri­cal pack­ag­ing includ­ing mod­el­ing, design and sim­u­la­tion, fab­ri­ca­tion and characterization. “This will be a great net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty as well as a great venue for pre­sent­ing our lat­est achieve­ments of the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors tech­nol­o­gy”, says Ola Tiver­man, Chief Oper­a­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. On Tues­day, Decem­ber 17, Smoltek will present the lat­est advances of the CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy con­cept. The name of the is “Ultra-Thin Capac­i­tors based on Car­bon nanofibers with Ultra-High Capac­i­tance Den­si­ty” and will be held by prof. Vin­cent Des­maris in ses­sion 2 of the conference. Image: Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek participates in Swedish business delegation to South Korea" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-participates-in-swedish-business-delegation-to-south-korea/1349/" date: 2019-11-21 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_73d439b5a5804b52829b996f13252fc2mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "businesssweden" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/businesssweden.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "dancho" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/dancho.md" - name: "korea" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/korea.md" - name: "semiconductorindustry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductorindustry.md" --- # Smoltek participates in Swedish business delegation to South Korea Smoltek is invit­ed by Busi­ness Swe­den to par­tic­i­pate in the upcom­ing High-lev­el busi­ness del­e­ga­tion to South Korea, Decem­ber, 17–19. The aim for the vis­it is to build strate­gic com­pet­i­tive­ness through inno­va­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion between the two countries. The back­ground to this vis­it is the cel­e­bra­tion of 60 years of diplo­mat­ic rela­tions between Korea and Swe­den. The main theme for the will be “Build­ing Strate­gic Com­pet­i­tive­ness Through Inno­va­tion” with the fol­low­ing indus­try spe­cif­ic tracks: - Life Sci­ence and Healthcare - Inno­v­a­tive and Sus­tain­able Cities - Man­u­fac­tur­ing Inno­va­tion with AI - Tech/​Startups --- title: "Smoltek presenteras på Stora Aktiedagen i Stockholm 25 november." canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-presenteras-pa-stora-aktiedagen-i-stockholm-25-november/1347/" date: 2019-11-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_d66055b528e64890a5b4a4fdd40a72a8mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "aktiespararna" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/aktiespararna.md" - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" - name: "storaaktiedagen" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/storaaktiedagen.md" --- # Smoltek presenteras på Stora Aktiedagen i Stockholm 25 november. Smoltek deltar i Akties­parar­nas årli­ga event Sto­ra Aktieda­gen i Stock­holm, måndag 25 novem­ber. Föru­tom att vi ställer ut på invester­ar­mäs­san under dagen ger vd, Anders Johans­son en före­tagsp­re­sen­ta­tion med en nuläge­sup­p­da­ter­ing klock­an 14.40−15.10 – Vi ses i sal 2! PS. Direkt efter pre­sen­ta­tio­nen kan du även pra­ta med Anders Johans­son i Com­pa­ny Corner. **VAD:**[Sto­ra Aktieda­gen](https://www.aktiespararna.se/aktiviteter/stora-aktiedagen-stockholm-2019) i Stock­holm, Aktiesparna **VAR:** Sher­a­ton Stock­holm Hotel, Tegel­back­en 6, Stock­holm – SAL 2 **NÄR:** Måndag 25 novem­ber, 14.40−15.10 OBS! Anmälan krävs (klic­ka på länken till even­manget, det är kostnadsfritt). Top image: Anders Johans­son, CEO Smoltek --- title: "Integrated and Discrete Capacitors Based on Carbon Nanostructures with Capacitance Densities in Excess of 350 nF/​mm2" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-and-discrete-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanostructures-with-capacitance-densities-in-excess-of-350-nf-mm2/913/" date: 2019-10-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/tpaylp9ro50-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" tags: - name: "awarded" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/awarded.md" --- # Integrated and Discrete Capacitors Based on Carbon Nanostructures with Capacitance Densities in Excess of 350 nF/​mm2 Com­plete on-chip ful­ly sol­id-state 3D inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors using ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers as elec­trodes to pro­vide a large 3D sur­face in a MIM con­fig­u­ra­tion have been man­u­fac­tured and char­ac­ter­ized. The capac­i­tance per device foot­print area has been stud­ied, as well as its behav­ior at dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­tures and fre­quen­cies. Equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR), break­down volt­age and leak­age cur­rent have also been mea­sured. The entire man­u­fac­tur­ing process of the capac­i­tors is com­plete­ly CMOS com­pat­i­ble, and in com­bi­na­tion with the low device pro­file of about 4 µm this makes the devices read­i­ly avail­able for inte­gra­tion on a CMOS-chip, in 3D stack­ing, or redis­tri­b­u­tion lay­ers in a 2.5D inter­pos­er tech­nol­o­gy. Capac­i­tances of ca 350 nF/​mm2, ESR of about 100 mΩ, break­down volt­ages of up to 25 V and leak­age cur­rents in the order of 0.004 nA/​nF have been measured. [Read more](https://epci.eu/integrated-and-discrete-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanostructures-with-capacitance-densities-in-excess-of-350-nf-mm2/) --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 54 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-54-now-granted/1346/" date: 2019-10-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_054d81273464450385539f54a16a67d7mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" - name: "patentrights" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patentrights.md" - name: "semiconductorindustry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductorindustry.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 54 now granted “This is the first grant­ed patent from our sec­ond wave of patent fil­ings that is pro­tect­ing our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy and var­i­ous use cas­es for the same, pri­mar­i­ly in the semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics spaces”, says Dr Shafiq Kabir, Founder and Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer at Smoltek. Inter­posers are fre­quent­ly used in today’s advanced pack­ag­ing archi­tec­tures for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits, for exam­ple com­mon­ly used for proces­sors. The present patent­ed con­cepts are built on the need to improve cir­cuit per­for­mance by smarter inte­gra­tion of func­tion­al ele­ments to the interposer. Our inven­tions facil­i­tate such inte­gra­tion of extreme­ly low-pro­file sol­id state ener­gy stor­age devices such as CNF-MIM capac­i­tors, clos­er to the con­nec­tion points and pow­er rails of the active chips. CNF-MIM offers industry’s small­est form­fac­tor for inte­grat­ed high-per­for­mance capac­i­tors, this by pro­vid­ing very high capac­i­tance per area at a frag­ment of height com­pared with today’s technologies. Dr Shafiq Kabir con­cludes: “This new patent grant has arrived in per­fect time with respect to the industry’s need for new solu­tions for its advanced cir­cuit archi­tec­tures. It is reward­ing to wit­ness that that our R&D and IP pro­tec­tion schemes are well aligned and togeth­er pro­vide new dis­rup­tive solu­tions to prob­lems that tra­di­tion­al tech­nolo­gies can­not address.” Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 54 grant­ed patents. [Read more about our IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). Fig­ure: exam­ple embod­i­ment – expand­ed view of inter­pos­er assembly Top image: Smoltek Man­age­ment team --- title: "Smoltek practically doubles the capacitance density for CNF-MIM – again" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-practically-doubles-the-capacitance-density-for-cnf-mim-again/1344/" date: 2019-09-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_236050392dc345f2a3b32ac746686c04mv2-jpg-e1724680892194.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "componentsystems" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/componentsystems.md" - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "semicon" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicon.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "semiconductorindustry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductorindustry.md" - name: "semicontaiwan2019" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semicontaiwan2019.md" - name: "vincentdesmaris" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/vincentdesmaris.md" --- # Smoltek practically doubles the capacitance density for CNF-MIM – again “I am excit­ed to have pre­sent­ed the lat­est results obtained by our team on our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy at SEMICON Tai­wan. The CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy now offers capac­i­tance den­si­ties in excess of 650 nF/mm^2 at robust tem­per­a­ture and volt­age per­for­mance. This is more or less a dou­bling of the capac­i­tance den­si­ty per­for­mance that was pre­sent­ed at ECTC 2019 ear­li­er this year.”, says Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek. For Smoltek it is impor­tant to expose our tech­nol­o­gy to the semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics indus­tries. SEMICON Tai­wan is a great event for such expo­sure. Indus­tri­al inter­ac­tion is cru­cial for us to syn­chro­nize our R&D efforts with the actu­al needs, to ulti­mate­ly sup­port the adap­tion of our dis­rup­tive CNF-MIM technology. Image: Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek --- title: "A new position and a new face at Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/a-new-position-and-a-new-face-at-smoltek/1342/" date: 2019-09-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_2af0a554783e4461b15d8446bdd10655mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "componentsystems" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/componentsystems.md" - name: "karllundahl" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/karllundahl.md" - name: "management" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/management.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "semiconductorindustry" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductorindustry.md" --- # A new position and a new face at Smoltek Smoltek is strength­en­ing the man­age­ment team with a new role that lies in between sales and R&D. A vital posi­tion in order to close licens­ing deals. And in late august the com­pa­ny found the right can­di­date for the posi­tion. His name is Karl Lun­dahl, and he has spent almost his entire career in the semi­con­duc­tor industry. “I have nev­er ceased to be fas­ci­nat­ed by the pos­si­bil­i­ties of tech­nol­o­gy, prod­ucts and mar­ket poten­tial in the semi­con­duc­tor ecosys­tem. As one of very few semi­con­duc­tor com­pa­nies in Swe­den, I have for quite some time been inter­est­ed in Smoltek as a com­pa­ny. I am there­fore super-excit­ed to now becom­ing a part of Smoltek and to get the pos­si­bil­i­ty to con­tribute to fur­ther expan­sion of the company’s business. The semi­con­duc­tor industry’s con­stant demand for minia­tur­iza­tion and high­er per­for­mance is what cur­rent­ly is dri­ving the need for Smoltek’s patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy. There are already a num­ber of con­crete exam­ples of very inter­est­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to imple­ment Smoltek’s prod­uct offer­ing where the tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to enable more high-per­for­mance, robust, small­er and cheap­er semi­con­duc­tor com­po­nents and systems. For a small com­pa­ny, how­ev­er, it is dif­fi­cult, if not impos­si­ble, to exe­cute and deliv­er on all the busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties that is offered by the vast semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. I there­fore believe that one of the biggest chal­lenges in my new posi­tion as VP Prod­uct Man­age­ment at Smotek will be to pri­or­i­tize wise­ly. In this work I think that it is impor­tant to have a sol­id under­stand­ing of both your own and your competitor’s tech­nol­o­gy. Hav­ing worked with applied R&D for semi­con­duc­tors and elec­tron­ics the past 15 years I believe that am quite well equipped in order to nav­i­gate in the ecosys­tem and to iden­ti­fy and exe­cute on the com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties that exist – and to (equal­ly impor­tant) active­ly avoid exe­cut­ing on the cas­es where the con­di­tions are less optimal. I am tru­ly look­ing for­ward to become part of Smoltek’s excit­ing journey!” Image: Karl Lun­dahl, VP Prod­uct Man­age­ment at Smoltek --- title: "Fully Solid-State Integrated Capacitors Based on Carbon Nanofibers and Dielectrics with Specific Capacitances Higher Than 200 nF/​mm2" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/fully-solid-state-integrated-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-and-dielectrics-with-specific-capacitances-higher-than-200-nf-mm2/910/" date: 2019-08-26 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/tpaylp9ro50-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Fully Solid-State Integrated Capacitors Based on Carbon Nanofibers and Dielectrics with Specific Capacitances Higher Than 200 nF/​mm2 Com­plete on-chip ful­ly sol­id-state 3D inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors using ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers as elec­trodes to pro­vide a large 3D sur­face in a MIM con­fig­u­ra­tion have been man­u­fac­tured and char­ac­ter­ized in terms of capac­i­tance per device foot­print area, equiv­a­lent series resis­tance (ESR), break­down volt­age and leak­age cur­rent. The entire man­u­fac­tur­ing process of the capac­i­tors is com­plete­ly CMOS com­pat­i­ble, which along with the low device pro­file of about 4 μm makes the devices read­i­ly avail­able for inte­gra­tion on a CMOS-chip, in 3D stack­ing, or redis­tri­b­u­tion lay­ers in a 2.5D inter­pos­er tech­nol­o­gy. Capac­i­tances of 200 nF/​mm2 , ESR of about 100 mΩ, break­down volt­ages of 25 V and leak­age cur­rent of the order of 0.004 A/​F have been measured. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8811237) --- title: "Substantial improvement in capacitance density for CNF-MIM" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/substantial-improvement-in-capacitance-density-for-cnf-mim/1340/" date: 2019-05-31 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_905647a8198245d78eeedede9de9540fmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "ectc" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ectc.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "vincentdesmaris" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/vincentdesmaris.md" --- # Substantial improvement in capacitance density for CNF-MIM The tech-team has worked real­ly hard with the devel­op­ment of our CNF-MIM capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy. And now at ECTC 2019 in Las Vegas, we can present the con­firmed results of that spe­cif­ic work. Vin­cent, CTO at Smoltek says: “I am very pleased to have pre­sent­ed the lat­est results of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy at ECTC2019, which demon­strates capac­i­tance den­si­ties in excess of 350 nF/mm^2. It is impor­tant to expose our tech­nol­o­gy to the elec­tron­ics pack­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ty. This enables our tech­ni­cal team to syn­chro­nize the fur­ther opti­miza­tion of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy with the industry’s actu­al needs.” Smoltek is con­tin­u­ous­ly in process of opti­miz­ing the con­cept design in order to make it more flex­i­ble and to address oth­er impor­tant para­me­ters like ESR and ESL of the CNF-MIM capac­i­tors. Fur­ther­more, the enhance­ment of CNF-MIM per­for­mance met­ri­ces are always con­firmed by more than one 3rd par­ty verifications. Image: Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek --- title: "Smoltek adds cutting edge expertise to the board" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-adds-cutting-edge-expertise-to-the-board/1338/" date: 2019-05-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_7ece502e6d46421494d698b95c3f4445mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "board" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/board.md" - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "patent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patent.md" - name: "patentrights" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patentrights.md" --- # Smoltek adds cutting edge expertise to the board Gus­tav Bris­mark has exten­sive expe­ri­ence of patent and licens­ing issues and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of new tech­nol­o­gy. Until March this year the title of Chief Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Offi­cer at Eric­s­son. He has a long back­ground in research at Eric­s­son and has, since 2004, been work­ing on the cre­ation of busi­ness mod­els for and the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the company’s patent port­fo­lio. Now he’s part of the Smoltek team. “It is all about cre­at­ing both the tech­nol­o­gy and the busi­ness mod­els that enable the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the tech­nol­o­gy. And this can be found at Smoltek as the com­pa­ny now builds up a suc­cess­ful licens­ing mod­el using its tech­nol­o­gy, and I am extreme­ly impressed by what I see in the com­pa­ny. It is a very excit­ing time to become a part of Smoltek”, says Gus­tav Brismark. With his exper­tise, Gus­tav Bris­mark pro­vides a strate­gic addi­tion to the Board as Smoltek now works towards bring­ing its solu­tions with­in nan­otech­nol­o­gy clos­er to the mar­ket through licensing. “You have to find busi­ness in which both the own­er of the tech­nol­o­gy and those who want to use it, often large glob­al com­pa­nies, are all win­ners. Deal­ing with large com­pa­nies is always a com­plex busi­ness and in this con­text I can con­tribute in help­ing to find ways forward.” Image: Gus­tav Bris­mark, new Smoltek board member --- title: "New patent in Smoltek IP-portfolio" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-patent-in-smoltek-ip-portfolio/1336/" date: 2019-05-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_b21a87268cc842b59eaddce5006b513dmv2_d_2000_1393_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "patent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patent.md" - name: "patentrights" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patentrights.md" - name: "rickardandersson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/rickardandersson.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" --- # New patent in Smoltek IP-portfolio This, the 53rd of our grant­ed patents, has been issued in South Korea and belongs to our Cat­a­lyst Dif­fu­sion core patent fam­i­ly, and the patent right relates to man­u­fac­tur­ing of nanostructures. The gen­er­al spec­trum of the patent is that it pro­vides a way to impact the result­ed char­ac­ter­is­tics of the grown nanostructures. “It is reward­ing to see the patent pro­tec­tion of our core tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ue to strength­en”, says Smoltek CEO, Anders Johansson. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 53 grant­ed patents. Read more about our [IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). Image: Research Engi­neer Rickard Ander­s­son is proud of dis­play­ing Smoltek’s 53rd grant­ed patent. --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 52 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-52-now-granted/1334/" date: 2019-04-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_1fd29f4599cc4ac393e9d48fbbb51e15mv2_d_1200_1200_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 52 now granted “Through this expan­sion of our patent port­fo­lio foot­print in Tai­wan, we are strength­en­ing our posi­tion with­in the advanced pack­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy seg­ment”, says Dr. M. Shafiq Kabir, Smoltek´s CIO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 52 grant­ed patents. Read more about our [IP and patents](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek CEO Anders Johansson speaks at Advanced Engineering" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-ceo-anders-johansson-speaks-at-advanced-engineering/1332/" date: 2019-03-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_4897bd47bbea4263804215473374d547mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek CEO Anders Johansson speaks at Advanced Engineering The con­fer­ence offers the tech­nol­o­gy, the news and the sup­pli­ers that could make you the world leader in inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion – from devel­op­ment to design and manufacturing. Entrance is free of charge: [www.advanced-engineering-2019](https://www.advancedengineeringgbg.se/2019/03/29/advanced-engineering-elektronikmassan-2019-bjod-pa-affarsgladje-och-verkligt-givande-moten/) --- title: "Smoltek negotiate CNF-MIM demo project" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-negotiate-cnf-mim-demo-project/1330/" date: 2019-03-07 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/100-mm-silicon-wafer-with-selectively-grown-carbon-nanofibers-by-paul-wennerholm-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek negotiate CNF-MIM demo project Smoltek has entered into nego­ti­a­tions with Imec, the world-lead­ing research insti­tute, on demo pro­duc­tion of CNF-MIM capac­i­tors in indus­tri­al­ly com­pat­i­ble CMOS for­mat, so-called 300mm format. \- Imec is a unique play­er with a com­plete and indus­tri­al­ly com­pat­i­ble 300mm line, under one roof. They also have expe­ri­ence in the field of car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy, which we see as an added strength, says Anders Johans­son, CEO of Smoltek. \- This nego­ti­a­tion is entire­ly in line with what we com­mu­ni­cat­ed in our prospec­tus for the on-going share issue, to car­ry out demo pro­duc­tion of CMF-MIM capac­i­tors in an indus­tri­al­ly com­pat­i­ble full-scale for­mat environment. An agree­ment with Imec gives Smoltek an exter­nal part­ner for the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the tech­nol­o­gy, beyond its own lab envi­ron­ment, to present to pos­si­ble licensees. 300mm is the process for­mat that is the indus­try stan­dard for high vol­ume pro­duc­tion of CMOS-based semiconductors. **Imec in brief:** • World-lead­ing research and devel­op­ment cen­tre with­in micro- and nano­elec­tron­ics space. • Head­quar­ters, lab and indus­tri­al­ly com­pat­i­ble test fab in Leu­ven, Belgium • Glob­al pres­ence with own offices • 4,000 researchers • Non-prof­it-organ­i­sa­tion • Web­site: www.imec-int.com --- title: "Smoltek genomför Företrädesemission" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-genomfor-foretradesemission/1328/" date: 2019-03-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_e28602e68a7349e7bc5f1f05060e2889mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "investor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/investor.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" --- # Smoltek genomför Företrädesemission Prospek­tet har god­känts av Finansin­spek­tio­nen och finns till­gäng­ligt via länken nedan. **Prospekt:** [Inbju­dan att teck­na units i Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB](https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/e4e89e_1cd3249238f243eabc8c78a3863fd1cd.pdf) Mer infor­ma­tion om Företräde­se­mis­sio­nen finns under [Investors-fliken](https://investors.new.www.smoltek.com/) samt på [Emis­sions-sidan](https://investors.new.www.smoltek.com/). --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 51 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-51-now-granted/1326/" date: 2018-12-04 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_19ae472b765a4644bf326a0a66b6dcebmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 51 now granted The grant­ed patent cov­ers dif­fer­ent aspects of appli­ca­tion of nanos­truc­tures in the field of inter­con­nect­ing two adja­cent lay­ers which in this case may for exam­ple be two sil­i­con chips (die) for elec­tron­ic pack­ag­ing purposes. “We are wit­ness­ing the expan­sion of our patent port­fo­lio towards dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tions of our nanos­truc­ture tech­nol­o­gy. This par­tic­u­lar patent is strength­en­ing our posi­tion with­in the advanced pack­ag­ing seg­ment for inte­grat­ed cir­cuits with high­er per­for­mance at a small­er foot­print”, says Dr. M. Shafiq Kabir, Smoltek´s CIO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 51 grant­ed patents. Read more about our [IP and patents here](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). --- title: "Smoltek celebrates IP milestone" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-celebrates-ip-milestone/1324/" date: 2018-10-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/e4e89e_8e9351bf383b4c56bbf59e6946d868d8mv2_d_2000_1404_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" - name: "patent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/patent.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" --- # Smoltek celebrates IP milestone “Our 50th patent solid­i­fies our unique nanos­truc­ture growth plat­form tech­nol­o­gy that enables man­u­fac­tur­ing of nano­ma­te­r­i­al devices on CMOS plat­form. We are delight­ed to see that our IP foot­print is strength­ened in South Korea, anoth­er main hub for semi­con­duc­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing,” says Smoltek CIO, Dr. M. Shafiq Kabir. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 50 grant­ed patents. Read more about our [IP:s here](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). Image: CIO Dr Shafiq Kabir, Research Engi­neer Amin Saleem and COO Ola Tiver­man cel­e­brates Smoltek’s 50th grant­ed patent. For more infor­ma­tion on the sub­ject: [fredrik@www.smoltek.com](mailto:fredrik@www.smoltek.com) --- title: "New advances in the lab put Smoltek in an attractive market position" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-advances-in-the-lab-put-smoltek-in-an-attractive-market-position/1322/" date: 2018-09-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_77ee156d933b4d52aaa90bd585345889mv2_d_2000_1331_s_2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" --- # New advances in the lab put Smoltek in an attractive market position This is an impor­tant step towards licens­ing the tech­nol­o­gy con­cept to cus­tomers in the semi­con­duc­tor and elec­tron­ics indus­tries. And it will put Smoltek in an attrac­tive mar­ket position.  Smoltek presents new mea­sure­ments from the nan­otech­nol­o­gy research con­duct­ed by the com­pa­ny at Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Technology’s MC2 lab­o­ra­to­ry, in Gothenburg. Smoltek can now demon­strate a num­ber of capac­i­tor pro­to­types, based on car­bon nanofibers with a capac­i­tance den­si­ty of 200nF (nano­Farad) per square mil­lime­ter. The val­ue is two and a half times greater than the pre­vi­ous­ly ver­i­fied num­ber, which the com­pa­ny pre­sent­ed as recent­ly as in May this year, and has been achieved with short nanos­truc­tures, which gives a very low over­all pro­file height, an inte­gra­tional advantage. Smoltek can also con­firm low inter­nal resis­tance (ESR), an impor­tant para­me­ter for prac­ti­cal use of the con­cept. The com­pa­ny has already demon­strat­ed that the tech­nol­o­gy meets required break-down volt­age for the actu­al appli­ca­tion areas of interest. “This is a very impor­tant step for Smoltek, as it increas­es the attrac­tive­ness of our tech­nol­o­gy in the cus­tomer dia­logues in progress,” says Anders Johans­son, CEO of Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB. He fur­ther states that there are still opti­miza­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties in the con­cept for the future. “The new mea­sure­ment results con­firm Smoltek’s lead­ing posi­tion in inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy for inte­grat­ed pas­sive ele­ments. They again show that our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is high­ly rel­e­vant to meet­ing the chal­lenges of future inte­grat­ed cir­cuits – high­er per­for­mance on small­er sur­faces”, says CTO Pro­fes­sor Vin­cent Desmaris. To sum­ma­rize: Sim­ply expressed, the capac­i­tance den­si­ty refers to how many elec­trons can be stored per sur­face unit. That a high­er val­ue is mea­sured means that the desired per­for­mance of a capac­i­tor can be achieved on a small­er surface. --- title: "Come meet with us!" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/come-meet-with-us/1320/" date: 2018-08-31 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_fceb6b2b6aff4a15a2addf572f6b29cdmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" --- # Come meet with us! We will attend the fol­low­ing events this autumn. Don’t be a stranger, come meet with us! **Events Autumn 2018** 5–7 Sep­tem­ber [SEMICON Tai­wan](https://www.semicontaiwan.org/en), Taipei Taiwan CIO, Shafiq Kabir Ph.D. and COO, Ola Tiver­man is attending. 18 Sep­tem­ber [Glob­al Semi­con­duc­tor Alliance US](https://www.gsaglobal.org/past-events/) – Exec­u­tive Forum, Palo Alto, CA USA CEO, Anders Johans­son is attending. 14–17 Octo­ber [NMDC](https://ieeenmdc.org/past-conferences/nmdc-2018/), Port­land, OR USA Research Engi­neer Muham­mad Amin Saleem Ph.D. is attending. 23 Octo­ber [Nanofo­rum](https://web.archive.org/web/20190330045214/http://www.nanoforum2018.com:80/), Upp­sala Sweden COO, Ola Tiver­man is attending. This was a brief pre­sen­ta­tion of what we have in front of us in the start of the fall. We’ll be back with more infor­ma­tion as soon as we have some­thing to announce. Mean­while, you are wel­come to fol­low us on our social media channels. --- title: "Compact Energy Storage Interposer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/compact-energy-storage-interposer/1041/" date: 2018-08-23 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/us10770390pdf-1.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "advanced packaging" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/advanced-packaging.md" - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "interposer" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/interposer.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Compact Energy Storage Interposer The inven­tion: An inter­pos­er device com­pris­ing a first con­duc­tor pat­tern on a first side defin­ing a por­tion of the inter­pos­er device to be cov­ered by a first elec­tri­cal cir­cuit ele­ment; and a sec­ond con­duc­tor pat­tern on a sec­ond side to be con­nect­ed to a sec­ond elec­tri­cal cir­cuit ele­ment. The sec­ond con­duc­tor pat­tern is elec­tri­cal­ly cou­pled to the first con­duc­tor pat­tern. The inter­pos­er device fur­ther com­pris­es a plu­ral­i­ty of nanos­truc­ture ener­gy stor­age devices arranged with­in the por­tion of the inter­pos­er device to be cov­ered by the first elec­tri­cal cir­cuit ele­ment. Each of the nanos­truc­ture ener­gy stor­age devices com­pris­es at least a first plu­ral­i­ty of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures; a con­duc­tion con­trol­ling mate­r­i­al embed­ding the nanos­truc­tures; a first elec­trode con­nect­ed to each nanos­truc­ture in the first plu­ral­i­ty of nanos­truc­tures; and a sec­ond elec­trode sep­a­rat­ed from each nanos­truc­ture in the first plu­ral­i­ty of nanos­truc­tures by the con­duc­tion con­trol­ling material. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by USPTO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/us10770390.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------| | India | IN321032 | | South Korea | [KR102059450](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR102059450/en) | | South Korea | [KR102340123](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR102340123B1/en) | | USA | [US10770390](https://patents.google.com/patent/US10770390/en) | | USA | [US10991652](https://patents.google.com/patent/US10991652/en) | | Tai­wan | [I766072](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI766072B/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "On-chip solid-state CMOS compatible micro-supercapacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/on-chip-solid-state-cmos-compatible-micro-supercapacitors/919/" date: 2018-08-09 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-405123819-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # On-chip solid-state CMOS compatible micro-supercapacitors Using a fab­ri­ca­tion process and mate­ri­als that are com­plete­ly CMOS com­pat­i­ble, on-chip inte­grat­ed sol­id-state micro-super­ca­pac­i­tors using ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) and car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs) as elec­trode mate­r­i­al and an iono­gel as elec­trolyte have been man­u­fac­tured and char­ac­ter­ized. The car­bon nanos­truc­tures are grown direct­ly on the devices at tem­per­a­tures below 400 °C using a cat­alyt­ic CVD process. Build­ing on a pre­vi­ous study, an inter­dig­i­tat­ed capac­i­tor design was used with vary­ing size of the gaps between the dig­its, and nov­el elec­trolyte mate­ri­als were used to ensure oper­at­ing volt­ages of above 2 V. The devices were char­ac­ter­ized elec­tro­chem­i­cal­ly using cyclic voltam­me­try sweep­ing up to 2 V, gal­vano­s­ta­t­ic charg­ing and dis­charg­ing, and elec­tro­chem­i­cal imped­ance spec­troscopy. A capac­i­tance of 0.45 mF/​cm2 and 0.31 mF/​cm2 (per device foot­print area) was achieved for CNF based devices and CNT based devices respec­tive­ly. Both types of devices show a max­i­mum capac­i­tance for when the dis­tance between the dig­its are ca 30–50 μm, and low­er capac­i­tance val­ues for larg­er gap sizes. Cycle life mea­sure­ments show that the devices are sta­ble up to at least 2,000 cycles, and the high­est char­ac­ter­is­tic fre­quen­cies achieved are 223 Hz and 1,023.7 Hz for the CNF based and the CNT based devices respec­tive­ly. The char­ac­ter­is­tic fre­quen­cy is shown to decrease as the gap size increas­es. An equiv­a­lent cir­cuit mod­el is pre­sent­ed and used to show that the CNT based devices could be fur­ther improved by improv­ing the wet­ting of the elec­trode by the elec­trolyte. dense growth. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8429724/) --- title: "Direct Electrical and Mechanical Characterization of Carbon Nanofibers Turf Using a Probe Card and Nanoindentation" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/direct-electrical-and-mechanical-characterization-of-carbon-nanofibers-turf-using-a-probe-card-and-nanoindentation/917/" date: 2018-08-09 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cnf-turfs-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Direct Electrical and Mechanical Characterization of Carbon Nanofibers Turf Using a Probe Card and Nanoindentation Ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (VAC­N­Fs) turf are char­ac­ter­ized elec­tri­cal­ly and mechan­i­cal­ly for prospec­tive on-chip appli­ca­tions. The CNFs turf of 10 microm­e­ter diam­e­ter and 20 microm­e­ter pitch are fab­ri­cat­ed at high tem­per­a­ture (550 °C) and CMOS com­pat­i­ble tem­per­a­tures (390 °C) direct­ly on sil­i­con sub­strates where the num­ber of CNFs per μm2 area are 13 and 38 for the respec­tive growth tem­per­a­ture. The elec­tri­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion are accom­plished by using kelvin test struc­tures, and a poly­eth­yl­ene neph­tha­late based trans­par­ent probe card con­tain­ing Tita­ni­um and Gold based probe bumps of size 10 microm­e­ter in diam­e­ter and 20 microm­e­ter pitch. The entire prob­ing sys­tem not only have mea­sure­ment pre­ci­sion but also min­i­mizes the risks of dam­age to turf. The trans­mis­sion line mea­sure­ments (TLM)-based mod­el approach is used for the elec­tri­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion to de-embed the con­tact resis­tance con­tri­bu­tion and extract the intrin­sic prop­er­ties of a sin­gle CNF. Apply­ing the mod­el to the TLM mea­sure­ments yields a con­duc­tiv­i­ty of 6530 S/​m and 67000 S/​m for a sin­gle CNF grown at 390 °C and 550 °C, respec­tive­ly. The hard­ness and reduced mod­u­lus of fine pitch turf are mea­sured by using nanoin­den­ta­tion tech­nique. The CNFs grown at 390 °C have high­er elas­tic mod­u­lus (0.84–1 MPa) than 550 °C grown CNFs (0.26–0.84 MPa) due to dense growth. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8605909) --- title: "Integrated fully solid-state capacitor based on carbon nanofibers and dielectrics" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-fully-solid-state-capacitor-based-on-carbon-nanofibers-and-dielectrics/915/" date: 2018-08-09 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/uznvv_u6qkc-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Integrated fully solid-state capacitor based on carbon nanofibers and dielectrics Com­plete on-chip ful­ly sol­id-state 3D inte­grat­ed capac­i­tors using ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers as elec­trodes to pro­vide a large 3D sur­face in a MIM con­fig­u­ra­tion have been man­u­fac­tured and char­ac­ter­ized in terms of capac­i­tance per device foot­print area. The fibers are grown direct­ly on the bot­tom elec­trode sur­face and then con­for­mal­ly coat­ed with a dielec­tric mate­r­i­al using atom­ic lay­er depo­si­tion. Two dif­fer­ent dielec­tric mate­ri­als, Al2O3 and HfO2 , of dif­fer­ent thick­ness­es have been inves­ti­gat­ed, and dif­fer­ent con­struc­tions for the top elec­trode have been test­ed. The entire man­u­fac­tur­ing process is com­plete­ly CMOS com­pat­i­ble, which along with the low device pro­file of about 4 μm makes the devices read­i­ly avail­able for inte­gra­tion on a CMOS-chip, in 3D stack­ing, or in a 2.5D inter­pos­er tech­nol­o­gy. Capac­i­tance val­ues of up to 18.2 nF/​mm2 (per device foot­print area) are achieved reproducibly. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8429861) --- title: "Smoltek patent No. 49 now granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-patent-no-49-now-granted/1318/" date: 2018-06-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_22f184afa46e492597c7fa0adf9785f5mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "ip" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ip.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" - name: "shafiqkabir" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/shafiqkabir.md" - name: "vincentdesmaris" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/vincentdesmaris.md" --- # Smoltek patent No. 49 now granted The new Chi­nese patent strength­ens the posi­tion of our helplay­er patent fam­i­ly towards form­ing of nanos­truc­ture devices. The method cov­ers dif­fer­ent types of nanos­truc­tures includ­ing car­bon nan­otubes, nanofibers, nanowires etc. “Anoth­er con­fir­ma­tion of our unique nanos­truc­ture growth plat­form tech­nol­o­gy that enables man­u­fac­tur­ing of nano­ma­te­r­i­al devices on CMOS plat­form. We are hum­bled to see that our IP foot­print is con­stant­ly strength­en­ing in Chi­na, one of the main hubs for semi­con­duc­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing”, says Dr. M. Shafiq Kabir, Smoltek´s CIO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 49 grant­ed patents. --- title: "Nanoparticles-enabled low temperature growth of carbon nanofibers and their properties for supercapacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/nanoparticles-enabled-low-temperature-growth-of-carbon-nanofibers-and-their-properties-for-supercapacitors/921/" date: 2018-06-01 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/5392771-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Nanoparticles-enabled low temperature growth of carbon nanofibers and their properties for supercapacitors Car­bon nanos­truc­tures are of great inter­est for a vari­ety of appli­ca­tions, but their cur­rent pro­cess­ing through­put lim­its their indus­tri­al full scale deploy­ment. This paper presents a cost effec­tive and sim­ple fab­ri­ca­tion process, where ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers are grown using DC-PECVD at CMOS com­pat­i­ble tem­per­a­tures from cat­alyt­ic nanopar­ti­cles, spin-coat­ed from sta­ble poly­mer-nanopar­ti­cle col­loidal sus­pen­sions. Two dif­fer­ent cat­a­lysts, Co and Cu, are inves­ti­gat­ed by grow­ing car­bon nanofibers at tem­per­a­tures rang­ing from 390 °C to 550 °C, using sus­pen­sions with var­i­ous con­cen­tra­tions of nanopar­ti­cles. The length and mor­phol­o­gy of the grown nanofibers are exam­ined using SEM and the elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties are inves­ti­gat­ed using elec­tro­chem­i­cal mea­sure­ments on sam­ples arranged as super­ca­pac­i­tor devices. Ver­ti­cal­ly aligned CNFs are suc­cess­ful­ly grown from both types of cat­a­lyst. The Co-derived fibers are long and arranged in a denser car­pet-like struc­ture, while the Cu-derived fibers are short­er and in a spars­er for­ma­tion of free-stand­ing indi­vid­ual fibers. All elec­tro­chem­i­cal mea­sure­ments show typ­i­cal super­ca­pac­i­tor behav­iour even at high scan rates of 200 mV/​s , with the fibers grown from Co show­ing great increase in capac­i­tance over the bare chip ref­er­ence device, includ­ing the sam­ples grown at 390 °C. [Read more](https://aml.iaamonline.org/article_15213.html) --- title: "Smoltek reveals a fivefold increase of capacitance performance" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-reveals-a-fivefold-increase-of-capacitance-performance/1317/" date: 2018-05-16 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_773cbfa7d72d4ffea35b0ccebf810a1amv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "cnf-mim" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/cnf-mim.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek reveals a fivefold increase of capacitance performance Smoltek reveals con­sid­er­able improve­ment for its CNF-MIM™ sol­id state capac­i­tor con­cept under devel­op­ment. The Smoltek inno­va­tion team has man­aged to increase capacitance/​area by 5 times com­pared to what has been pre­vi­ous­ly demon­strat­ed by the company. This con­sid­er­able improve­ment puts Smoltek’s CNF-MIM™ con­cept in the capacitance/​form fac­tor sweet spot for het­ero­ge­neous­ly inte­grat­ed cir­cuits – between tra­di­tion­al MIM capac­i­tors and so called Trench Sil­i­con Capac­i­tors. These sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments have been con­firmed by sev­er­al sets of mea­sure­ments where dif­fer­ent capac­i­tors from sev­er­al inde­pen­dent pro­duc­tion runs have been measured. “This is in line with our opti­miza­tion roadmap and acknowl­edge the com­pet­i­tive­ness of the Smoltek CNF-MIM car­bon nanofiber enhanced solu­tion ver­sus tra­di­tion­al MIM capac­i­tor real­iza­tions”, says Anders Johans­son, CEO at Smoltek. “The results achieved by the team real­ly put Smoltek on the world map in terms of inte­grat­ed pas­sive device tech­nol­o­gy and shows that our capac­i­tor tech­nol­o­gy is not only dis­rup­tive but extreme­ly rel­e­vant for future het­eroge­nous inte­gra­tion schemes”, says Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO at Smoltek. Smoltek will be present at ECTC 2018 in San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia May 30 – June 1 and will be hap­py to meet up and dis­cuss the advan­tages of this tech­nol­o­gy more in detail. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#about-smoltek)About Smoltek The Com­pa­ny was found­ed in 2005 and is a pub­lic com­pa­ny based in Gothen­burg, Swe­den. Smoltek spe­cial­izes in devel­op­ment of nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy to solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems. Smoltek has a port­fo­lio of 65 patent assets, of which 48 are grant­ed today. The mar­ket seg­ment where Smoltek is active is called Advanced Pack­ag­ing and is esti­mat­ed by Research & Mar­kets in a mar­ket update from Sep­tem­ber 2017 to grow with an aver­age of 7,19 per­cent per year (CAGR) dur­ing the peri­od 2016–2022 and have a mar­ket val­ue of 40,33 MdUSD by year 2022. --- title: "Invitation to our AGM" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/invitation-to-our-agm/1315/" date: 2018-04-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_d54ac20f36d34f13adb405d9ba5ad69dmv2_d_4158_4158_s_4_2-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "investor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/investor.md" - name: "publiccompany" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/publiccompany.md" --- # Invitation to our AGM You find more infor­ma­tion on the [Investor Rela­tions page on our website.](https://investors.new.www.smoltek.com/) --- title: "Smoltek strengthens the management team" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-strengthens-the-management-team/1313/" date: 2018-03-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_342413647d954a489a0af67a1c7b5acbmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "management" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/management.md" - name: "olativerman" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/olativerman.md" --- # Smoltek strengthens the management team Ola Tiver­man has a degree in com­put­er sci­ence and elec­tron­ics. He has a lot of expe­ri­ence as a busi­ness­man in high-tech pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies on the glob­al mar­ket. His pre­vi­ous employ­ments includes Car­men Sys­tems, Todos Data Sys­tem and Admeta and he has had many posi­tions; for exam­ple Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer and Vice Pres­i­dent. His lat­est job was as an Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er in the Data Cloud sec­tion at Burt AB. He has been a board direc­tor at Smoltek since Decem­ber 2017 and has also been a mem­ber of the company’s Advi­so­ry board. Smoltek’s new Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer is excit­ed about his new job: “Smoltek has a unique, patent­ed solu­tion to sev­er­al key issues in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, which the­o­ret­i­cal­ly can have very big effects. I want to con­tribute to the the­o­ry in the best pos­si­ble way. I have been fol­low­ing the com­pa­ny for sev­er­al years and I’m look­ing for­ward to con­tribute to every­thing from strat­e­gy and busi­ness devel­op­ment to the oper­a­tions of the com­pa­ny togeth­er with Anders Johans­son and the team”, says Ola Tiverman. The CEO Anders Johans­son is hap­py about the new mem­ber of the man­age­ment team: “I’m look­ing for­ward to get Ola in place in the man­age­ment team as Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer. We have a lot to do and Ola’s skills, expe­ri­ence and per­son­al­i­ty will be a strong com­ple­ment to the rest of the team. We will step up thanks to this strate­gic recruit­ment”, says Anders Johansson. It becomes nat­ur­al for Ola Tiver­man to leave the board of direc­tors because of his new oper­at­ing posi­tion in the com­pa­ny. The work on find­ing a replace­ment in the board of direc­tors has already start­ed. The com­pa­ny intends to present a new can­di­date before the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing on May 24th. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#about-smoltek)About Smoltek The Com­pa­ny was found­ed in 2005 and is a pub­lic com­pa­ny based in Gothen­burg, Swe­den. It spe­cial­izes in devel­op­ment of nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy to solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems. Smoltek has a port­fo­lio of 65 patent assets, of which 48 are grant­ed today. The mar­ket seg­ment where Smoltek is active is called Advanced Pack­ag­ing and is esti­mat­ed by Research & Mar­kets in a mar­ket update from Sep­tem­ber 2017 to grow with an aver­age of 7,19 per­cent per year (CAGR) dur­ing the peri­od 2016–2022 and have a mar­ket val­ue of 40,33 MdUSD by year 2022. --- title: "First day of trading on Monday" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/first-day-of-trading-on-monday/1312/" date: 2018-02-23 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_773cbfa7d72d4ffea35b0ccebf810a1amv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "investor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/investor.md" - name: "publiccompany" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/publiccompany.md" --- # First day of trading on Monday Smoltek’s new share issue gave a pos­i­tive result and was sub­scribed to 168 per­cent. At the time for the trad­ing start will our CEO Anders Johans­son ring the bell at Akti­eTor­get in Stock­holm to announce that Smoltek’s IPO is now com­plet­ed. Then the trad­ing is offi­cial­ly started. The CEO, Anders Johans­son, is excit­ed about the future: “This is a com­plete­ly new and very excit­ing step for Smoltek! Now we are look­ing for­ward to the company’s next phase. We are hop­ing for a con­tin­ued strong inter­est from the stock mar­ket”, says Anders Johansson. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#trading-codes)Trading codes Short name of the share: SMOL ISIN code: SE0010820381 CFI code: ESVUFR FISN code: SMOLTEKNAN/​SH Part­ner Fond­kom­mis­sion has been Smoltek’s finan­cial advisor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#about-smoltek)About Smoltek The Com­pa­ny was found­ed in 2005 and is a pub­lic com­pa­ny based in Gothen­burg, Swe­den. It spe­cial­izes in devel­op­ment of nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy to solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems. Smoltek has a port­fo­lio of 65 patent assets, of which 48 are grant­ed today. The mar­ket seg­ment where Smoltek is active is called Advanced Pack­ag­ing and is esti­mat­ed by Research & Mar­kets in a mar­ket update from Sep­tem­ber 2017 to grow with an aver­age of 7,19 per­cent per year (CAGR) dur­ing the peri­od 2016–2022 and have a mar­ket val­ue of 40,33 MdUSD by year 2022. --- title: "Smoltek’s IPO was subscribed to 168 percent" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smolteks-ipo-was-subscribed-to-168-percent/1311/" date: 2018-02-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_405586441219405fb7fdaff32a60cad1mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "investor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/investor.md" - name: "publiccompany" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/publiccompany.md" --- # Smoltek’s IPO was subscribed to 168 percent Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB’s offer before the list­ing at Akti­eTor­get was over­sub­scribed with 68 per­cent. In oth­er words, Smoltek’s IPO was sub­scribed for to 168 per­cent. The com­pa­ny will receive 20,0 mil­lion SEK before the new share issue costs, which will amount to approx­i­mate­ly 2,0 mil­lion SEK. The sub­scrip­tion peri­od for Smoltek’s offer was ter­mi­nat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 9, 2018. 650 investors have applied for shares in the offer result­ing in that Smoltek have now 711 share­hold­ers. The num­ber of shares will increase by 1 117 300 shares to a total of 5 314 450 shares when the new share issue is reg­is­tered at Bolagsver­ket. In advance, a num­ber of qual­i­fied investors pre-com­mit­ted sub­scrip­tions for shares equiv­a­lent to a val­ue of 10,0 mil­lion SEK, cor­re­spond­ing to 50,0 per­cent of the offer. The CEO of the nan­otech com­pa­ny, Anders Johans­son, is very sat­is­fied with the result of the new share issue: ”I think it is a fan­tas­tic result with such a high sub­scrip­tion rate! It is encour­ag­ing that hard­ware-relat­ed tech­nol­o­gy now attracts such a great deal of inter­est, not least in these shaky times on the stock mar­kets. We have now estab­lished the finan­cial plat­form for our next phase”, says Anders Johansson. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#allocation-and-payment)Allocation and payment Due to the high lev­el of sub­scrip­tions can full allo­ca­tion not be made. Allo­ca­tion of shares has been decid­ed by the board in agree­ment with the allo­ca­tion prin­ci­ples estab­lished in the infor­ma­tion mem­o­ran­dum dat­ed in Jan­u­ary 2018. Con­tract notes will be sent to sub­scribers who have been award­ed allo­ca­tion on Feb­ru­ary 13 with set­tle­ment on Feb­ru­ary 16. The first day of trad­ing at Akti­eTor­get will be Feb­ru­ary 26, 2018. Part­ner Fond­kom­mis­sion has been Smoltek’s finan­cial advisor. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#about-smoltek)About Smoltek The Com­pa­ny was found­ed in 2005 and is a pub­lic com­pa­ny based in Gothen­burg, Swe­den. It spe­cial­izes in devel­op­ment of nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy to solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems. Smoltek has a port­fo­lio of 65 patent assets, of which 48 are grant­ed today. The mar­ket seg­ment where Smoltek is active is called Advanced Pack­ag­ing and is esti­mat­ed by Research & Mar­kets in a mar­ket update from Sep­tem­ber 2017 to grow with an aver­age of 7,19 per­cent per year (CAGR) dur­ing the peri­od 2016–2022 and have a mar­ket val­ue of 40,33 MdUSD by year 2022. --- title: "Smoltek receives order from global manufacturer of consumer electronic" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-receives-order-from-global-manufacturer-of-consumer-electronic/1310/" date: 2018-02-06 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_773cbfa7d72d4ffea35b0ccebf810a1amv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" --- # Smoltek receives order from global manufacturer of consumer electronic Anders Johans­son, CEO Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB +46 708–393 693 [anders@www.smoltek.com](mailto:anders@www.smoltek.com) --- title: "The subscription period has started" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/the-subscription-period-has-started/1309/" date: 2018-01-29 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_773cbfa7d72d4ffea35b0ccebf810a1amv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "investor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/investor.md" - name: "publiccompany" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/publiccompany.md" --- # The subscription period has started Sub­scrip­tion com­mit­ments cor­re­spond­ing to 10,0 MSEK has been obtained in con­junc­tion with the issue. The sub­scrip­tion peri­od lasts between Jan­u­ary 29 and Feb­ru­ary 9. The CEO of the nan­otech com­pa­ny, Anders Johans­son, looks for­ward to going pub­lic. He is pleased with the approval at Aktietorget: “This is a mile­stone for Smoltek! There is a great inter­est for the com­pa­ny and the pub­lic share issue that starts today (Jan­u­ary 29). Half of the share issue is already secured through sub­scrip­tion com­mit­ments. We are now gear­ing up and the IPO at Akti­eTor­get will be the sup­port­ing plat­form for that”, says Anders Johansson. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#about-smoltek)About Smoltek Smoltek was found­ed in 2005 and is based in Gothen­burg, Swe­den. Smoltek spe­cial­izes in devel­op­ment of nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy for the glob­al semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. Smoltek has a port­fo­lio of 65 patent assets, where­of 48 are grant­ed. Smoltek is address­ing the Advanced Pack­ag­ing mar­ket which is esti­mat­ed by Research & Mar­kets in a mar­ket update from Sep­tem­ber 2017 to grow with an aver­age of 7,19 per­cent per year (CAGR) dur­ing the peri­od 2016–2022 and have a mar­ket val­ue of $40,33 bil­lion in 2022. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#offer-before-the-ipo-at-aktietorget)Offer before the IPO at Aktietorget Sub­scrip­tion price: 17,90 SEK per share Sub­scrip­tion peri­od: Jan­u­ary 29 – Feb­ru­ary 9 2018 Issuance vol­ume: 20,0 MSEK Sub­scrip­tion com­mit­ments: 10,0 MSEK, 50,0 % of the offer First day of trad­ing: Feb­ru­ary 26 2018 Part­ner Fond­kom­mis­sion is our finan­cial advisor. --- title: "Breaking barriers: The future" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-future/1255/" date: 2018-01-22 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/horizon-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # Breaking barriers: The future My 8 year old daugh­ter just learned how to text in an Ipad! And that was it, she become obsessed in writ­ing small, small text and express­ing emo­tions using emo­jis! Only with­in two days, when we have argu­ments and things do not go in her way, instead of cry­ing (as it used to be) she learned how to express her emo­tions through mes­sag­ing! This is per­haps the future of dig­i­tal gen­er­a­tion with an accel­er­at­ed adop­tion of high tech gad­gets, chang­ing our ges­tures & means of dig­i­tal emo­tion­al expres­sions and the demands on func­tion­al­i­ty sim­ply will break through the roof. This is how­ev­er maybe a bit scary as a par­ent but one can­not stop the future to be hap­pen­ing rather per­haps can take appro­pri­ate mea­sure instead. Part of being a techy par­ent, we can guess where the future maybe going. More­over, as a techy entre­pre­neur, we know that so many things that are tech­ni­cal­ly with­in our reach com­bin­ing nan­otech­nol­o­gy and nanomaterials! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-future)The future Speak­ing of the future, let’s start from what we have just wit­nessed in the year 2018! A nice info­graph­ic by ([@lorillewis](https://twitter.com/lorilewis) & [@officiallyChadd](https://twitter.com/OfficiallyChadd) above) sum­ma­rizes our 60 sec­onds on this dig­i­tal earth! Smart­phones has already made all the but­tons as a thing of the past. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/this-is-what-happensin-an-internet-minute-2018-600x600.webp) Bio­met­ric pass­words becom­ing the norm, drone based dri­ver­less deliv­ery have start­ed, the rise of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) is wit­nessed. And my per­son­al favorite is every­thing becom­ing wire­less includ­ing head­phones, charg­ing sta­tions etc. How­ev­er, Nan­otech­nol­o­gy has already been imple­ment­ed in the semi­con­duc­tor pro­duc­tion for decades to con­tin­ue with advanced scal­ing the hard­ware plat­form e.g. through dif­fer­ent tech­nol­o­gy nodes. What is more­over new to the indus­try is to inte­grate nano­ma­te­ri­als to enhance, empow­er and revamp the future of hard­ware platforms.  Con­nect­ing back to [Break­ing Bar­ri­ers Part II](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers2), the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try has reached to a point of tech­nol­o­gy scal­ing where inno­va­tion and inno­v­a­tive mate­ri­als are in demand to move for­ward with future scal­ing, per­for­mance enhance­ments, eco­nom­ics of scale and func­tion­al­i­ty enrich­ment. Through the info­graph­ics sum­ma­riz­ing our 60 sec­onds also show­ing that we are wit­ness­ing a tran­si­tion from hard­ware dri­ven soft­ware plat­form to soft­ware dri­ven hard­ware specifications.  Some cool stuffs in and around the corner:  An exam­ple of devel­op­ment of nano­ma­te­ri­als to con­sumer prod­ucts is por­trayed in the info­graph­ic below. Some exam­ple nano­ma­te­ri­als com­pa­ny are shown break­ing bar­ri­ers to enter into the mar­kets to give some fla­vor to our dis­cus­sions about prod­ucts around the corner. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/from-nano-materials-toconsumer-products-600x318.png) *From nano mate­ri­als to con­sumer prod­ucts*. Per­haps you already have a smart­phone which is water repel­lent. Then you maybe already reap­ing the ben­e­fits of a prod­uct made out of nano­ma­te­ri­als! [P2i](https://www.p2i.com/) is a nano­ma­te­r­i­al com­pa­ny that has fig­ured out a way to con­vert mol­e­cules into water repel­lent nano­ma­te­ri­als coat­ing! They already have shipped 250+ Mil­lions of devices includ­ing smart­phones, head­phones, Blue­tooth head­sets and hear­ing aids pro­tect­ed through their nano­ma­te­r­i­al technology.  Now, what could be the nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion of smart­phone or gad­gets in the com­ing years? Could it be flex­i­ble smart­phone design that may win the consumer’s inter­est, or per­haps gad­gets with even bend­able or stretch­able dis­plays? Well then, C3NANO and Canatu are doing the right thing to bring such fan­ta­sy into reality;  [C3NANO](https://c3nano.com/) essen­tial­ly glue or fuse sil­ver nanowires at nanoscale mak­ing the mate­ri­als enhanc­ing both the trans­paren­cy and the touch sen­si­tiv­i­ty performances. [Canatu](https://canatu.com/) bring­ing their pro­pri­etary [Car­bon NanoBud®](https://canatu.com/products/) mate­r­i­al, which enable design free­dom for touch inter­faces with the abil­i­ty to stretch the screen to more than 200%. Such car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als can be bent and flexed in tighter radii than 1 mm! Thanks to the involved car­bon atoms which does not reflect any light, enables touch dis­plays with deep black and high con­trast. Maybe one day soon they will enable com­plete­ly trans­par­ent mon­i­tors which were seen in sci-fi movies like in The Avengers a reality.  Then why to miss out the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy the extreme­ly detailed per­fect­ly col­ored res­o­lu­tion in vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) expe­ri­ence? Hope­ful­ly we won’t, since [Glo](http://www.glo.se/) is bring­ing their het­ero­ge­neous nano­ma­te­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy to enable just that!  Trans­par­ent bend­able dis­play, and VR expe­ri­ence may be cool, but how often do we charge our smart­phone? Would it be even more cool if we could charge our smart­phone in less than 60 sec­onds? [Store­dot](https://www.store-dot.com/) aims to empow­er exact­ly that. They are exploit­ing nano­ma­te­ri­als in the form of par­ti­cles includ­ing sil­i­con, car­bon and some more ele­ments to enable the quick charging.  Still, It’s the inside that counts So far we have been talk­ing about the out­side of a smart­phone. How about the inside of a smart­phone, which essen­tial­ly enables us to do so much of mag­ic with our fin­ger­tips? No wor­ries, we have that cov­ered as well. Let’s high­light two essen­tials parts, or the brain if you will, of a smart gad­get like smart­phone: (a) the App proces­sor and (b) the mem­o­ry. The more arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence ([AI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence)), aug­ment­ed real­i­ty ([AR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality)) and vir­tu­al real­i­ty ([VR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality)) we would like to expe­ri­ence, the bet­ter these two guys need to be in the form of com­pu­ta­tion­al pow­er, mem­o­ry band­width and pow­er efficiency. [Nan­tero](http://nantero.com/) is bring­ing car­bon nan­otubes to build high-den­si­ty non-volatile mem­o­ry called NRAM® that is incred­i­bly fast, can deliv­er the poten­tial for ter­abits of stor­age in a sin­gle chip while con­sum­ing very lit­tle pow­er. If you sud­den­ly got 10x faster mem­o­ry in your next gad­get, don’t get sur­prised, it may be from them.  Now what about the App proces­sor? The App micro­proces­sor does the real­ly hard job (the com­pu­ta­tion­al work) to enable an app to run a func­tion through our fin­ger­tips. More­over, the rise of AI, and greater demands for AR, VR and many oth­er func­tion­al­i­ties, the App micro­proces­sor needs to work ter­ri­bly hard to coup up with the com­pu­ta­tion­al pow­er demand. To get into a slight­ly deep­er inside of the app proces­sor, such spiky pow­er demands are stag­ger­ing­ly high that stress­es the cor­re­spond­ing cir­cuit pow­er man­age­ment to mal­func­tion. Such event can lead to slow pace in the app to func­tion or worse case hic­cups or even shut­down of the processor!  Smoltek tech­nol­o­gy will ful­fill such high paced demand for pow­er bank at a very small foot­print. It’s [CNF-MIM](https://www.smoltek.com/cnf-mim) tech­nol­o­gy exploits car­bon nanofibers mate­ri­als to build such pow­er bank in the form of high val­ue capac­i­tors which can be placed direct­ly inside and around an App proces­sor to tack­le such pow­er surge so that the mam­moth orches­tra of com­pu­ta­tion­al work can run smooth­ly with­out a hiccup.  The beau­ty of Smoltek’s CNF-MIM capac­i­tors is enabling a 3D sur­face area in a 2D foot­print! Smoltek how­ev­er is not sat­is­fied with just that, but also want to bring the ben­e­fits of car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als even for 2.5D and 3D [advanced pack­ag­ing](https://semiengineering.com/design-for-advanced-packaging/) and [het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion](https://www.3dincites.com/2015/01/heterogeneous-3d-integration/) solu­tions, so that more com­plex, embed­ded and pow­er hun­gry sys­tems can be assem­bled togeth­er at a small­er, slick­er footprint.  To sum up, some tech­nol­o­gy is tak­ing longer than oth­er but the pic­ture is con­verg­ing to bring prod­ucts to mar­ket. Every­one have their own way of exploit­ing the prop­er­ties of nano­ma­te­ri­als for good. The dif­fer­ence is made in the inno­v­a­tive approach­es and it is all about pay­ing atten­tion to the details. For nano­ma­te­ri­als case such atten­tion has hap­pened to be down to the nano lev­el or even per­haps atom­ic lev­el. Under­stand­ing of dif­fer­ent mech­a­nisms behind what mat­ters and what not at that lev­el cre­ates the oppor­tu­ni­ty for inno­va­tions to improve the functions/​properties of a device. The defin­i­tive areas where the nano­ma­te­ri­als impact­ing are: small­er, faster, per­for­mance enhance­ment, embed­ded func­tion­al­i­ty, light-weight, eco-friend­ly and of course more for the buck. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#breaking-the-barriers)Breaking the barriers [Smoltek](https://www.smoltek.com), the com­pa­ny once I have start­ed and lived through and wit­ness­ing how bar­ri­ers are bro­ken in many dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives. The jour­ney start­ed with a tiny lit­tle idea of a prod­uct on mak­ing a sen­sor based on grown car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als. The ini­tial idea didn’t fly in the indus­try obvi­ous­ly due to a tech­ni­cal issue or even a bot­tle­neck: the tem­per­a­ture to grow these nano­ma­te­ri­als is so high that it would kill oth­er devices.  We took a piv­ot at that point to focus and solve that par­tic­u­lar tem­per­a­ture prob­lem. Through many years of R&D, the team have fig­ured out a few engi­neer­ing nobs that can be played with to tune process­es to enable grow­ing car­bon nanos­truc­tures on a giv­en sur­face. The sur­face can be any­thing, includ­ing alu­mini­um foil from our kitchen! Smoltek’s main break­through came when we found the sweet spot to grow car­bon nanofibers at a tem­per­a­ture below 390 °C. Break­through in grow­ing the car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als at below 390°C, an indus­try com­pat­i­ble tem­per­a­ture, also have bro­ken the hard­est tech­ni­cal barrier. This is the bor­der line for CMOS indus­try, the indus­try that makes up the dig­i­tal world as of today. From this point on indus­tri­al appli­ca­tion can take off. At this stage we were only wel­comed by the indus­try but yet to be want­ed. Now we had to proof what our nano­ma­te­r­i­al growth tech­nol­o­gy could be good for. Anoth­er bar­ri­er popped up: Find­ing a pain point for indus­try where our mate­ri­als fit to release the pain becomes the next bar­ri­er to break. And we found one, the capacitor! The unbeat­able form fac­tor and 10–100× small­er foot­print com­pared to exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy opens up the door to dis­rupt (replace) exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy in many tech­nol­o­gy ver­ti­cals. What Smoltek is build­ing in terms of capac­i­tor, in gener­ic terms can be con­sid­ered as an ener­gy stor­age bank. We can store tremen­dous amount of charge with­in a very small foot­print. Free­ing out impor­tant and expen­sive real-estate area on a sil­i­con chip or a PCB. Today, com­pa­ny is gear­ing up its activ­i­ties togeth­er with indus­tri­al play­ers to bring the tech­nol­o­gy into product(s). ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/transforming-nanomaterials-into-products.png) Smoltek trans­forms nano­ma­te­ri­als into products. The capac­i­tor is one of the fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for any giv­en cir­cuit. It is used for many rea­sons. One of the most essen­tial use of them is to be used for man­ag­ing pow­er glitch­es that may occur dur­ing the switch­ing events of bil­lions of tran­sis­tors. Such a gigan­tic orches­tra is typ­i­cal­ly har­mo­nized through using capac­i­tors at dif­fer­ent lev­els of cir­cuits so the music can be played out with­out a hitch. The high val­ue capac­i­tors can then find its way inside high per­form­ing micro­proces­sors for AR, VR, AI, smart­phones, cloud com­put­ing, tablets, lap­tops, wear­ables, het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion and even­tu­al­ly any oth­er inter­net of things (IoT) inspired elec­tron­ic devices or gadgets. The rea­son behind why Smoltek’s capac­i­tor device is so cool is due to the ver­sa­til­i­ty of its form fac­tor! Depend­ing on the demand of an appli­ca­tion, the form fac­tors can be changed to boost­ed up the ener­gy stor­age capac­i­ty. For inter­net of things, pow­er man­age­ment will be essen­tial at a very small footprint. Intro­duc­tion of AI into the Smart­phone have start­ed and demand will con­tin­ue to enable per­form­ing local AI tasks with­out being in con­nect­ing with the cloud. VR and AR will also hit the road to cre­ate tremen­dous load on the pow­er man­age­ment of indi­vid­ual proces­sors. To make them func­tion­ing with­out a pow­er glitch, the capac­i­tor banks will act as the sav­ior of the day. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-inevitability-and-some-reflections)The inevitability and some reflections The poten­tial of Nano­ma­te­ri­als tech­nol­o­gy enables such deeply root­ed tech­nol­o­gy that every sec­tor of the hard­ware plat­form is bound to be ben­e­fit­ed when exploit­ed appro­pri­ate­ly. ‘Less is more’ per­haps a per­fect way of sum­ma­riz­ing about the nano­ma­te­ri­als. We have reached to an inflec­tion point in tech­no­log­i­cal progress where my take is, nano­ma­te­ri­als are no longer a choice, nei­ther about dis­rup­tions, rather it is about inevitabil­i­ty to dri­ve the future. The exist­ing hard­ware plat­form and soft­ware have brought the world with­in our thumb. I won­der what our thumb will be empow­ered to do when the fusion of nano­ma­te­ri­als and nan­otech­nol­o­gy is real­ized. Some­thing worth watch­ing for. What­ev­er direc­tion the future gad­gets will take, we have it all cov­ered through nano­ma­te­ri­als and nan­otech­nol­o­gy. After over a decade of wit­ness­ing the shift from being only hype to real­i­ty, cre­at­ing paths which did not exist, it is indeed a very strange mix of inex­press­ibly touchy feel­ings to observe that things are sud­den­ly align­ing in order. Indus­tri­al inter­est increas­ing from day to day to come up inte­gra­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties not only towards our own envi­sioned appli­ca­tion but also for the customer’s own iden­ti­fied applications. Such an entre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney would have not been pos­si­ble with­out the sys­tem that sup­ports it and the peo­ple sup­port­ing such endeav­ors to stay in the course of devel­op­ment. The team, and the investors all have shown tremen­dous entre­pre­neur­ial sta­mi­na to come to this far. It is once again show­ing the case that the entre­pre­neurs do not take ‘no’ for an answer. And the word ‘fail­ure’ do not exists in their dictionary. I how­ev­er have real­ized that I am only get­ting warmed up and ready to shift my gear to bring the future to the real­i­ty through accel­er­at­ed inno­va­tions and indus­tri­al­iza­tion. We sure­ly have more bar­ri­ers to break. Such bar­ri­ers how­ev­er do not con­cern me since it is in our nature to break­ing barriers! The jour­ney in bring­ing the nano­ma­te­ri­als to the soci­ety evi­dent­ly cre­at­ing more oppor­tu­ni­ties for investors, cre­ate more jobs for high­ly tal­ent­ed peo­ple and not but least more super smart gad­gets to enjoy the life for our­selves and for the gen­er­a­tion to come. Visu­al­iz­ing such sce­nario, I am feel­ing a hid­den plea­sure of my vision of turn­ing a sim­ple idea into soci­etal val­ues to be a real­i­ty. Such feel­ings make me to wake up every morn­ing and go to work and dri­ves me to do what I do. * * * ICYMI: The pre­vi­ous arti­cle in the series: [Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part II: The Real­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-reality/1227/), and of course the first arti­cle in the series: [Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part I: The Hype](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-hype/1220/). --- title: "Smoltek receives order from leading process technology supplier" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-receives-order-from-leading-process-technology-supplier/1307/" date: 2018-01-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_405586441219405fb7fdaff32a60cad1mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "andersjohansson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/andersjohansson.md" - name: "investor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/investor.md" --- # Smoltek receives order from leading process technology supplier The CEO of the nan­otech com­pa­ny, Anders Johans­son, is very pleased with the progress of the company. “This order demon­strates a real inter­est in eval­u­at­ing Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy, in this case for a cus­tomer spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tion for which the cus­tomer has iden­ti­fied a busi­ness poten­tial. This proves that our tech­nol­o­gy is inter­est­ing already at this point. We see this as a con­fir­ma­tion of that the time has now come for Smoltek”, says Anders Johansson. The actu­al order is for a cus­tomer spe­cif­ic appli­ca­tion and includes pro­duc­tion of tai­lor-made test devices. Smoltek plans to com­plete the deliv­ery dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2018. **About Smoltek** Smoltek was found­ed in 2005 and is based in Gothen­burg, Swe­den. Smoltek spe­cial­izes in devel­op­ment of nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy for the glob­al semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. Smoltek has a port­fo­lio of 65 patent assets, where­of 48 are grant­ed. Smoltek is address­ing the Advanced Pack­ag­ing mar­ket which is esti­mat­ed by Research & Mar­kets in a mar­ket update from Sep­tem­ber 2017 to grow with an aver­age of 7,19 per­cent per year (CAGR) dur­ing the peri­od 2016–2022 and have a mar­ket val­ue of $40,33 bil­lion in 2022. Smoltek’s IPO is planned to late Feb­ru­ary. The IPO will be pre­ced­ed by a pub­lic share issue. **For fur­ther information:** Anders Johans­son, CEO Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB +46 708–393 693 [anders@www.smoltek.com](mailto:anders@www.smoltek.com) --- title: "Announcing Initial Public Offering for Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/announcing-initial-public-offering-for-smoltek/1305/" date: 2018-01-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_773cbfa7d72d4ffea35b0ccebf810a1amv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "board" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/board.md" - name: "bohedfors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/bohedfors.md" - name: "investor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/investor.md" - name: "olativerman" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/olativerman.md" - name: "peteraugustsson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/peteraugustsson.md" - name: "publiccompany" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/publiccompany.md" --- # Announcing Initial Public Offering for Smoltek “This is the right time for an IPO as we have entered a new phase of inter­est in Smoltek. We are get­ting spe­cif­ic inquiries from lead­ing indus­tri­al play­ers where our nan­otech­nol­o­gy can be the solu­tion to their prob­lems. We aim to be a future key play­er in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and the requests we are get­ting shows that we will be play­ing an impor­tant role on our way towards that goal”, says Anders Johans­son, CEO of Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ing AB. **New board­mem­bers** Peter Augusts­son, pre­vi­ous CEO and chair­man of Saab Auto­mo­bile, has been vot­ed new Chair­man of the board of Smoltek Nan­otech Hold­ning AB. Bo Hed­fors, pre­vi­ous Exec­u­tive VP of Motorola. Ola Tiver­man, Exec­u­tive VP of Burt, are new mem­bers of the board. --- title: "Breaking barriers: The reality" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-reality/1227/" date: 2017-12-13 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/yz1kx79vvzi-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # Breaking barriers: The reality We all are liv­ing in a con­nect­ed world. We and every­thing sur­rounds us for that mat­ter is con­nect­ed or at the verge of con­nect­ing to the extent that we are wit­ness­ing a world with­in a world! Let’s dive into my naive way of look­ing at the real­i­ty as a nan­otech entre­pre­neur and how the oppor­tu­ni­ties for nan­otech star­tups are emerging. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-reality)The Reality In less than a gen­er­a­tion, we have been equipped with so many gad­gets that we have start­ed los­ing count on them. Tech­nol­o­gy has mod­ern­ized us to the extent that we have become habit­u­at­ed to many ges­tures so heav­i­ly that we con­sid­er many func­tions as grant­ed as breath­ing air! For exam­ple, we are so used to the smart­phone touch screen that some­times in our uncon­scious mind we try to touch as soon we find a dis­play, swipe our old com­put­er mon­i­tor or even TV for chang­ing a screen­shot or channel!  The orig­i­nal hard­ware plat­forms man­u­fac­tur­ers like [Intel](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/homepage.html), [Sam­sung](https://news.samsung.com/global/category/products/semiconductors), [Fujit­su](https://www.fujitsu.com/global/), [Qual­com](https://www.qualcomm.com/home), [Cis­co](https://www.cisco.com/), [Eric­s­son](https://www.ericsson.com/en), [Nvidia](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/) etc. have enabled the mon­u­men­tal progress of the soft­ware which in turn cre­at­ed a gigan­tic soft­ware indus­try. The youngest play­er of the game [ARM](https://www.arm.com/) have rev­o­lu­tion­ized the mobile devices through their ARM proces­sors specif­i­cal­ly designed for hand­held mobile devices. Com­pa­ny like [Microsoft](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about), [Ora­cle](https://www.oracle.com/corporate/), [Apple](https://www.apple.com/business/), [Nokia](https://www.nokia.com/about-us/) and Sam­sung undoubt­ed­ly not only exploit­ed the hard­ware to build soft­ware plat­form on top, but also have pushed dif­fer­ent tech­nolo­gies through high­er demand on mem­o­ry, proces­sor clock speed, enable­ment from only talk to touch screen smart­phones and oth­er hand­held devices. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/from-single-transistor-to-augmented-reality-600x429.png) From sin­gle tran­sis­tor to aug­ment­ed reality Such pro­gres­sive hard­ware plat­form has also had empow­ered a new breed of entre­pre­neurs cre­at­ing a bunch of high­ly suc­cess­ful soft­ware giants like [Google](https://about.google/), [Face­book](https://www.facebook.com/pg/facebook/about/), [Pay­Pal](https://www.paypal.com/bt/webapps/mpp/about), [Twit­ter](https://about.twitter.com/en), [Linke](https://news.linkedin.com/about-us)[d](https://news.linkedin.com/about-us)[In](https://news.linkedin.com/about-us), [Youtube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Company_history), [Airbnb](https://news.airbnb.com/about-us/), [Aliba­ba](https://activities.alibaba.com/alibaba/following-about-alibaba.php?spm=a2700.8293689.0.0.664414beCCIntj&tracelog=footer_alibaba), [Ama­zon](https://www.aboutamazon.com), [eBay](https://www.ebayinc.com), [Sk](https://www.skype.com/en/about/)[y](https://www.skype.com/en/about/)[pe](https://www.skype.com/en/about/), [Spo­ti­fy](https://support.spotify.com/sk-sk/article/what-is-spotify/), [Viber](https://www.viber.com/en/about/), [What­sApp](https://www.whatsapp.com/about/), [Uber](https://www.uber.com/en-IN/about/), [Snapchat](https://support.snapchat.com/en-US/a/our-story) and a lim­it­less list can con­tin­ue. Pro­lif­er­a­tion of hard­ware has also helped in adop­tion of well­ness track­ing, and vir­tu­al med­ical care solu­tions. Dra­mat­ic progress in sen­sor man­u­fac­tur­ing in turn enabling self-dri­ving vehi­cles and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence ([AI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence)) with view, touch and more senses. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/global-use-of-data-2017-600x365.png) Glob­al use of data 2017. So far the exist­ing hard­ware plat­form was suf­fi­cient to wit­ness the pro­lif­er­a­tion of soft­ware indus­try. How­ev­er, as the soft­ware indus­try is pro­gress­ing well beyond its imag­i­na­tions, and these soft­ware giants are able to con­nect bil­lions of peo­ple and gen­er­at­ing tril­lions of data out of the soft­ware ecosys­tem lead­ing the sup­port­ing hard­ware to bleed and face tsuna­mi of dif­fi­cul­ties to coup up with in terms of speed, band­width, pow­er man­age­ment and more. Hence hard­ware tech­nol­o­gy is unfor­tu­nate­ly reach­ing to its lim­its or going out of steams or becom­ing more expen­sive instead of being economical. Even bit­ter news, as it looks this data band­width demand will be fueled fur­ther up by the push of Inter­net of things (IoT), smart inven­to­ry, smartc­i­ty, Robot­ics, vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR), aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AU), arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), brain read, autonomous dri­ving, bio­mimet­ic recog­ni­tion, human-machine (HI-AI) inter­ac­tions and final­ly per­haps the inter­net of things (IoE). These appli­ca­tions undoubt­ed­ly cre­at­ing tremen­dous stress on the exist­ing hard­ware plat­form not only to be large­ly revamped but also to be com­ple­ment­ed with a lot of /​quoutiny lit­tle sen­sors, wire­less mod­ules and self-sus­tain­ing pow­er management. There­fore, with no sur­prise, we wit­ness a shift in hard­ware plat­form mov­ing from gen­er­al pur­pose to appli­ca­tion spe­cif­ic hard­ware accel­er­a­tion. A per­fect exam­ple of how the soft­ware indus­try today is shap­ing the future of hard­ware indus­try is the intro­duc­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of ten­sor pro­cess­ing unit (TPU) . Fas­ci­nat­ing enough, the TPU is not devel­oped by the world largest hard­ware foundry, but by the largest soft­ware indus­try Google! The devel­oped TPU legit­i­mate­ly per­forms oper­a­tions > 15× faster than exist­ing cen­tral pro­cess­ing unit (CPU) or graph­ics pro­cess­ing unit (GPU) in the mar­ket.[1](https://www.smoltek.com#9a112c65-58f7-415d-9d5c-00e671624515) > Great soft­ware shines even brighter with great hard­ware under­neath it > > Norm Joup­pi, Google Indeed, Google is tak­ing the lead in hard­ware accel­er­a­tions by devel­op­ing its pro­pri­etary ten­sor pro­cess­ing units (TPU), sys­tem on a chip (SoC) etc.! Apple, repeat­ed­ly dis­ap­point­ing hard­ware chip design com­pa­nies by chang­ing their mod­el from out­sourced towards in-house hard­ware design.[2](https://www.smoltek.com#4e3ee8e8-f8dd-4002-b4b7-c547cb2981d5) The oth­er soft­ware giants will soon join the club. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/google-tensor-processing-unit-600x400.webp) Ten­sor pro­cess­ing unit from Google Obvi­ous­ly it is no longer enough to col­lect & store gar­gan­tu­an amount of data to the cloud, the sys­tem need to be intel­li­gent enough to be able to ana­lyze and gen­er­ate pat­terns, trends, prob­a­bil­i­ty etc. to be able to nav­i­gate real time activ­i­ties or per­haps to mon­e­tize from the big data. Such scheme how­ev­er requires sophis­ti­cat­ed algo­rithm and a lot of com­put­ing pow­er to be quick enough to help with data crunch­ing, demands quick analy­sis and turn­ing data into some kind of intel­li­gence so that real time deci­sion mak­ing can be made by AI! Com­pa­nies like [Wall­mart](https://www.walmart.com/) would like to equip their shops with a lot of sen­sors all around to enable IoT inspired cus­tomer ser­vices.[3](https://www.smoltek.com#64a69863-248b-46ab-894d-23349a930773) Such ginor­mous imple­men­ta­tion undoubt­ed­ly will boost cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion as well as will be excel­lent trig­ger for waste management. How­ev­er, to add some oil to the fire, most of such hard­ware need to become tiny, slick, self-pow­ered/pow­er effi­cient, eco­nom­i­cal, sus­tain­able and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly etc. etc. etc. *There­fore*, the need for minia­tur­iza­tion of hard­ware, nan­otech­nol­o­gy and nano­ma­te­ri­als come into play. What makes the sit­u­a­tion for the nan­otech star­tups so com­pelling for hard­ware plat­form mak­ers is that VR, AI, IoT, smart inven­to­ry, machine learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty is unfold­ing at a time when the mar­ket for tra­di­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy is either flat­ten­ing or run­ning out of steams to sup­port the mar­ket demand in data acqui­si­tion and analy­sis. We are undoubt­ed­ly wit­ness­ing an inflec­tion point for the most devel­oped and exploit­ed CMOS tech­nol­o­gy lead­ing to the col­lapse of decades of stan­dard ITRS roadmap (≈ a par­a­digm shift ≈ any tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion can hap­pen sce­nario ≈ hard­ware accel­er­a­tion). There­fore, oppor­tu­ni­ties emerge *now* for the nano­ma­te­ri­als startups. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#next-article)Next article In the next and final arti­cle ([Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part III: The Future](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-future/1255/)) my dive will be on ‘the future’ where we may find the inva­sion of nan­otech and nano­ma­te­ri­als to impact in revamp­ing future of hard­ware and hence will dra­mat­i­cal­ly help to unleash the pow­er of inter­net of everything! * * * ICYMI: The first arti­cle in the series: [Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part I: The Hype](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-hype/1220/) --- title: "Breaking barriers: The hype" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-hype/1220/" date: 2017-11-27 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/manhattan-bridge-in-sunset-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "IR Blog Posts" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/ir-blog-posts.md" --- # Breaking barriers: The hype While I was car­ry­ing out my research stud­ies, I had a rever­ie, a dream to take my research find­ings on nano­ma­te­ri­als beyond sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles for greater tech­no­log­i­cal, indus­tri­al and soci­etal ben­e­fits. I was for­tu­nate enough to pur­sue in the path of bring­ing my dream into real­i­ty. After over a decade of jour­ney in the process of bring­ing the research inno­va­tion clos­er to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, the light at the end of the tun­nel is becom­ing vis­i­ble and widen­ing day by day. Hence as a nan­otech entre­pre­neur I thought of shar­ing my holis­tic view of tech­nol­o­gy and soci­ety, per­spec­tives and process­es of chas­ing my dreams com­ing true. ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#why-i-do-what-i-do)Why I do what I do Back in 2005, the final days of my PhD stud­ies, a moment of com­bined feel­ings of shiv­er­ing excite­ment and ner­vous­ness. These are the days when one expe­ri­ence intense con­glom­er­a­tions of thrust of writ­ing up the­sis chap­ters, fin­ish­ing cours­es, sub­mit­ting var­i­ous man­u­scripts for sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles, thoughts bounc­ing back & forth on walk­ing towards an unknown future, etc. Appar­ent­ly, such com­plex­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion was not enough for my adren­a­line rush, I end­ed up start­ing a com­pa­ny named Smoltek. A baby step to pur­sue my dream with­out know­ing the uncer­tain­ty, hur­dles and roller coast­er expe­ri­ence that may come with it. And of course, to spice up the sit­u­a­tion, why not start the com­pa­ny at the time when the ‘hype’ of ‘car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy’ is at its pick! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-hype)The hype When it comes for tech­nol­o­gy hype, [Gart­ner](https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-trends-in-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2017) has a very good way of pre­sent­ing high lev­el inno­va­tion trend and how a tech­nol­o­gy may mature over time to enter into the mar­ket place and may phase out even­tu­al­ly as shown in the Hype Cycle below. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/gartner-hype-cycle-emerging-technologies-2017-1200x823.png) The pur­ple arrow shows how Nan­otube Elec­tron­ics moved from 2005 to 2017 in [Gart­ner’s hype curve for emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies](https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-trends-in-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2017). As can be seen, in the year 2005 the posi­tion of Car­bon nan­otube is described as a hype mate­r­i­al to be used in the indus­try. Over the peri­od of past decade, tremen­dous attrac­tion on car­bon nanos­truc­tures both in the acad­e­mia and in the indus­try lead to 10000+ patents and 10000+ sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles BUT essen­tial­ly no sig­nif­i­cant high vol­ume indus­tri­al adop­tion! Hence, evi­dent­ly jus­ti­fy­ing a ‘hype’ syndrome. There­fore one may won­der why car­bon nanos­truc­tures have attract­ed such an enor­mous atten­tion and why still a big push to make it hap­pen­ing into the industry. Car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als may come in ver­sa­tile forms and for­mats with many dif­fer­ent properties.  In brief, this is what made the mate­ri­als so attrac­tive. Over the decades, researchers around the world have demon­strat­ed many use­ful­ness and appli­ca­tions of the mate­ri­als through sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles and inven­tion dis­clo­sures. A few fun­da­men­tal prop­er­ties that have drawn the main atten­tion are nano­size, extreme light weight, stronger than Kevlar, bet­ter thermal/​electrical con­duc­tor than cop­per, hydrophilic/​hydrophobic, high aspect ratio struc­tures, bot­tom up chem­istry con­trolled growth of nanos­truc­tures etc … and the list of inter­est­ing prop­er­ties may sim­ply continue. ![](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/variations-of-carbon-froms.png) Vari­a­tions of car­bon forms. The next obvi­ous ques­tion may be why there is no major adop­tion to the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try of such won­der mate­r­i­al? Well, there can be very many opin­ions but one obvi­ous rea­son was the absence of a break­through tech­nol­o­gy that could enable the pos­si­bil­i­ty of inte­grat­ing such won­der mate­ri­als into main­frame semi­con­duc­tor indus­try (the indus­try that has enabled our dig­i­tal world as of today!). The good news is: The sce­nario is chang­ing *fast*! Very lim­it­ed adap­ta­tion of car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als in indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions have been wit­nessed over the past decades e.g. as bulk mate­ri­als for R&D, in com­pos­ites, sur­face coat­ings, etc. How­ev­er, for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try, the pen­e­tra­tion has not been rec­og­nized until today. [Nan­tero](http://nantero.com/) per­haps the fore­run­ner in break­ing the bar­ri­er to enter into the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try through a recent­ly announced [licenc­ing deal](http://nantero.com/fujitsu-semiconductor-and-mie-fujitsu-semiconductor-license-nanteros-nram-and-have-begun-developing-breakthrough-memory-products-for-multiple-markets/) for man­u­fac­tur­ing NRAM mem­o­ry chips.  [Smoltek](https://www.smoltek.com/smoltektiger), is aggres­sive­ly work­ing on bring­ing its pro­pri­etary pack­ag­ing plat­form suit­able for the upcom­ing 2.5D and 3D [het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tion](https://www.3dincites.com/2017/01/what-the-heterogeneous-integration-technology-roadmap-for-semiconductors-will-mean-for-2017/) SiP/​SoC pack­ag­ing with the abil­i­ty to shrink the 3D pack­ag­ing dimen­sion with addi­tion­al func­tion­al­i­ty such as embed­ded capacitor/​energy stor­ing devices.  Such an indus­tri­al mar­riage between tra­di­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy, nan­otech­nol­o­gy & nano­ma­te­ri­als and cohab­i­ta­tions is as usu­al not with­out a fight. There has been a lot of if’s & but’s over the decades, a lot of intel­lec­tu­al, sci­en­tif­ic and prac­ti­cal­i­ty dis­cus­sions, a lot of bar­ri­ers to over­come but still appar­ent­ly set­tling at the end. The nan­otech entre­pre­neurs are per­sis­tent­ly inno­vat­ing to break the bar­ri­ers one after anoth­er and per­haps a lot more to break BUT cre­at­ing the path to impact! ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#next-article)Next article In the next arti­cle ([Break­ing Bar­ri­ers, part II: The Real­i­ty](https://www.smoltek.com/breaking-barriers-the-reality/1227/)) of this series, I will make an attempt to dive into ‘the real­i­ty’ with respect to my view as a nan­otech entre­pre­neur and how the real­i­ty is aid­ing pos­i­tive­ly for nan­otech star­tups in break­ing the bar­ri­ers to get into the real world. --- title: "MEPTEC´s Semiconductor Packaging Symposium" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/meptecs-semiconductor-packaging-symposium/1303/" date: 2017-11-15 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_f35c8ce68be047eb819ec8da448ca323mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "meptec" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/meptec.md" --- # MEPTEC´s Semiconductor Packaging Symposium Smoltek is engaged in the event as a spon­sor, but will also be exhibit­ing. CEO Anders Johans­son and CTO Vin­cent Des­maris will rep­re­sent the com­pa­ny at the symposium. “Smoltek’s dis­rup­tive car­bon nan­otech­nol­o­gy moves the bench­mark and pro­vides com­plete­ly new oppor­tu­ni­ties for man­u­fac­tur­ing of het­ero­ge­neous­ly inte­grat­ed cir­cuits. We are very much look­ing for­ward to once again take part in MEPTEC’s Semi­con­duc­tor Pack­ag­ing Sym­po­sium,” says Anders Johansson. The sym­po­sium will explore cur­rent chal­lenges and pos­si­bil­i­ties in the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try under the tagline “Het­ero­ge­neous Inte­gra­tion – a road to imple­men­ta­tion”. The event will explore three issues cen­tral to the suc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion of het­ero­ge­neous inte­grat­ed packages: - Can the pack­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ty estab­lish a real design for het­ero­ge­neous inte­grat­ed ecosystem? - Should we rethink the reli­a­bil­i­ty stan­dards for these het­ero­ge­neous inte­grat­ed SIP packages? - What are the best test strate­gies for these het­ero­ge­neous inte­gra­tions, or at least what arethe guid­ing principles? --- title: "Published paper in Solid-State Electronics" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/published-paper-in-solid-state-electronics/1301/" date: 2017-11-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_60d215162e8b42c68364114e305aec7cmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "article" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/article.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" --- # Published paper in Solid-State Electronics The paper writ­ten by the Smoltek tech team describes extreme low pro­file 3D on-chip inte­grat­ed sol­id-state capac­i­tors based on VAC­N­Fs. The are­al capac­i­tance den­si­ty val­ue of 11–15 nF/​mm2 was achieved exploit­ing CMOS com­pat­i­ble micro­fab­ri­ca­tion process­es. Such extreme low pro­file with high val­ue capac­i­tance makes the tech­nol­o­gy a con­tender to be direct­ly inte­grat­ed on the active CMOS chip, or in mul­ti-chip pack­age and pas­sives on sil­i­con or glass inter­pos­er boost­ing 2.5D and 3D pack­ag­ing performances. Read and down­load the paper [here](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038110117307852). --- title: "This is Smoltek" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/this-is-smoltek/1202/" date: 2017-10-24 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/youtube-this-is-smoltek-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Videos" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/videos.md" --- # This is Smoltek Smoltek devel­ops process tech­nol­o­gy and con­cepts to pre­ci­sion-man­u­fac­ture extreme­ly thin car­bon nanofibers in var­i­ous three-dimen­sion­al struc­tures, which mul­ti­plies the total sur­face that can be coat­ed with dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als. This patent­ed tech­nol­o­gy can solve advanced mate­ri­als engi­neer­ing prob­lems in many oth­er indus­tri­al sec­tors. For instance, the tech­nol­o­gy is used to minia­tur­ize capac­i­tors for the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try and man­u­fac­ture new cel­lu­lar mate­ri­als for mem­branes in elec­trolyz­ers for fos­sil-free hydro­gen production. --- title: "Integrated on-chip solid state capacitor based on vertically aligned nanofibers, grown using a CMOS temperature compatible process" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-on-chip-solid-state-capacitor-based-on-vertically-aligned-nanofibers-grown-using-a-cmos-temperature-compatible-process/923/" date: 2017-10-16 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2018-10-10-smoltek-mc2-04-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Integrated on-chip solid state capacitor based on vertically aligned nanofibers, grown using a CMOS temperature compatible process Com­plete minia­tur­ized on-chip inte­grat­ed sol­id-state capac­i­tors have been fab­ri­cat­ed based on con­for­mal coat­ing of ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (VAC­N­Fs), using a CMOS tem­per­a­ture com­pat­i­ble micro­fab­ri­ca­tion process­es. The 5 µm long VAC­N­Fs, oper­at­ing as elec­trode, are grown on a sil­i­con sub­strate and con­for­mal­ly coat­ed by alu­minum oxide dielec­tric using atom­ic lay­er depo­si­tion (ALD) tech­nique. The are­al (foot­print) capac­i­tance den­si­ty val­ue of 11–15 nF/​mm2 is real­ized with high repro­ducibil­i­ty. The CMOS tem­per­a­ture com­pat­i­ble micro­fab­ri­ca­tion, ultra-low pro­file (less than 7 µm thick­ness) and high capac­i­tance den­si­ty would enables direct inte­gra­tion of micro ener­gy stor­age devices on the active CMOS chip, mul­ti-chip pack­age and pas­sives on sil­i­con or glass inter­pos­er. A mod­el is devel­oped to cal­cu­late the sur­face area of VAC­N­Fs and the effec­tive capac­i­tance from the devices. It is there­by shown that 71 % of sur­face area of the VAC­N­Fs has con­tributed to the mea­sured capac­i­tance, and by using the entire area the capac­i­tance can poten­tial­ly be increased. [Read more](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038110117307852) --- title: "Smoltek is represented at the Baltic Conference Series" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-represented-at-the-baltic-conference-series/1299/" date: 2017-10-02 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_31d5e1de5d144bf8bf5030082d519187mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "balticconference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/balticconference.md" - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "rickardandersson" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/rickardandersson.md" --- # Smoltek is represented at the Baltic Conference Series The Baltic Con­fer­ence Series Octo­ber 8–11 2017 is an inter­na­tion­al event focus­ing on new age tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tions with over 500 del­e­gates par­tic­i­pat­ing from over 80 coun­tries. One of the key top­ics for the con­fer­ence is nan­otech­nol­o­gy and Rickard Ander­s­son, Research engi­neer at Smoltek, will be pre­sent­ing the recent advances made by Smoltek. “Rickard will present the recent advances made by Smoltek with faster and more cost effi­cient growth of Car­bon nanos­truc­tures at com­ple­men­tary met­al-oxide-semi­con­duc­tor (CMOS) com­pat­i­ble process tem­per­a­tures under 400 °C. The obtained results from this work make Smoltek’s tech­nol­o­gy even more attrac­tive for the indus­try and also facil­i­tate the direct inte­gra­tion of Car­bon nanos­truc­tures for exam­ple into elec­tron­ic chips for future “Inter­net of things” sys­tems”, says Vin­cent Des­maris, CTO of Smoltek AB. The work he will present is the result of a tight col­lab­o­ra­tion between Smoltek, Cyprus Uni­ver­si­ty and Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy and the top­ic for the pre­sen­ta­tion is “Nanopar­ti­cles-enabled low tem­per­a­ture growth of car­bon nanofibers and their prop­er­ties for supercapacitors”. Baltic Con­fer­ence Series is a bian­nu­al inter­na­tion­al event which will be held dur­ing a cruise on board the fer­ry M/​S Mariel­la depart­ing from Stockholm,Sweden dur­ing 08 – 11 Octo­ber 2017. The goal of the Baltic Con­fer­ence Series is to pro­vide an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary glob­al forum for researchers, edu­ca­tors, tech­nocrats, stu­dents, engi­neers, med­ical and clin­i­cal pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in the field of sen­sors & actu­a­tors, med­ical & clin­i­cal sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy includ­ing MEMS & NEMS, biosen­sors & bio­elec­tron­ics, tis­sue engi­neer­ing, transna­tion­al med­i­cine, ther­a­nos­tics, drug deliv­ery for­mu­la­tions, nanomed­i­cine, dig­i­tal health, etc. com­ing from acad­e­mia and indus­try to present their research results, inno­va­tions, prod­ucts and activities. **Read more about the Baltic Con­fer­ence Series** [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20171208102539/http://www.vbripress.com:80/bcs17winter/). --- title: "Nominated to the Nordic-Nanotechnology-Company-of-the-Year-Award" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/nominated-to-the-nordic-nanotechnology-company-of-the-year-award/1297/" date: 2017-09-05 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_9fc92a7e281c4b75b9e6a2dffa5be3fcmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Nominated to the Nordic-Nanotechnology-Company-of-the-Year-Award \- It is fan­tas­tic that Smoltek is receiv­ing atten­tion from this home ground are­na. Smoltek was already spun out from Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy back in 2005 and we see our­selves as a nan­otech­nol­o­gy pio­neer. The tim­ing for this nom­i­na­tion is real­ly inter­est­ing due of a com­mer­cial break­through with­in reach, says Anders Johans­son, Smoltek CEO. NanoFo­rum is a year­ly nan­otech­nol­o­gy con­fer­ence that brings togeth­er key entre­pre­neurs, investors, researchers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers in the Nordic Region. This is the place to get to know what the Nordic region has to offer, all under one roof, with­in the nan­otech­nol­o­gy field. The con­fer­ence is orga­nized by SwedNan­oTech and the City of Uppsala. **Read more about NanoFo­rum 2017**: [www.nanoforum2017.com](https://ssci.se/sv/event/nanoforum-2017) **Read more about SwedNan­oTech**: [www.swednanotech.com](https://saams.se/) --- title: "On-Chip Integrated Solid-State Micro-Supercapacitor" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/on-chip-integrated-solid-state-micro-supercapacitor/925/" date: 2017-08-03 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/on-chip-integrated-capacitor.png" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # On-Chip Integrated Solid-State Micro-Supercapacitor Fol­low­ing the trend of elec­tron­ic device minia­tur­iza­tion, on-chip inte­grat­ed sol­id-state micro-super­cap­caitors (MS) were fab­ri­cat­ed based on ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (VAC­N­Fs) as elec­trode mate­ri­als and poly­mer­ic gel elec­trolyte as the sol­id elec­trolyte. The VAC­N­Fs were grown at 390 °C and 550 °C tem­per­a­ture on inter­dig­i­tat­ed micro-pat­terns, where the dimen­sions of the dig­its were kept the same but the gap between the dig­its var­ied from 10–100 μm. A max­i­mum capac­i­tance of 1 mF/​cm2 and 0.53mF/cm2 (com­bined foot­print area of dig­its and gaps) were mea­sured for devices with CNFs grown at 390 °C and 20 μm gap, for 550 °C and 10 μm gap, respec­tive­ly. These capac­i­tances are an order of mag­ni­tude high­er than the one for sol­id dielec­tric based sil­i­con trench­es capac­i­tors. The low tem­per­a­ture MS show an inverse capac­i­tance rela­tion with the gap size where­as high tem­per­a­ture shows ran­dom behav­ior. High char­ac­ter­is­tic fre­quen­cies at 45° phase angle are 114 Hz for 100 μm gap and 142 Hz 30 μm gap for 390 °C and 550 °C tem­per­a­tures. A mod­el for the inter­dig­i­tat­ed capac­i­tors was devel­oped and the results showed that by elim­i­nat­ing the cur­rent col­lec­tor resis­tances the char­ac­ter­is­tic fre­quen­cies can be increased to 965 Hz and 866 Hz from 67 Hz and 127 Hz for 10 μm gap pat­terns for 390 °C and 550 °C tem­per­a­tures. The entire fab­ri­ca­tion was done using CMOS com­pat­i­ble process­es thus enabling inte­gra­tion direct­ly on active CMOS chip. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7999688/) --- title: "Smoltek in Chip Scale Review" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-in-chip-scale-review/1295/" date: 2017-08-01 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_c27053a90be24617b2f4ee624952b9ccmv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "article" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/article.md" - name: "capacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/capacitors.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Smoltek in Chip Scale Review Chip Scale Review is a glob­al mag­a­zine cov­er­ing device and wafer-lev­el test, assem­bly, and pack­ag­ing and cov­ers high-den­si­ty inter­con­nec­tion tech­nolo­gies includ­ing 3D pack­ages, MEMS, and oth­er wafer-fab­ri­cat­ed devices. The mag­a­zine show­cas­es the indus­try with exclu­sive edi­to­r­i­al con­tent that includes in-depth tech­ni­cal arti­cles by indus­try tech­nol­o­gists, mar­ket fore­casts and updates from research institutions. **Read the lat­est issue of Chip Scale Review** here. **Short­cut the Smoltek arti­cle** here. --- title: "Smoltek announce its 48th patent" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-announce-its-48th-patent/1294/" date: 2017-07-11 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_da490346a8e24ae9b649436bb0511b70mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" --- # Smoltek announce its 48th patent The new Japan­ese patent cov­ers an aspect of how nanos­truc­tures can be exploit­ed to be used for join­ing two adja­cent lay­ers or sub­strates for inter­con­nect­ing purposes.This includes car­bon nan­otubes, nanofibers, nanowires etc. “We are very hap­py to see our IP foot­print is con­stant­ly increas­ing in Japan for both core growth and appli­ca­tion relat­ed patents port­fo­lio based on nanos­truc­tures,” says Dr. M. Shafiq Kabir, Smoltek´s CIO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 48 grant­ed patents. Read more about our patent port­fo­lio [here](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/) --- title: "Integrated solid-state capacitors based on carbon nanostructures" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/integrated-solid-state-capacitors-based-on-carbon-nanostructures/928/" date: 2017-07-01 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/carbon-nano-fibre-cnf-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Integrated solid-state capacitors based on carbon nanostructures Chip Scale Review is a glob­al mag­a­zine cov­er­ing device and wafer-lev­el test, assem­bly, and pack­ag­ing and cov­ers high-den­si­ty inter­con­nec­tion tech­nolo­gies includ­ing 3D pack­ages, MEMS, and oth­er wafer-fab­ri­cat­ed devices. The mag­a­zine show­cas­es the indus­try with exclu­sive edi­to­r­i­al con­tent that includes in-depth tech­ni­cal arti­cles by indus­try tech­nol­o­gists, mar­ket fore­casts and updates from research institutions. [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/251500) --- title: "Further expansion of Smoltek’s patent portfolio in Japan" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/further-expansion-of-smolteks-patent-portfolio-in-japan/1293/" date: 2017-06-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_da490346a8e24ae9b649436bb0511b70mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" --- # Further expansion of Smoltek’s patent portfolio in Japan The cur­rent Japan patent cov­ers an aspect of essen­tial growth relat­ed method to enable grow­ing nanos­truc­tures on any sub­strate that is sen­si­tive to plas­ma envi­ron­ment to enable to grow e.g. car­bon nan­otubes, nanofibers, nanowires etc. with­out destroy­ing the sub­strate underneath. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 47 grant­ed patents. Read more about our patents [here](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). --- title: "Coin-cell Supercapacitors Based on CVD Grown and Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanofibers (VACNFs)" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/coin-cell-supercapacitors-based-on-cvd-grown-and-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-vacnfs/930/" date: 2017-06-12 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/1zo4o3z0uja-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Coin-cell Supercapacitors Based on CVD Grown and Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanofibers (VACNFs) Com­plete super­ca­pac­i­tors (SCs) com­pris­ing ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (VAC­N­Fs) as elec­trode mate­ri­als have been assem­bled as coin-cells. The VAC­N­Fs were grown direct­ly onto the cur­rent col­lec­tor by direct cur­rent plas­ma enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (DC-PECVD), there­by pro­vid­ing excel­lent con­tact with the cur­rent col­lec­tor, but also elim­i­nat­ing the need of any binder. The ver­ti­cal align­ment facil­i­tates fast ion trans­port and the elec­trolyte to access the entire sur­face of the CNFs. The mor­phol­o­gy of the VAC­N­Fs was eval­u­at­ed by scan­ning elec­tron microscopy (SEM), while the per­for­mance was assessed by sev­er­al meth­ods: cyclic voltam­me­try (CV), elec­tro­chem­i­cal imped­ance spec­troscopy (EIS) and device relat­ed cycling by gal­vano­s­ta­t­ic charge/​discharge. The capac­i­tance, 3.64 mF/​cm2, is >15 times high­er than the capac­i­tance of a coin-cell with­out CNFs and the cyclic per­for­mance shows these proof-of-con­cept SCs to retain >80% of the capac­i­tance after 2000 full charge/​discharge cycles. The direct growth of VAC­N­Fs as elec­trodes at the cur­rent col­lec­tor opens path­ways for SC pro­duc­tion using exist­ing coin-cell bat­tery pro­duc­tion technology. [Read more](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318082054_Coin-cell_Supercapacitors_Based_on_CVD_Grown_and_Vertically_Aligned_Carbon_Nanofibers_VACNFs) --- title: "Smoltek congratulate our first industrial PhD" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-congratulate-our-first-industrial-phd/1291/" date: 2017-06-12 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_4cf80bfbabf14fc7959eb54eafdc58f5mv2-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "aminsaleem" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/aminsaleem.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" - name: "supercapacitors" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/supercapacitors.md" --- # Smoltek congratulate our first industrial PhD The research by our indus­tri­al PhD has led to deep­ened sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing of how Smoltek’s unique tech­nol­o­gy can be imple­ment­ed for var­i­ous appli­ca­tions. In par­tic­u­lar, it has led to demon­stra­tion of our on-chip sol­id state capac­i­tor solu­tion that is now gen­er­at­ing seri­ous inter­est from the semi­con­duc­tor industry. We con­grat­u­late Dr Amin on his big achieve­ment – both from per­son­al and com­pa­ny perspectives! --- title: "New Korean patent granted" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-korean-patent-granted/1290/" date: 2017-06-09 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_da490346a8e24ae9b649436bb0511b70mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" --- # New Korean patent granted The present South Kore­an patent cov­ers an addi­tion­al aspect of a method that enables growth of nanos­truc­tures on a sub­strate e.g. car­bon nan­otubes, nanofibers, nanowires etc. “Asia is an impor­tant mar­ket for Smoltek´s tech­nol­o­gy both from man­u­fac­tur­ing and mar­ket point of view. It is grat­i­fy­ing to be able to increase our foot­print on core patent port­fo­lio relat­ed to sub­strate based growth meth­ods for grow­ing nanos­truc­tures,” says Dr. M. Shafiq Kabir, Smoltek´s CIO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 46 grant­ed patents. Read more about our patents [here](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). --- title: "Carbon nanomaterial-based interconnects, integrated capacitors and supercapacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanomaterial-based-interconnects-integrated-capacitors-and-supercapacitors/932/" date: 2017-06-01 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/37211.jpg" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon nanomaterial-based interconnects, integrated capacitors and supercapacitors The con­stant minia­tur­iza­tion and steady per­for­mance improve­ment of elec­tron­ics devices have gen­er­at­ed inno­v­a­tive ideas such as inter­net of thing (IoT), which also includes devices with inte­grat­ed ener­gy sources. The high per­for­mance is con­ceived by the high den­si­ty of the devices on a chip lead­ing to a high den­si­ty of inter­con­nects, to con­nect these devices to out­side world. Since the size and the pitch of the inter­con­nects have decreased, the cur­rent den­si­ty in inter­con­nect has increased, pos­ing chal­lenges on the exist­ing cop­per pil­lar inter­con­nect tech­nol­o­gy, such as inter­metal­lic com­pound for­ma­tion and elec­tro-migra­tion result­ing in open cir­cuit. The chal­lenges are fore­cast­ed to increase on fur­ther down scal­ing due to bridg­ing of the sol­der between pil­lars. More­over, the envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion and the threat of van­ish­ing of fos­sil fuel have prompt­ed to find cheap and effi­cient alter­nat­ing ener­gy sources and ener­gy stor­age systems. Car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als such as car­bon nan­otubes and car­bon nanofibers have unprece­dent­ed elec­tri­cal, mechan­i­cal and ther­mal prop­er­ties, high resis­tance to cor­ro­sion and high sur­face area have been pro­posed for the solu­tion of above men­tioned challenges. In this the­sis, ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (VAC­N­Fs) have been grown by direct cur­rent plas­ma enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (dc-PECVD) at com­ple­men­tary met­al oxide semi­con­duc­tor (CMOS) com­pat­i­ble tem­per­a­tures for on chip appli­ca­tion. In addi­tion, the cat­a­lyst to grow VAC­N­Fs is deposit­ed using inno­v­a­tive low-cost polymer–Pd nanohy­brid col­loidal solu­tions by an effec­tive coat­ing method. Also, due to con­trol­lable DC behav­ior and good mechan­i­cal rein­force­ment prop­er­ties of sol­der-CNFs, the sol­der­able micro-bumps of VAC­N­Fs have been shown to poten­tial­ly yield the accept­able elec­tri­cal resis­tances. More­over the CNFs bumps can be made in sub­mi­cron size range, which can com­ply with fur­ther down scal­ing of inter­con­nect. In addi­tion, advanced CNF based adhe­sives, pro­duced by coat­ing CNFs with low tem­per­a­ture poly­mers, have been inves­ti­gat­ed as alter­nat­ing anisotrop­ic con­duct­ing film for anisotrop­ic con­nec­tion, using a ther­mo-com­pres­sion bond­ing. The shear­ing strength of the bond­ed chip qual­i­fies the MIL-STD-883 stan­dards of bond­ing strength in micro­elec­tron­ics devices. Fur­ther, super­ca­pac­i­tor are the ener­gy stor­age devices hav­ing high ener­gy den­si­ty, and high pow­er den­si­ty due to quick intake and release of charges and long cycles life of about 1 mil­lion. On-chip inte­grat­ed sol­id-state par­al­lel-plate capac­i­tor and super­ca­pac­i­tor are demon­strat­ed based on VAC­N­Fs. The pre­lim­i­nary capac­i­tance of the par­al­lel-plate capac­i­tor and super­ca­pac­i­tor are 10–15 nF/​mm2 and 10 μF/​mm2, respec­tive­ly. The pro­file of par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor is below 10 microm­e­ters, which enables inte­gra­tion even in advance 2.5 and 3D het­ero­ge­neous pack­ag­ing. The on-chip capac­i­tor can work as decou­pling capac­i­tor to resolve the ener­gy fluc­tu­a­tion relat­ed issues and also pow­er up devices on the chip. Then, along with oth­er prop­er­ties, high aspect ratio and ease of fab­ri­ca­tion, the car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs) are con­sid­ered as poten­tial elec­trode mate­r­i­al for future high per­for­mance super­ca­pac­i­tor. The CNTs are direct­ly grown on elec­tro­spun CNFs giv­ing the spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance of 92 F/​g, i.e. twice the capac­i­tance of bare CNFs. Final­ly, a com­plete ener­gy stor­age device coin-cell super­ca­pac­i­tor is made by direct­ly grow­ing VAC­N­Fs on the cur­rent col­lec­tor and the capac­i­tance is 15 times high­er than the capac­i­tance with­out CNFs. Thus such super­cap­caitor is suit­able to be com­bined with har­vester to col­lect ener­gy to the lev­el of oper­at­ing pow­er of the devices and can pro­vide durable solu­tion to the fre­quent change of bat­tery in the devices mount­ed at sen­si­tive or air­borne locations. [Read more](http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/249310/249310.pdf) --- title: "Smoltek is going to ECTC 2017" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-going-to-ectc-2017/1289/" date: 2017-05-08 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_6d6374bb7a1143aabeaffff697679d71mv2.gif" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "aminsaleem" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/aminsaleem.md" - name: "conference" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/conference.md" - name: "ectc" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ectc.md" - name: "vincentdesmaris" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/vincentdesmaris.md" --- # Smoltek is going to ECTC 2017 The prize includes trav­el expens­es to the Elec­tron­ic Com­po­nents and Tech­nol­o­gy Con­fer­ence (ECTC) in Flori­da between May 30 – June 2. Muham­mad Amin will make a pre­sen­ta­tion about the win­ning abstract on May 31 at 10:25 AM. ECTC is the pre­mier inter­na­tion­al event that brings togeth­er the best in pack­ag­ing, com­po­nents and micro­elec­tron­ic sys­tems sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and edu­ca­tion in an envi­ron­ment of coop­er­a­tion and tech­ni­cal exchange. Smoltek will be rep­re­sent­ed by both Muham­mad Amin and CTO Vin­cent Des­maris at the event. Read more about the CPMT ECTC Stu­dent Trav­el Awards [here](https://eps.ieee.org/education/graduate-undergraduate-student-resources/eps-ectc-student-travel-awards.html). Read more about ECTC [here](https://www.ectc.net/index.cfm). --- title: "Assembly platform" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/assembly-platform/1038/" date: 2017-05-03 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/us10840203pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" tags: - name: "grantedpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/grantedpatent.md" - name: "heterogenousintegration" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/heterogenousintegration.md" - name: "innovation" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/innovation.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "semiconductor" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/semiconductor.md" --- # Assembly platform The inven­tion: An assem­bly plat­form for arrange­ment as an inter­pos­er device between an inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and a sub­strate to inter­con­nect the inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and the sub­strate through the assem­bly plat­form, the assem­bly plat­form com­pris­ing: an assem­bly sub­strate; a plu­ral­i­ty of con­duct­ing vias extend­ing through the assem­bly sub­strate; at least one nanos­truc­ture con­nec­tion bump on a first side of the assem­bly sub­strate, the nanos­truc­ture con­nec­tion bump being con­duc­tive­ly con­nect­ed to the vias and defin­ing con­nec­tion loca­tions for con­nec­tion with at least one of the inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and the sub­strate, where­in each of the nanos­truc­ture con­nec­tion bumps com­pris­es: a plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures ver­ti­cal­ly grown on the first side of the assem­bly sub­strate, where­in the plu­ral­i­ty of elon­gat­ed nanos­truc­tures are embed­ded in a met­al for the con­nec­tion with at least one of the inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and the sub­strate, at least one con­nec­tion bump on a sec­ond side of the assem­bly sub­strate, the sec­ond side being oppo­site to the first side, the con­nec­tion bump being con­duc­tive­ly con­nect­ed to the vias and defin­ing con­nec­tion loca­tions for con­nec­tion with at least one of the inte­grat­ed cir­cuit and the substrate. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by USPTO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/us10840203.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | Japan | [JP6864009](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP6864009/en) | | Tai­wan | [TWI743119](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI743119/en) | | USA | [US10840203](https://patents.google.com/patent/US10840203/en) | | USA | 11348890 | | Korea | 10–2403468 | | Chi­na | CN109075152 | | India | 442641 | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Publication is Highlight of 2016" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/publication-is-highlight-of-2016/1287/" date: 2017-04-19 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_a7d2b5b8b0ac4e6d9fc7500847271c5dmv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "article" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/article.md" - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" --- # Publication is Highlight of 2016 Jour­nal of Micro­me­chan­ics & Micro­engi­neer­ing (JMM) High­lights of 2016 gath­ers their high­est-qual­i­ty papers pub­lished dur­ing last year and the cho­sen arti­cles were iden­ti­fied by a team of expert ref­er­ees with the journal’s Edi­to­r­i­al Board. This achieve­ment shows anoth­er fruit­ful out­come from our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Chalmers Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, says Anders Johans­son, Smoltek´s CEO. Read the pub­li­ca­tion “Hier­ar­chi­cal cel­lu­lose-derived CNF/​CNT com­pos­ites for elec­tro­sta­t­ic ener­gy stor­age” [here](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0960-1317/26/12/124001). Read all High­lights of 2016 pub­li­ca­tions [here](http://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0960-1317/page/Highlights-of-2016). --- title: "Smoltek announces its 45th granted patent" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-announces-its-45th-granted-patent/1286/" date: 2017-03-17 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_da490346a8e24ae9b649436bb0511b70mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" --- # Smoltek announces its 45th granted patent This is anoth­er mile­stone for Smoltek, strength­en­ing its foot­print on growth method relat­ed port­fo­lio in Europe. “It’s pleas­ing to see Smoltek´s core patent port­fo­lio is becom­ing more mature. Such matu­ri­ty on growth relat­ed patents will enable us to move for­ward to devel­op the next sphere of Smoltek´s patent port­fo­lio,” says Dr. M. Shafiq Kabir, Smoltek´s CIO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 45 grant­ed patents includ­ing five Euro­pean patents. Read more about our patents [here](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). --- title: "Interposer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interposer/1032/" date: 2017-02-24 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/us10438880pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Interposer The inven­tion: An inter­pos­er device com­pris­ing an inter­pos­er sub­strate; a plu­ral­i­ty of con­duct­ing vias extend­ing through the inter­pos­er sub­strate; a con­duc­tor pat­tern on the inter­pos­er sub­strate, and a nanos­truc­ture ener­gy stor­age device. The nanos­truc­ture ener­gy stor­age device com­pris­es at least a first plu­ral­i­ty of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures formed on the inter­pos­er sub­strate; a con­duc­tion con­trol­ling mate­r­i­al embed­ding each nanos­truc­ture in the first plu­ral­i­ty of con­duc­tive nanos­truc­tures; a first elec­trode con­nect­ed to each nanos­truc­ture in the first plu­ral­i­ty of nanos­truc­tures; and a sec­ond elec­trode sep­a­rat­ed from each nanos­truc­ture in the first plu­ral­i­ty of nanos­truc­tures by the con­duc­tion con­trol­ling mate­r­i­al, where­in the first elec­trode and the sec­ond elec­trode are con­fig­ured to allow elec­tri­cal con­nec­tion of the nanos­truc­ture ener­gy stor­age device to the inte­grat­ed circuit. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by USPTO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/us10438880.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#the-patent-is-granted-in-the-following-regions)The patent is granted in the following regions | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN108701672](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN108701672/en) | | Korea | [KR102085789](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR102085789/en) | | Tai­wan | [TWI710082](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI710082/en) | | USA | [US10438880](https://patents.google.com/patent/US10438880/en) | | USA | [US10741485](https://patents.google.com/patent/US10741485/en) | | Japan | [7007285](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP7007285B2/en?oq=I757931) | | Tai­wan | [I757931](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI757931B/en?oq=I757931) | | India | 447787 | | Korea | [KR102614960](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR102614960B1/en?oq=KR102614960) | | EPO | 3424078 | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Granted European Patent" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/granted-european-patent/1285/" date: 2017-02-22 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_da490346a8e24ae9b649436bb0511b70mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "nanotechnology" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/nanotechnology.md" - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" --- # Granted European Patent “We are hap­py to see anoth­er achieve­ment to our core patent port­fo­lio. Now one of our most strate­gic patents is also grant­ed in Europe,” says Anders Johans­son, Smoltek´s CEO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 44 grant­ed patents. Read more about our patents [here](https://www.smoltek.com/insights/patents/). --- title: "New Chairman of the Board for Smoltek AB" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-chairman-of-the-board-for-smoltek-ab/1283/" date: 2017-02-02 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_f75d6968ffdc4367b9ecab3964a14eb0mv2_d_5315_5315_s_4_2-scaled.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "board" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/board.md" - name: "smoltek" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/smoltek.md" --- # New Chairman of the Board for Smoltek AB Ulf Bör­jel is the CEO of the man­age­ment con­sult­ing com­pa­ny Bcon­nect­ed AB and chair­man of the board at the IT com­pa­ny Halon Security. He has worked with­in sales man­age­ment and busi­ness devel­op­ment for more than 20 years, and thanks to his expe­ri­ence, will help Smoltek AB with its com­mer­cial­iza­tion phase. — Smoltek has a unique posi­tion when it comes to semi­con­duc­tors and nan­otech­nol­o­gy. The com­pa­ny has a patent­ed, break­through tech­nol­o­gy in nan­otech­nol­o­gy. This is an incred­i­bly excit­ing indus­try, says Ulf Börjel. [Ulf](http://www.linkedin.com/in/ulfborjel) will even be a mem­ber of Smoltek’s Advi­so­ry Board, an expend­ed strat­e­gy forum for com­mer­cial­iza­tion, where he will join [Bo Hed­fors](http://www.linkedin.com/in/bo-hedfors-5281906) (for­mer CEO at Motoro­la and Eric­s­son), [Ola Tiver­man](http://se.linkedin.com/in/olativerman) (Vice CEO Engi­neer­ing at Wide­Or­bit) and [Per Sten­man](http://se.linkedin.com/in/per-stenman) (Co-founder of Halon Security). --- title: "Smoltek is featuerd in IEEE Spectrum" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/smoltek-is-featuerd-in-ieee-spectrum/1281/" date: 2017-01-26 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_8f1498cf5ead4b42a7147e19aa69651bmv2-jpeg.webp" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "article" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/article.md" - name: "ieee" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/ieee.md" --- # Smoltek is featuerd in IEEE Spectrum Smoltek sees chip pack­ag­ing as the new fron­tier in nano elec­tron­ics. Read more in our lat­est inter­view with IEEE Spectrum. Read the inter­view [here](https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanomaterials-enable-smaller-chip-packaging). Watch our CEO Anders Johans­son describe our tech­nol­o­gy in a video [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsM-87Rb40s&feature=youtu.be). --- title: "New Taiwanese Patent" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/new-taiwanese-patent/1279/" date: 2017-01-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/f3d7c4_da490346a8e24ae9b649436bb0511b70mv2.png" categories: - name: "News" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/news.md" tags: - name: "newpatent" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/topic/newpatent.md" --- # New Taiwanese Patent “This is an impor­tant achieve­ment that fur­ther strength­ens our core patent port­fo­lio. Tai­wan rep­re­sents an inter­est­ing mar­ket as the home of the lead­ing semi­con­duc­tor pack­ag­ing indus­try,” says Anders Johans­son, Smoltek´s CEO. Smoltek’s patent port­fo­lio now glob­al­ly com­pris­es 43 grant­ed patents. --- title: "Hierarchical cellulose-derived CNF/​CNT composites for electrostatic energy storage" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hierarchical-cellulose-derived-cnf-cnt-composites-for-electrostatic-energy-storage/938/" date: 2016-09-29 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/4n8om5l7hym-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Hierarchical cellulose-derived CNF/​CNT composites for electrostatic energy storage Today many appli­ca­tions require new effec­tive approach­es for ener­gy deliv­ery on demand. Super­ca­pac­i­tors are viewed as essen­tial ener­gy stor­age devices that can con­tin­u­ous­ly pro­vide quick ener­gy. The per­for­mance of super­ca­pac­i­tors is most­ly deter­mined by elec­trode mate­ri­als that can store ener­gy via elec­tro­sta­t­ic charge accu­mu­la­tion. This study presents new sus­tain­able cel­lu­lose-derived com­pos­ite elec­trodes which con­sist of car­bon nanofi­brous (CNF) mats cov­ered with vapor-grown car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs). The CNF/​CNT elec­trodes have high elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty and sur­face area: the two most impor­tant fea­tures that are respon­si­ble for good elec­tro­chem­i­cal per­for­mance of super­ca­pac­i­tor elec­trodes. The results show that the com­pos­ite elec­trodes have fair­ly high val­ues of spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance (101 F/​g at 5 mV s−1), ener­gy and pow­er den­si­ty (10.28 Wh/​kg and 1.99 kW/​kg, respec­tive­ly, at 1 A/​g) and can retain excel­lent per­for­mance over at least 2000 cycles (96.6 % reten­tion). These results indi­cate that sus­tain­able cel­lu­lose-derived com­pos­ites can be exten­sive­ly used in the future as super­ca­pac­i­tor electrodes. [Read more](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0960-1317/26/12/124001) --- title: "Performance Enhancement of Carbon Nanomaterials for Supercapacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/performance-enhancement-of-carbon-nanomaterials-for-supercapacitors/940/" date: 2016-08-02 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/atsaeoee8nk-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Performance Enhancement of Carbon Nanomaterials for Supercapacitors Car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als such as car­bon nan­otubes, car­bon nanofibers, and graphene are exploit­ed exten­sive­ly due to their unique elec­tri­cal, mechan­i­cal, and ther­mal prop­er­ties and recent­ly inves­ti­gat­ed for ener­gy stor­age appli­ca­tion (super­ca­pac­i­tor) due to addi­tion­al high spe­cif­ic sur­face area and chem­i­cal inert­ness prop­er­ties. The super­ca­pac­i­tor is an ener­gy stor­age device which, in addi­tion to long cycle life (one mil­lion), can give ener­gy den­si­ty high­er than par­al­lel plate capac­i­tor and pow­er den­si­ty high­er than bat­tery. In this paper, car­bon nano­ma­te­ri­als and their com­pos­ites are reviewed for prospec­tive use as elec­trodes for super­ca­pac­i­tor. More­over, dif­fer­ent phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal treat­ments on these nano­ma­te­ri­als which can poten­tial­ly enhance the capac­i­tance are also reviewed. [Read more](https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/2016/1537269/) --- title: "Development of Supercapacitor based on carbon nanostructures as electrode materials" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/development-of-supercapacitor-based-on-carbon-nanostructures-as-electrode-materials/943/" date: 2016-05-17 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-337507365-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Development of Supercapacitor based on carbon nanostructures as electrode materials [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/publication/237469) --- title: "Hierarchical cellulose-derived carbon nanocomposites for electrostatic energy storage" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/hierarchical-cellulose-derived-carbon-nanocomposites-for-electrostatic-energy-storage/948/" date: 2015-12-01 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/1868104-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Hierarchical cellulose-derived carbon nanocomposites for electrostatic energy storage The prob­lem of ener­gy stor­age and its con­tin­u­ous deliv­ery on demand needs new effec­tive solu­tions. Super­ca­pac­i­tors are viewed as essen­tial devices for solv­ing this prob­lem since they can quick­ly pro­vide high pow­er basi­cal­ly count­less num­ber of times. The per­for­mance of super­ca­pac­i­tors is most­ly depen­dent on the prop­er­ties of elec­trode mate­ri­als used for elec­tro­sta­t­ic charge accu­mu­la­tion, i.e. ener­gy stor­age. This study presents new sus­tain­able cel­lu­lose-derived mate­ri­als that can be used as elec­trodes for super­ca­pac­i­tors. Nanofi­brous car­bon nanofiber (CNF) mats were cov­ered with vapor-grown car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs) in order to get com­pos­ite CNF/​CNT elec­trode mate­r­i­al. The result­ing com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al had sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er sur­face area and was much more con­duc­tive than pure CNF mate­r­i­al. The per­for­mance of the CNF/​CNT elec­trodes was eval­u­at­ed by var­i­ous analy­sis meth­ods such as cyclic voltam­me­try, gal­vano­s­ta­t­ic charge-dis­charge, elec­tro­chem­i­cal imped­ance spec­troscopy and cyclic sta­bil­i­ty. The results showed that the cel­lu­lose-derived com­pos­ite elec­trodes have fair­ly high val­ues of spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance and pow­er den­si­ty and can retain excel­lent per­for­mance over at least 2,000 cycles. There­fore it can be stat­ed that sus­tain­able cel­lu­lose-derived CNF/​CNT com­pos­ites are prospec­tive mate­ri­als for super­ca­pac­i­tor electrodes. [Read more](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/660/1/012062) --- title: "Examining Carbon Nanofibers: Properties, growth, and applications" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/examining-carbon-nanofibers-properties-growth-and-applications/950/" date: 2015-04-06 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-361856189-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Examining Carbon Nanofibers: Properties, growth, and applications One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly referred to as fil­a­men­tous carbon,carbon fil­a­ments, or car­bon whiskers. How­ev­er, it was only dur­ing the 1990s and 2000s with the demon­stra­tion of car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs)and the intro­duc­tion of cat­alyt­ic plas­ma-enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (PECVD) that one-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures emerged as a promis­ing solu­tion for a large vari­ety of appli­ca­tions. In this arti­cle, car­bon nanofibers (CNFs), a par­tic­u­lar type of one-dimen­sion­al car­bon with unique prop­er­ties, are described, their growth is dis­cussed, and their main appli­ca­tions are presented. [Read more](http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/publication/221549) --- title: "CMOS compatible on-chip decoupling capacitor based on vertically aligned carbon nanofibers" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/cmos-compatible-on-chip-decoupling-capacitor-based-on-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers/954/" date: 2015-02-25 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/niehqgsymru-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # CMOS compatible on-chip decoupling capacitor based on vertically aligned carbon nanofibers One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly On-chip decou­pling capac­i­tor of spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance 55 pF/​μm2 (foot­print area) which is 10 times high­er than the com­mer­cial­ly avail­able dis­crete and on-chip (65 nm tech­nol­o­gy node) decou­pling capac­i­tors is pre­sent­ed. The elec­trodes of the capac­i­tor are based on ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) capa­ble of being inte­grat­ed direct­ly on CMOS chips. The car­bon nanofibers employed in this study were grown on CMOS chips using direct cur­rent plas­ma enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion (DC-PECVD) tech­nique at CMOS com­pat­i­ble tem­per­a­ture. The car­bon nanofibers were grown at tem­per­a­ture from 390 °C to 550 °C. The capac­i­tance of the car­bon nanofibers was mea­sured by cyclic voltam­me­try and thus com­pared. Futher­more the capac­i­tance of decou­pling capac­i­tor was mea­sured using dif­fer­ent volt­age scan rate to show their high charge stor­age capa­bil­i­ty and final­ly the cyclic voltam­me­try is run for 1,000 cycles to assess their suit­abil­i­ty as elec­trode mate­r­i­al for decou­pling capac­i­tor. Our results show the high spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance and long-term reli­a­bil­i­ty of per­for­mance of the on-chip decou­pling capac­i­tors. More­over, the spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance shown is larg­er for car­bon nanofibers grown at high­er temperature. [Read more](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003811011500043X) --- title: "Low temperature and cost-effective growth of vertically aligned carbon nanofibers using spin-coated polymer-stabilized palladium nanocatalysts" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/low-temperature-and-cost-effective-growth-of-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-using-spin-coated-polymer-stabilized-palladium-nanocatalysts/952/" date: 2015-02-25 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-267551767.png" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Low temperature and cost-effective growth of vertically aligned carbon nanofibers using spin-coated polymer-stabilized palladium nanocatalysts One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly rWe describe a fast and cost-effec­tive process for the growth of car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) at a tem­per­a­ture com­pat­i­ble with com­ple­men­tary met­al oxide semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy, using high­ly sta­ble polymer–Pd nanohy­brid col­loidal solu­tions of pal­la­di­um cat­a­lyst nanopar­ti­cles (NPs). Two polymer–Pd nanohy­brids, name­ly poly(lauryl methacrylate)-block-poly(2‑acetoacetoxy)ethyl methacrylate)/Pd (Lau­MAx-b-AEMAy/Pd) and polyvinylpyrrolidone/​Pd were pre­pared in organ­ic sol­vents and spin-coat­ed onto sil­i­con sub­strates. Sub­se­quent­ly, ver­ti­cal­ly aligned CNFs were grown on these NPs by plas­ma enhanced chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion at dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­tures. The elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties of the grown CNFs were eval­u­at­ed using an elec­tro­chem­i­cal method, com­mon­ly used for the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of super­ca­pac­i­tors. The results show that the polymer–Pd nanohy­brid solu­tions offer the opti­mum size range of pal­la­di­um cat­a­lyst NPs enabling the growth of CNFs at tem­per­a­tures as low as 350 °C. Fur­ther­more, the CNFs grown at such a low tem­per­a­ture are ver­ti­cal­ly aligned sim­i­lar to the CNFs grown at 550 °C. Final­ly the capac­i­tive behav­ior of these CNFs was sim­i­lar to that of the CNFs grown at high tem­per­a­ture assur­ing the same elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties thus enabling their usage in dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tions such as on-chip capac­i­tors, inter­con­nects, ther­mal heat sink and ener­gy stor­age solutions. [Read more](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1088/1468-6996/16/1/015007) --- title: "Carbon Nanofibers (CNF) for Enhanced Solder-based Nano-Scale Interconnects and Packaging Solutions" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers-cnf-for-enhanced-solder-based-nano-scale-interconnects-and-packaging-solutions/967/" date: 2014-12-28 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-460599699-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon Nanofibers (CNF) for Enhanced Solder-based Nano-Scale Interconnects and Packaging Solutions [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/publication/211074) --- title: "Carbon Nanofibers (CNF) for enhanced solder-based nano-scale integration and on-chip interconnect solutions" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanofibers-cnf-for-enhanced-solder-based-nano-scale-integration-and-on-chip-interconnect-solutions/959/" date: 2014-09-25 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/3079887-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon Nanofibers (CNF) for enhanced solder-based nano-scale integration and on-chip interconnect solutions While the den­si­ty of chip-to-chip and chip-to-pack­age com­po­nent inter­con­nec­tions increas­es and their size decreas­es the ease of man­u­fac­ture and the inter­con­nec­tion reli­a­bil­i­ty are being dan­ger­ous­ly reduced. This paper intro­duces the use of Car­bon Nanofibers (CNF) grown on chip as an embed­ded rein­forc­ing mate­r­i­al for nano-sol­der inter­con­nec­tions and as bond­ing mate­r­i­al (adhe­sive) for chip-to-pack­age solu­tions. Inter­con­nec­tions are real­ized by means of microbumps which can be less than 10 µm in diam­e­ter and up to 20 µm high. Such micro-bumps are shown to be sol­der­able using con­ven­tion­al ther­mal-com­pres­sion and micro-bumps. Using CNF embed­ded in poly­mer is shown to pro­vide a robust solu­tion for chip-to-pack­age interconnections. [Read more](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6897421) --- title: "Carbon Nanotubes as base Material for Fabrication of Gap Waveguide Components" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-as-base-material-for-fabrication-of-gap-waveguide-components/7709/" date: 2014-08-20 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-465734415-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon Nanotubes as base Material for Fabrication of Gap Waveguide Components Research arti­cle pub­lished in EUROSENSORS 2014, the 28th Euro­pean Con­fer­ence on Sol­id-State Trans­duc­ers. Abstract: Car­bon nan­otubes are being used here as a base mate­r­i­al for rapid pro­to­typ­ing of a high fre­quen­cy device. It has been imple­ment­ed on a ridge gap res­onator for 220–325 GHz which has pre­vi­ous­ly been fab­ri­cat­ed in Si. Micro­fab­ri­ca­tion with Si has its ben­e­fits but it is time con­sum­ing when etch­ing high ratio struc­tures. CNT based struc­tures offer a rapid and low cost turnover for pro­to­typ­ing. Mea­sure­ments com­par­ing the CNT-based struc­ture to a pre­vi­ous­ly made Si struc­ture and sim­u­la­tions are pre­sent­ed. The unloaded Q‑values and the loss/​mm are pre­sent­ed from sim­u­la­tions, Si-based res­onator mea­sure­ments and CNT-based res­onator measurements. [Read more](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705814024230) --- title: "Carbon Nanotube Based Ridge Gap Resonator for 220–325 GHz" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotube-based-ridge-gap-resonator-for-220-325-ghz/963/" date: 2014-06-30 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/adobestock-465734415-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon Nanotube Based Ridge Gap Resonator for 220–325 GHz One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly Mea­sure­ments on a car­bon nan­otube based ridge gap res­onator are pre­sent­ed in this paper. Car­bon nan­otubes are uti­lized as a base mate­r­i­al for rapid pro­to­typ­ing of gap wave­guide devices. Here it has been imple­ment­ed on a ridge gap res­onator for 220–325 GHz. The car­bon nan­otube based struc­ture is com­pared to a pre­vi­ous­ly fab­ri­cat­ed Si-based device and to simulations. [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/224056) --- title: "Carbon Nanotubes/​Nanofibers Composites from Cellulose as Electrodes for Sustainable Energy Devices" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-nanofibers-composites-from-cellulose-as-electrodes-for-sustainable-energy-devices/961/" date: 2014-06-29 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/84678-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon Nanotubes/​Nanofibers Composites from Cellulose as Electrodes for Sustainable Energy Devices Car­bon nanofibers (CNF) with well inter­con­nect­ed pores, mechan­i­cal and elec­tro­chem­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty are prospec­tive elec­trode mate­ri­als for var­i­ous ener­gy devices.They sus­tain a sub­stan­tial uptake of elec­trolyte solu­tion and enable high ion con­duc­tiv­i­ty; their free­stand­ing nature allows using them with­out poly­mer­ic binder.CNF are par­tic­u­larly­suit­able for super­ca­pac­i­tors with high pow­er den­si­ty and long life-cycle per­for­mance that can be applied in sus­tain­able elec­tricve­hi­cles. As a demand on car­bon nanos­truc­tures con­tin­ues to grow, renew­able resources should be account­ed as an alter­na­tive to the cur­rent­ly most used CNF pre­cur­sors: coal tar pitch and syn­thet­ic poly­mers. The biopoly­mer cel­lu­lose is a vast source for the syn­the­sis of CNF. How­ev­er, the main draw­backs of the CNF mate­r­i­al are its rel­a­tive­ly low spe­cif­ic sur­face area and elec­tri­cal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, which leads to low val­ues of spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance. In this work, cel­lu­lose-based CNF with high mechan­i­cal strength and elec­tro­chem­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty were nitro­gen-doped and func­tion­al­ized with car­bon nan­otubes (CNT) via two dif­fer­ent meth­ods in order to get enhanced elec­trode mate­ri­als for supercapacitors. [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/publication/210893) --- title: "Carbon nanotubes/​nanofibers composites from cellulose for supercapacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-nanofibers-composites-from-cellulose-for-supercapacitors/956/" date: 2014-06-22 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/1846059-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon nanotubes/​nanofibers composites from cellulose for supercapacitors One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly rWe describe a fast and cost-effec­tive process for the growth of car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) at a tem­per­a­ture com­pat­i­ble with com­ple­men­tary met­al oxide semi­con­duc­tor tech­nol­o­gy, using high­ly sta­ble polymer–Pd nanohy­brid col­loidal solu­tions of Cel­lu­lose-based car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) with high mechan­i­cal strength and elec­tro­chem­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty were nitro­gen-doped and func­tion­al­ized with car­bon nan­otubes (CNTs) via two dif­fer­ent meth­ods. The diam­e­ter of incor­po­rat­ed CNTs was in the range of 1–20 nm. The dop­ing with nitro­gen atoms and incor­po­ra­tion of CNTs into the CNFs improved con­duc­tiv­i­ty, while CNTs also increased sur­face area of the pro­duced mate­r­i­al. As a result, the com­pos­ite mate­ri­als with capac­i­tance val­ues up to 241 F/​g were obtained. [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/publication/208930) --- title: "Embedded Fibers Enhance Nano-Scale Interconnections" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/embedded-fibers-enhance-nano-scale-interconnections/7785/" date: 2014-04-16 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/image-023-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Embedded Fibers Enhance Nano-Scale Interconnections While the den­si­ty of chip-to-chip and chip-to-pack­age com­po­nent inter­con­nec­tions increas­es and their size decreas­es the ease of man­u­fac­ture and the inter­con­nec­tion reli­a­bil­i­ty are being reduced. This paper will intro­duce the use of embed­ded fibers in the inter­con­nec­tions as a means of address­ing these issues. Flip chips bumps are evolv­ing from large sol­der balls down to small thin cop­per pil­lars. Some cop­per pil­lars are sol­der capped and use a ther­mo-com­pres­sion reflow attach­ment process. Small­er diam­e­ter cop­per pil­lars, while desir­able by users, present a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to assem­blers and reli­a­bil­i­ty issues for end-users. Nanos­truc­tures in the form of car­bon nan­otubes have been eval­u­at­ed for years. The recent­ly cre­at­ed a means of grow­ing metal­lic car­bon nanofibers, CNF’s, to micro bumps which are sol­der­able. When embed­ded with sol­der the fiber bumps pro­duce robust com­po­nent inter­con­nec­tions which can be less than 10 um in diam­e­ter and up to 20 um high. Attach­ment of the fiber micro bumps uses con­ven­tion­al ther­mo-com­pres­sion bonding. Results from the most recent eval­u­a­tions will be pre­sent­ed indi­cat­ing elec­tri­cal per­for­mance and show­ing ease of manufacture [Read more](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289033898_Embedded_fibers_enhance_nano-scale_interconnections) --- title: "Is it time to Reinforce In-package Solder Joints Using CNF?" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/is-it-time-to-reinforce-in-package-solder-joints-using-cnf/965/" date: 2014-04-15 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/image-023-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Is it time to Reinforce In-package Solder Joints Using CNF? One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly rWe describe a fast and cost-effec­tive process for the growth of car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) at a tem­per­a­ture com­pat­i­ble with cThe trend towards small­er inter­con­nects is start­ing to present assem­bly and reli­a­bil­i­ty chal­lenges. While desir­able by users, small­er diam­e­ter cop­per pil­lars present an even more sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to assem­blers and reli­a­bil­i­ty issues for end-users. How­ev­er, nanos­truc­tures in the form of car­bon nano-fibers (CNFs) embed­ded with sol­der or con­duc­tive epoxy pro­duce stronger com­po­nent inter­con­nec­tions that enable small­er diam­e­ter cop­per pil­lars. If desired, the rein­forced fiber bumps can be less than 10 μm in diam­e­ter and up to 20 μm high. Attach­ment of the fiber micro bumps uses con­ven­tion­al ther­mo­com­pres­sion bonding. [Read more](https://issuu.com/mepcom/docs/meptec_report_spring_2014/20) --- title: "Carbon nanotubes as electrode for supercapacitors" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanotubes-as-electrode-for-supercapacitors/970/" date: 2013-05-12 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/cultivation-of-precisely-placed-carbon-nanofibres-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon nanotubes as electrode for supercapacitors One-dimen­sion­al car­bon nanos­truc­tures have been known and fab­ri­cat­ed for more than a hun­dred years and were orig­i­nal­ly rWe describe a fast and cost-effec­tive process for the growth of car­bon nanofibers (CNFs) at a tem­per­a­ture com­pat­i­ble with Both sil­i­con wafers and ther­mal­ly oxi­dized sil­i­con wafers are diced into 14×14 mm2 pieces to fit the cir­cu­lar active area with 11 mm diam­e­ter used in voltam­me­try. 50 nm of tung­sten is sput­tered on both sides of the chips for edge cov­er­age to have bet­ter elec­tri­cal con­tact of back side and grown side. A cat­a­lyst lay­er con­sist­ing of alu­minum (5 nm) and iron (2 nm) is deposit­ed using elec­tron beam evap­o­ra­tion. The CNTs are grown by chem­i­cal vapor depo­si­tion at 700 °C using acety­lene and hydro­gen gasses as car­bon source and car­ri­er. First, the cat­a­lyst is pre­treat­ed at 500 °C in the envi­ron­ment of con­tin­u­ous hydro­gen flow at around 8 mbar pres­sure. Then acety­lene is intro­duced and the tem­per­a­ture is raised to 700 °C with­in a few sec­onds. Sam­ple (1) con­sists of: Si, W, Al, Fe; sam­ple (2) con­sists of: Si, SiO2, W, Al, Fe. Mea­sure­ments were car­ried out by a three elec­trode sys­tem with Ag/​AgCl as ref­er­ence elec­trode, Pt as counter elec­trode and 1M KOH as elec­trolyte. The capac­i­tance was cal­cu­lat­ed from the voltam­mo­gram (Fig­ure 1). The voltam­me­try was car­ried out with 5 cycles per sam­ple. Sam­ple (1) yields a capac­i­tance of 0.0475 F and (2) a apac­i­tance of 0.04 F for the active geo­met­ri­cal sur­face at sweep rate 20 mV/​s (Table 1). Cal­cu­lat­ed capac­i­tances are from the voltam­mo­gram val­ues, where the capac­i­tance is the absolute val­ue between ‑0.1 – 0.1 V divid­ed by 2 and divid­ed by the sweep rate. C = Δ|I| /​ s, where Δ|I| is the dif­fer­ence in cur­rent, s is the sweep rate (dE/​dt) and C is the capac­i­tance. An esti­ma­tion of CNT weight using SEM pic­tures yields approx­i­mate­ly 0,3 mg. The mea­sured weight from a scale is in the range 0.8–1.4 mg which gives a spe­cif­ic capac­i­tance of 13P1: 46.9 ± 12.7 F/​g and 14P1: 39.3 ± 10.7 F/​g for the two sam­ples respec­tive­ly. Future improve­ments of these CNT elec­trodes will be to pro­duce longer nan­otubes and a more dense struc­ture. Both these para­me­ters will increase the sur­face area and by that yield a high­er capac­i­tance for the elec­trode. By con-trolling the ver­ti­cal align­ment of the CNTs in com­bi­na­tion with pro­duc­tion meth­ods con­tain­ing cheap mate­ri­als and by using indus­tri­al fab­ri­ca­tion tech­niques the ener­gy den­si­ty can be improved. This makes ver­ti­cal­ly aligned CNT a very promis­ing mate­r­i­al as elec­trode mate­r­i­al for supercapacitors. [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/publication/191483) --- title: "A Test Vehicle for RF/​DC Evaluation and Destructive Testing Of Vertically Grown Nanostructures (VGCNS)" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/a-test-vehicle-for-rf-dc-evaluation-and-destructive-testing-of-vertically-grown-nanostructures-vgcns/973/" date: 2011-07-10 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/vertically-aligned-carbon-nanofibers-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # A Test Vehicle for RF/​DC Evaluation and Destructive Testing Of Vertically Grown Nanostructures (VGCNS) We have devel­oped an RF test vehi­cle suit­able for mea­sur­ing DC and microwave per­for­mance of ver­ti­cal­ly grown car­bon nanos­truc­tures (VGCNS) as via-inter­con­nects. A first ver­sion of the inter­con­nect test vehi­cles devices were designed, fab­ri­cat­ed and char­ac­ter­ized. The RF small sig­nal (S‑parameter) and large sig­nal mea­sure­ments show that car­bon nanofi­bres can be used as inter­con­nects in microwave cir­cuit, even for pow­er devices. The design of test vehi­cle employs a three met­al lay­er con­cept, form­ing sequen­tial­ly the ground, sig­nal and device under test struc­tures for char­ac­ter­i­za­tion in a microstrip con­fig­u­ra­tion. The struc­tures as such con­sist­ed of inter­con­nects of dimen­sions rang­ing from 50 nm to 100 µm diam­e­ter made of VGCNS. In the first ver­sion of the inter­con­nect test vehi­cles, the inter­con­nects were made of car­bon nanofibers grown at 450 C. From SEM mea­sure­ment we found that the result­ing height was around 1.5–2 µm. Epoxy poly­mer SU‑8 was employed by spin­ning on the device and a sub­se­quent etch back process was car­ried out to open up the tip of the fibres to con­nect to con­sec­u­tive inter­con­nects with the third met­alli­sa­tion lay­er. After grow­ing the nanofi­bres, it was observed, using SEM, that inter­con­nect sizes small­er than 10 µm diam­e­ter suf­fered from par­a­sitic growth and there­fore the effec­tive device dimen­sion devi­at­ed from the ini­tial design. We car­ried out small sig­nal mea­sure­ments using a vec­tor net­work analyser for fre­quen­cy rang­ing from 1 to 25 GHz, in order to char­ac­terise the trans­mis­sion and reflection/​absorption of the devices as func­tion of their diam­e­ter size. The large sig­nal eval­u­a­tion was per­formed by mea­sur­ing the gain com­pres­sion of the devices. In addi­tion destruc­tive tests, aim­ing at test­ing the cur­rent car­ry­ing capa­bil­i­ty of the inter­con­nect, have also been per­formed. The resis­tiv­i­ty of inter­con­nects was mea­sured to vary varies from 0.2–1.3 mΩ·mm. Appar­ent­ly, the device per­for­mance is con­sid­er­ably influ­enced by the fill fac­tor of the inter­con­nect with VGCNS. Small vari­a­tions in fill fac­tor (in %) pro­vid­ed a large vari­a­tions in device resis­tiv­i­ty. Fur­ther­more, it was also observed that the resis­tance drops at high­er pow­er lev­els. RF con­duc­tiv­i­ty of inter­con­nects ranges from 5×103 S/​m to 7×105 S/​m. The aver­age input pow­er before inter­con­nect destruc­tion is larg­er than 25W with effec­tive device diam­e­ter rang­ing from 3 µm to 100 µm inter­con­nects. In addi­tion, the aver­age gain com­pres­sion before inter­con­nect destruc­tion was found to be 0.6 dB. It was not pos­si­ble to extract the con­duc­tiv­i­ty val­ue of an indi­vid­ual nanofiber using com­par­i­son to sim­u­la­tion data, since the devices might have suf­fered from par­a­sitic growth as well as pin­hole met­al dif­fu­sion dur­ing top met­al con­tact for­ma­tion. This cer­tain­ly affects the actu­al device dimen­sion and prop­er­ties. Nev­er­the­less, the proof of con­cept of design and man­u­fac­tur­ing a test vehi­cle for RF mea­sure­ments of ver­ti­cal­ly grown nanos­truc­tures was achieved. We will report the find­ings and anom­alies in the mea­sured devices. Fur­ther improve­ment is expect­ed in the com­ing test vehi­cle version. [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/publication/191901) --- title: "Catalyst Diffusion" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/catalyst-diffusion/1030/" date: 2010-10-18 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ep2630281b1pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Catalyst Diffusion The inven­tion: Nanos­truc­ture device and method for man­u­fac­tur­ing nanos­truc­tures – A method for man­u­fac­tur­ing a plu­ral­i­ty of nanos­truc­tures on a sub­strate. The method com­pris­es the steps of: deposit­ing a bot­tom lay­er on an upper sur­face of the sub­strate, the bot­tom lay­er com­pris­ing grains hav­ing a first aver­age grain size; deposit­ing a cat­a­lyst lay­er on an upper sur­face of the bot­tom lay­er, the cat­a­lyst lay­er com­pris­ing grains hav­ing a sec­ond aver­age grain size dif­fer­ent from the first aver­age grain size, there­by form­ing a stack of lay­ers com­pris­ing the bot­tom lay­er and the cat­a­lyst lay­er; heat­ing the stack of lay­ers to a tem­per­a­ture where nanos­truc­tures can form; and pro­vid­ing a gas com­pris­ing a reac­tant such that the reac­tant comes into con­tact with the cat­a­lyst layer. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by EPO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ep2630281b1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN103154340](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN103154340/en) | | Europe | [EP2630281](https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2630281/en) | | India | IN347659 | | Rus­sia | [RU2573474](https://patents.google.com/patent/RU2573474/en) | | South Korea | [KR101736303](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101736303/en) | | South Korea | [KR101903714](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101903714/en) | | South Korea | [KR101970209](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101970209/en) | | USA | [US9206532](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9206532/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Nanoimprint lithography using vertically aligned carbon nanostructures as stamp" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/nanoimprint-lithography-using-vertically-aligned-carbon-nanostructures-as-stamp/975/" date: 2009-08-26 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2015-12-10-smoltek-16-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Nanoimprint lithography using vertically aligned carbon nanostructures as stamp Nanoim­print lith­o­g­ra­phy using ver­ti­cal­ly aligned car­bon nanos­truc­tures as stamps is report­ed. The func­tion­al­i­ty of the stamp is demon­strat­ed through lift-off and etch-back process­es after pat­tern repli­ca­tion. The imprint process is robust and the stamp struc­tures sur­vived more than 50 con­sec­u­tive imprints. In this paper we demon­strate this for fea­ture sizes rang­ing from 80 nm to 200 µm where the aspect ratio of the indi­vid­ual nanos­truc­tures sur­pass­es 1:5 with a pitch down to 100 nm. This demon­stra­tion opens up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of uti­liz­ing ver­ti­cal­ly grown car­bon nanos­truc­tures for man­u­fac­tur­ing extreme­ly high aspect ratio and small pitch stamps for nanoim­print lithography. [Read more](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-4484/20/37/375302) --- title: "Nano Imprint Lithography" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/nano-imprint-lithography/1026/" date: 2009-07-23 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/us9028242pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Nano Imprint Lithography The inven­tion: A tem­plate and method of mak­ing high aspect ratio tem­plate, stamp, and imprint­ing at nanoscale using nanos­truc­tures for the pur­pose of lith­o­g­ra­phy, and to the use of the tem­plate to cre­ate per­fo­ra­tions on mate­ri­als and products. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by USPTO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/us9028242.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN102119363](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN102119363/en) | | Japan | [JP5405574](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP5405574/en) | | Malaysia | [MY153444](https://patents.google.com/patent/MY153444/en) | | Philip­pines | PH12011500242 | | USA | [US9028242](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9028242/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Helplayer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/helplayer/1022/" date: 2009-02-20 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ep2250661b1pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Helplayer The inven­tion: A method for mak­ing one or more nanos­truc­tures is dis­closed, the method com­pris­ing: deposit­ing a con­duct­ing lay­er on an upper sur­face of a sub­strate; deposit­ing a pat­terned lay­er of cat­a­lyst on the con­duct­ing lay­er; grow­ing the one or more nanos­truc­tures on the lay­er of cat­a­lyst; and selec­tive­ly remov­ing the con­duct­ing lay­er between and around the one or more nanos­truc­tures. A device is also dis­closed, com­pris­ing a sub­strate, where­in the sub­strate com­pris­es one or more exposed met­al islands sep­a­rat­ed by one or more insu­lat­ing areas; a con­duct­ing helplay­er dis­posed on the sub­strate cov­er­ing at least some of the one or more exposed met­al islands or insu­lat­ing areas; a cat­a­lyst lay­er dis­posed on the con­duct­ing helplay­er; and one or more nanos­truc­tures dis­posed on the cat­a­lyst layer. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by EPO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ep2250661b1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN102007571](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN102007571/en) | | Chi­na | [CN105441903](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN105441903/en) | | Europe | [EP2250661](https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2250661/en) | | India | IN327303 | | Japan | [JP5474835](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP5474835/en) | | Japan | [JP5943947](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP5943947/en) | | Japan | [JP6126725](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP6126725/en) | | South Korea | [KR101638463](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101638463/en) | | Tai­wan | [TWI465389](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI465389/en) | | USA | [US8508049](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8508049/en) | | USA | [US8866307](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8866307/en) | | USA | [US9114993](https://patents.google.com/patent/US9114993/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Carbon nanostructures perform high aspect ratio nanoimprinting" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/carbon-nanostructures-perform-high-aspect-ratio-nanoimprinting/977/" date: 2009-01-01 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2015-12-10-smoltek-19-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Carbon nanostructures perform high aspect ratio nanoimprinting [Read more](https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/103819) --- title: "Bumping" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/bumping/1019/" date: 2008-09-10 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/ep2197782b1pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Bumping The inven­tion: An appa­ra­tus com­pris­ing two con­duc­tive sur­faces or lay­ers and a nanos­truc­ture assem­bly bond­ed to the two con­duc­tive sur­faces or lay­ers to cre­ate elec­tri­cal or ther­mal con­nec­tions between the two con­duc­tive sur­faces or lay­ers, and a method of mak­ing same. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by EPO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ep2197782b1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN101827782](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN101827782/en) | | Chi­na | [CN104600057](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN104600057/en) | | Europe | [EP2197782](https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2197782/en) | | Japan | [JP5535915](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP5535915/en) | | Japan | [JP6149077](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP6149077/en) | | South Korea | [KR101487346](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101487346/en) | | Tai­wan | [TWI511208](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI511208/en) | | Tai­wan | [TWI564980](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI564980/en) | | Tai­wan | [TWI655695](https://patents.google.com/patent/TWI655695/en) | | USA | [US8106517](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8106517/en) | | USA | [US8253253](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8253253/en) | | USA | [US8815332](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8815332/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Compatibility Assessment of CVD growth of Carbon nanofibers on bulkCMOS devices" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/compatibility-assessment-of-cvd-growth-of-carbon-nanofibers-on-bulkcmos-devices/979/" date: 2008-07-18 author: "Thomas Barregren" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/7dpwnjeeevs-jpg.webp" categories: - name: "Research" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/research.md" --- # Compatibility Assessment of CVD growth of Carbon nanofibers on bulkCMOS devices We com­pare the lev­el of dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the basic func­tion­al­i­ty of indi­vid­ual tran­sis­tors on ASIC chips fab­ri­cat­ed in stan­dard 130 nm bulk CMOS tech­nol­o­gy when sub­ject­ed to three dis­parate CVD tech­niques with rel­a­tive­ly low pro­cess­ing tem­per­a­ture to grow car­bon nanos­truc­tures. We report that the growth tech­nique with the low­est tem­per­a­ture has the least impact on the tran­sis­tor behavior. [Read more](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl801397j) --- title: "Interconnects B" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interconnects-b/1044/" date: 2006-08-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/us8415787pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Interconnects B The inven­tion: A way of man­u­fac­ture nanos­truc­tures grown on a con­duct­ing or insu­lat­ing sub­strate, and a method of mak­ing the same. The nanos­truc­tures grown accord­ing to the claimed method are suit­able for inter­con­nects and/​or as heat dis­si­pa­tors in elec­tron­ic devices.  [Down­load the patent grant­ed by USPTO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/us8415787.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | India | IN266759 | | USA | [US7777291](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7777291/en) | | USA | [US8183659](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8183659/en) | | USA | [US8415787](https://patents.google.com/patent/US8415787/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Nanostructure IC" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/nanostructure-ic/1011/" date: 2006-08-28 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/ep1945840b1pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Nanostructure IC The inven­tion: Inte­grat­ed cir­cuit com­pris­ing nanos­truc­tures. The present inven­tion pro­vides for nanos­truc­tures grown on a con­duct­ing sub­strate, and a method of mak­ing the same. The nanos­truc­tures grown accord­ing to the claimed method are suit­able for inter­con­nects and heat dis­si­pa­tors in elec­tron­ic devices. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by EPO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ep1945840b1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN101189372](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN101189372/en) | | Chi­na | [CN102709132](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN102709132/en) | | Chi­na | [CN105575743](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN105575743/en) | | Europe | [EP2587514](https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2587514/en) | | Rus­sia | [RU2406689](https://patents.google.com/patent/RU2406689/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Interconnects A (SmolGROW™)" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/interconnects-a-smolgrow/1035/" date: 2006-04-25 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/ep1874986b1pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Interconnects A (SmolGROW™) A method of form­ing of nanos­truc­tures and nanos­truc­ture devices — A tru­ly unique nanos­truc­ture growth plat­form tech­nol­o­gy that enables man­u­fac­tur­ing of nano­ma­te­r­i­al devices on CMOS plat­form. The method cov­ers dif­fer­ent types of nanos­truc­tures includ­ing car­bon nan­otubes, nanofibers, nanowires, etc. The present inven­tion pro­vides a method for nanos­truc­tures grown on a met­al under­lay­er, and a method of mak­ing the same. The grown nanos­truc­tures based on the claimed method are suit­able for man­u­fac­tur­ing elec­tron­ic devices such as an elec­tron beam writer, and a field emis­sion display. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by EPO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ep1874986b1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Europe | [EP1874986](https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1874986/en) | | Europe | [EP2586744](https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2586744/en) | | India | IN264325 | | Japan | [JP5349956](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP5349956/en) | | South Korea | [KR101361946](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101361946/en) | | USA | [US7687876](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7687876/en) | | USA | [US7977761](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7977761/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents. --- title: "Nanostructure E‑beam writer" canonical_url: "https://www.smoltek.com/nanostructure-e-beam-writer/999/" date: 2006-04-25 author: "Fredrik Liljeberg" featured_image: "https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/ep2587514b1pdf.png" categories: - name: "Patents" url: "https://www.smoltek.com/category/patents.md" --- # Nanostructure E‑beam writer The inven­tion: A nanos­truc­ture-based elec­tron beam writer. The inno­va­tion is an elec­tron beam writer that enables the cre­ation of car­bon nanos­truc­tures with great pre­ci­sion and desired prop­er­ties. For exam­ple, it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate a sin­gle car­bon nanofiber (CNF) of a spe­cif­ic length, diam­e­ter and slope at a spe­cif­ic location. [Down­load the patent grant­ed by EPO.](https://www.smoltek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ep2587514b1.pdf) ## [](https://www.smoltek.com#granted-patents-relating-to-the-innovation)Granted patents relating to the innovation | Patent Office | Patent | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Chi­na | [CN101313092](https://patents.google.com/patent/CN101313092/en) | | Europe | [EP1945840](https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1945840/en) | | Japan | [JP5519936](https://patents.google.com/patent/JP5519936/en) | | South Korea | [KR101365341](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101365341/en) | | South Korea | [KR101386268](https://patents.google.com/patent/KR101386268/en) | For more infor­ma­tion about a par­tic­u­lar patent, click on its name to view it on Google Patents.