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.

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. 

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 Chip¹) 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.