About Substrate Inc
Substrate is a San Francisco startup developing X-ray lithography, a method of printing circuit patterns onto silicon wafers using X-rays rather than the extreme ultraviolet light used by ASML's machines. It plans to generate the X-rays with a compact particle accelerator and says this could pattern chips at 2 nm class dimensions and lower the cost of leading-edge wafers. These are company claims and little technical detail has been published. James Proud is the chief executive, and In-Q-Tel, General Catalyst and Founders Fund are reported backers.
Substrate Inc was founded in 2022 and is based in San Francisco, United States. It is listed under Custom Silicon. Reported funding is $100M Series A (Oct 2025) at $1B+ valuation.
Compute Technologies
- Custom Silicon
What Substrate Inc works on
Custom Silicon
Custom silicon means a company designs its own chips for its own products or data centers instead of buying standard parts. The chip is made by a foundry such as TSMC, but the design belongs to the customer.
Also in United States
Oxmiq Labs, Applied Materials, Tesla Dojo, II-VI/Finisar (now Coherent), Cohu Inc.
