With EU backing, QuantumDiamonds aims to speed up chip manufacturing
With EU backing, QuantumDiamonds aims to speed up chip manufacturing
在欧盟的支持下，QuantumDiamonds 旨在加速芯片制造
The race to produce more chips is on, and Europe is in. ASML, the Dutch company that has a near-monopoly on manufacturing the machines used for chipmaking, may soon no longer be an isolated success story. Like its U.S. counterpart, the European Chips Act aims to foster the semiconductor industry — in part thanks to state subsidies. 芯片产能竞赛已经打响，欧洲也已入局。荷兰公司 ASML 在芯片制造设备领域几乎处于垄断地位，但它可能很快就不再是唯一的成功案例。与美国的同类法案一样，《欧洲芯片法案》（European Chips Act）旨在通过国家补贴等方式，扶持半导体产业的发展。
One of the beneficiaries is QuantumDiamonds, a German startup that applies a novel approach to inspecting chips. With the approval of the European Commission, it has been granted €76 million in non-dilutive funding provided by Germany’s federal economy ministry and the state of Bavaria. The startup will use it to set up a new facility for the production of semiconductor testing equipment in Munich as part of a $178 million investment plan it had already announced. QuantumDiamonds 便是受益者之一，这家德国初创公司采用了一种新颖的芯片检测方法。在获得欧盟委员会批准后，该公司获得了由德国联邦经济部和巴伐利亚州政府提供的 7600 万欧元非稀释性资金。作为其此前宣布的 1.78 亿美元投资计划的一部分，该公司将利用这笔资金在慕尼黑建立一个新的半导体测试设备生产基地。
A spinout from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), QuantumDiamonds has also raised a €15 million equity round led by VC firm World Fund, TechCrunch learned exclusively. The company declined to disclose its valuation, but said its round was also backed by Bayern Kapital and existing investors including Creator Fund, Earlybird, First Momentum, IQ Capital, Onsight Ventures, and UnternehmerTUM. 据 TechCrunch 独家获悉，作为慕尼黑工业大学（TUM）的衍生公司，QuantumDiamonds 还完成了一轮 1500 万欧元的股权融资，由风投公司 World Fund 领投。该公司拒绝透露估值，但表示此轮融资还得到了 Bayern Kapital 以及现有投资者（包括 Creator Fund、Earlybird、First Momentum、IQ Capital、Onsight Ventures 和 UnternehmerTUM）的支持。
CEO Kevin Berghoff told TechCrunch that raising the round was a fairly quick process, as QuantumDiamonds was able to demonstrate customer pull. “We work with almost everyone in the chip ecosystem,” he said. With huge demand for all kinds of chips, there’s just as much demand for solutions to speed up the manufacturing process and improve the output. 首席执行官 Kevin Berghoff 向 TechCrunch 表示，由于 QuantumDiamonds 能够证明市场需求强劲，融资过程相当迅速。“我们与芯片生态系统中的几乎所有人都有合作，”他说。随着各类芯片需求的激增，市场对加速制造流程和提高产量的解决方案的需求也同样迫切。
By compressing a defect detection process that usually takes weeks into a two-minute inspection that doesn’t stop production lines, QuantumDiamonds claims that it can help the likes of Taiwan-based Foundries and Korea’s Memory Makers save hundreds of millions of dollars. This means that its hardware is typically paid back entirely within a couple of months, Berghoff said. QuantumDiamonds 声称，通过将通常需要数周的缺陷检测过程压缩为无需停产的 2 分钟检测，他们可以帮助台湾的代工厂和韩国的存储芯片制造商节省数亿美元。Berghoff 表示，这意味着其硬件成本通常在几个月内就能完全收回。
It also leaves room to cover the subscription fee that the startup charges for on-site support and for its software, which interprets the data and usually gives clients a strong indication of what they should address in their manufacturing process. 这也留出了空间来支付该初创公司收取的现场支持和软件订阅费用。其软件能够解读数据，并通常能为客户提供明确的指导，指出他们在制造过程中需要解决的问题。
Behind the scenes, this happens to be one of the first actual use cases of quantum technology — unlike chips, quantum sensing is already operational in its ability to generate magnetic fields that detect defects with high precision, and that’s all customers care about. “They couldn’t care less about it being quantum,” Berghoff said with a laugh. 在幕后，这恰好是量子技术的首批实际应用案例之一——与芯片不同，量子传感技术已经能够通过产生磁场来高精度地检测缺陷，而这正是客户所关心的。“他们根本不在乎这是否是量子技术，”Berghoff 笑着说。
Presumably, neither do they care about the diamonds — but in case you are wondering, these are synthetic. What QuantumDiamonds does is leverage their tiniest properties to observe how electricity is flowing through chips. Compared to current inspections, which look at the top layer of a chip with a microscope of sorts, this has the advantage of detecting defects through all layers, without destroying the chip in the process. 想必他们也不在乎钻石——但如果你好奇的话，这些钻石是合成的。QuantumDiamonds 所做的是利用钻石的微小特性来观察电流如何在芯片中流动。与目前使用显微镜观察芯片顶层的检测方式相比，这种方法的优势在于能够穿透所有层检测缺陷，且不会在过程中损坏芯片。
This capability could be particularly relevant as chips are increasingly multi-layered. Startups such as Semron have been developing 3D chips, and the industry seems to agree this is the way to go for AI data centers, Berghoff said. “The thing is that the transistors cannot get smaller, so in order to get the same power and the same compute, you start to add more and more layers.” 随着芯片日益多层化，这种能力显得尤为重要。Berghoff 表示，像 Semron 这样的初创公司一直在开发 3D 芯片，而业界似乎也认同这是人工智能数据中心的发展方向。“问题在于晶体管无法再缩小了，所以为了获得同样的功率和计算能力，你只能不断增加层数。”
Large competitors including “100 billion market-capped U.S.-based inspection companies” will likely adapt at some point, but QuantumDiamonds has first-mover advantage, Berghoff said. “There is no U.S. or Asian company that has shipped those tools.” Berghoff 表示，包括“市值千亿美元的美国检测公司”在内的大型竞争对手很可能会在某个时候做出调整，但 QuantumDiamonds 拥有先发优势。“目前还没有任何美国或亚洲公司出货过此类工具。”
The startup is already out of the lab, and on its way to moving from its clients’ labs to their fabs — the semiconductor manufacturing plants. “What we have now is a tool for a lab environment, where you do sample-based testing, and test maybe one out of a million chips,” Berghoff said. “What we now aim for is to also do high-throughput testing, meaning you can do 100% quality control in the fab itself.” 这家初创公司已经走出了实验室，正从客户的实验室迈向晶圆厂（半导体制造工厂）。“我们现在拥有的工具适用于实验室环境，进行抽样测试，可能一百万个芯片中测试一个，”Berghoff 说。“我们现在的目标是实现高通量测试，这意味着可以在晶圆厂内进行 100% 的质量控制。”
These machines are costly, although it depends on how you are comparing, Berghoff said. “We are in the single-digit millions for the lab tools. And the high-throughput system could be up to $10 to $15 million; but it would not be anywhere close to ASML machines that [cost] maybe $400 million. So it’s expensive, but for them, we are quite cheap.” Berghoff 表示，这些机器价格昂贵，但这取决于你如何比较。“我们的实验室工具价格在几百万美元左右。高通量系统可能高达 1000 万到 1500 万美元；但这与可能耗资 4 亿美元的 ASML 机器相比根本不算什么。所以它很贵，但对他们来说，我们相当便宜。”
The comparison could work in other ways. “[QuantumDiamonds] can become Europe’s next ASML,” World Fund managing partner Daria Saharova wrote in a statement. That’s VC bullishness for you, but it could also play out differently. “ASML also wants to do more [when it comes to] inspection, so they are a typical company that might buy us at some point,” Berghoff said candidly — although ASML said recently it isn’t too keen on M&As. 这种比较还可以从其他角度来看。World Fund 管理合伙人 Daria Saharova 在一份声明中写道：“[QuantumDiamonds] 有可能成为欧洲的下一个 ASML。”这体现了风投的乐观态度，但情况也可能有所不同。Berghoff 坦言：“ASML 也想在检测领域做更多事情，所以他们是那种在某个时候可能会收购我们的典型公司。”——尽管 ASML 最近表示对并购并不太感兴趣。
For the time being, QuantumDiamonds may be more akin to another World Fund portfolio company: IQM, the Finnish quantum spinout that recently went public. Both companies come from Europe’s deep tech breeding ground, and aim to leverage European support and funding to go global. 目前，QuantumDiamonds 可能更像 World Fund 投资组合中的另一家公司：最近上市的芬兰量子衍生公司 IQM。两家公司都来自欧洲的深科技孵化地，旨在利用欧洲的支持和资金走向全球。
QuantumDiamonds is still at an earlier stage of its journey, but 2026 has been a year of international expansion for the startup, which opened a regional hub in Taiwan and completed its first commercial deployments both in Taiwan and in the U.S., where it installed a system at Eurofins EAG Laboratories in Sunnyvale, California. QuantumDiamonds 的发展仍处于早期阶段，但 2026 年是该初创公司的国际扩张之年，它在台湾开设了区域中心，并在台湾和美国完成了首次商业部署，其中在美国加州桑尼维尔的 Eurofins EAG 实验室安装了一套系统。
However, its new funding will also generate jobs in Munich, where most of its team of 70 people is based. That’s also where Berghoff and his co-founder and CTO, Fleming Bruckmaier, plan to double its engineering team over the next 12 months, taking advantage of affordable talent both with quantum and with semiconductor expertise. “We have what we need here to ship overseas,” Berghoff said. 然而，这笔新资金也将在慕尼黑创造就业机会，其 70 人的团队大部分都在那里。这也是 Berghoff 和他的联合创始人兼首席技术官 Fleming Bruckmaier 计划在未来 12 个月内将工程团队规模扩大一倍的地方，他们将利用当地既懂量子又懂半导体技术的廉价人才。“我们在这里拥有出海所需的一切，”Berghoff 说。