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Xallent | Jul 8, 2021   ITHACA, NY— Efforts to push the frontiers of nanoscale chip design received a significant boost today when Xallent, a world leader in nanoscale measuring solutions, today announced pre-orders for their next-generation SAKYIWA system, which features probes 1800X smaller than the current market standard. In addition to smaller probes, the Xallent system speeds up common measurement workflows by 300X, semi-automates repeated measurements, minimizes tedious sample preparation, and provides much higher accuracy measurements of smaller samples. Making consumer electronics smaller, faster, and more powerful depends to a large degree on the ability of the semiconductor industry to create chip designs with smaller design parameters. Currently in volume production is 5 nanometers, but researchers are working on 3 nm, 2 nm, and even 1.4 nm designs, which will be crucial to achieving the promise of technologies such as 6G, autonomous vehicles, and augmented reality wearables. One of the key limitations has been the inability to easily and reliably measure prototypes produced at these small sizes. “Our Xallent system has given our user base several orders-of-magnitude improvement in measurement throughput and drastically decreased their cost of testing,” says Ron Olson, the Director of Operations at the Cornell NanoScale Facility, the first customer for the new technology. “The Xallent system represents a key milestone in semiconductor and thin film materials characterization.” The Xallent system is used for DC, high frequency, CV electrical testing, mechanical and scanning probe testing, imaging, and metrology. Measuring the electrical and mechanical properties of thin film materials, MEMS, photonics, and solid-state devices at the micro and nanoscale can now be done on the same system, faster, with higher resolution, and at a fraction of the cost. The new SAKYIWA system replaces measurement equipment that costs about 5 times as much and takes up 10 times the lab space. “Today’s announcement is the result of years of research and development, and it’s a huge moment for the entire Xallent team,” said Xallent founder and CEO Dr. Kwame Amponsah. Funded in part via grants and partnerships with U.S. Government and New York State agencies including Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the U.S. Army, the Xallent technology will help realize the promise of emerging high performance computing technologies. The Xallent system announced today offers a complete solution including probes, probe heads, the wafer prober, and the AI-powered software to run it. For research labs and production facilities that already have substantial hardware investments, Xallent also announced a probe head that works as a drop-in replacement for manipulators on conventional systems and that immediately enables many of the Xallent benefits with essentially no hardware investment. More information about the products and the company can be found at the newly re-designed website www.xallent.com. About XallentXallent LLC designs, develops, manufactures, and markets the world’s most advanced hardware and software tools for micro and nanoscale probing measurements. Xallent’s patented probe cards, probe heads, and wafer probers are used for the most demanding applications in the imaging, electrical, and mechanical testing of semiconductor devices and thin film materials, and enable industry-leading research labs and production facilities to dramatically improve their measurement and analytics capabilities with greater accuracy, speed, and at a lower cost. Xallent was founded by Dr. Kwame Amponsah together with Dr. Amit Lal, and Dr. Ashish Kumar at Cornell University in 2013. The technology was refined and commercialized through grants, partnerships, and contracts with DARPA, NSF, NIST, the U.S. Army, Sandia National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Cornell NanoScale Facility, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and NY State. Xallent is headquartered in Ithaca, New York. For more information please visit www.xallent.com.

by Xallent | May 19, 2020 Xallent LLC is happy to announce that it has been selected to be part of Microsoft’s highly competitive early-stage B2B Startup program! This program aims at creating technical solutions that support customers in their digital transformation. As part of this program,  we have received access to free Microsoft cloud technologies, including up to $120,000 USD in Azure credits, along with tech support and guidance which will be pivotal in developing innovative solutions. This partnership with Microsoft will help us to incorporate Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools to build solutions that will have a far-reaching impact on our customers. We also get a chance to collaborate and sell our solutions through Microsoft’s Commercial Market place which will aid in building our brand and improve our brand recognition in the nanoscale testing solutions market. Xallent LLC is in the process of scaling the organization and teaming up with Microsoft will provide the platform to connect with larger players in the semiconductor market to support our endeavor of solving customer’s problems based on their business needs.

by Xallent | May 2, 2019 (Ithaca, May 2, 2019)—Xallent LLC, the manufacturer of solutions and equipment for testing semiconductors and thin film materials at the nanoscale, came third in the BenDaniel Venture Challenge (Cornell Venture Challenge). As one of the nation’s most active MBA student-run venture capital funds, Big Red Ventures (BRV) has been sponsoring the Cornell Venture Challenge since the year 2009. This March, the BRV fund managers set up stringent judging criteria and ran through 70+ applications of Cornell-affiliated ventures. The purpose of the challenge is to provide an opportunity for burgeoning entrepreneurs to gain experience, exposure, and financing to help develop their business ideas to actionable and high-impact ventures. Winnowing the applications into a list of finalists was a herculean task. The finalists selected for this year represent ideas from different parts of the Cornell community and have the potential to make a lasting impact on the future.

by Xallent | Jul 16, 2018 (Ithaca, NY – July 16, 2018)- The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the United States Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded Xallent a Phase I small business and technology transfer (STTR) grant to develop the next generation of advanced nanofabrication and nanoprobing instrumentation to fabricate atomically precise, strongly correlated materials for applications in high efficiency computing. Xallent has teamed up with a world renowned expert in the growth of two dimensional and strongly correlated thin films at Cornell University to validate its technology.

by Xallent | Jan 29, 2018 (Ithaca, NY – January 29, 2018)- Xallent has installed its alpha unit of the nanoprober for user trials and pre-purchase evaluation at the Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF).  CNF is a national user facility that supports a broad range of nanoscale science and technology projects by providing state-of-the-art resources coupled with expert staff support. Research at CNF encompasses physical sciences, engineering, and life sciences, and has a strong inter-disciplinary emphasis. Over 800 users per year (50% of whom come from outside Cornell) use the fabrication, synthesis, computation, characterization, and integration resources of CNF to build structures, devices, and systems from atomic to complex length-scales.

by Xallent | Dec 19, 2017 (Ithaca, NY – December 19, 2017)- Grants for Growth is a unique CenterState CEO seed program that supports innovative applied research projects between universities and industry to improve business competitiveness and create jobs. Xallent has partnered with Cornell NanoScale Facility under the Grants for Growth program to develop high speed nanoprobing platforms to rapidly test semiconductors and thin film materials.

by Xallent | Mar 11, 2017 (Albany, NY – March 1, 2017) — FuzeHub, a not-for-profit organization responsible for assisting small to medium-sized manufacturing companies (SMEs) in New York State by matching them with technical and business resources, recently launched the Jeff Lawrence Manufacturing Innovation Fund. The Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF) at Cornell University has partnered with Xallent LLC  through the Manufacturing Innovation Fund to develop a next generation diagnostic tool to more rapidly and economically test and characterize semiconductor devices and thin film materials during manufacturing. This tool is built on Xallent’s innovative nanoscale imaging and probing technology. The ability to rapidly probe and measure electrical components at the nanoscale for diagnostics and failure analysis non-destructively is expected to tap a broad range of industry applications. The Manufacturing Innovation Grant will be used to adapt Xallent’s nanomachine platforms to analytical instruments at the Cornell NanoScale Facility for validation, user interface focus, and reliability studies.

by Xallent | Jan 24, 2017 (Ithaca, NY – January 1, 2017) —Sandia National Laboratory has granted Xallent access to their Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) facility. Xallent will be working with engineers at Sandia to further develop its nanomachine technology.  For more than 60 years, Sandia has delivered essential science and technology to resolve the nation’s most challenging security issues. A strong foundation of science, technology, and engineering enables Sandia’s mission through a capable research staff. Working at the forefront of innovation and collaborative research with universities and companies, Sandia has a long history taking on discretionary research projects with significant potential impact. In keeping with Sandia’s vision to be the nation’s premier science and engineering laboratory for national security and technology innovation, Sandia recruits the best and the brightest, equips them with world-class research tools and facilities, and provides opportunities to collaborate with technical experts from many different scientific disciplines.

by Xallent | Oct 10, 2016 Xallent receives approval to conduct research activities at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). BNL is a multipurpose research institution funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Located on the center of Long Island, New York, Brookhaven Lab brings world-class facilities and expertise to the most exciting and important questions in basic and applied science—from the birth of our universe to the sustainable energy technology of tomorrow. BNL operates cutting-edge large-scale facilities for studies in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, applied science, and a wide range of advanced technologies. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 4,000 visiting researchers from around the world.

by Xallent | Oct 5, 2016 Ithaca, NY  –  Xallent LLC announced today that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the company a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of $750K to support the commercialization of their breakthrough nanomachine probing technology. The two year grant will fund product development and recruitment of top talent. Conventional characterization and test methods are increasingly ineffective when applied to structures less than 100 nanometers, causing challenges across R&D, process control, and failure analysis. Given slow, complex detection processes, identification of subtle defects typically takes weeks or months following fabrication.  This translates to significant waste as systemic issues can persist untreated across multiple batches. Xallent’s nanomachine probing technology directly addresses these challenges with simple, cost effective, and high speed testing solutions. “This Phase II grant reaffirms the powerful potential impact of our nanomachine probing technology to address critical testing challenges in the thin film and semiconductor industries. The simple micro- to nanoscale testing paradigm enabled by our technologies will have far reaching commercial and societal impact, magnified by the powerful trends driving science and engineering at the nanoscale across devices, materials, and biological systems. Our technology enables researchers, scientists, and engineers to dramatically cut the time, cost, and complexity of research, development, and production of advanced thin films and semiconductor devices.” said Dr. Kwame Amponsah, Founder and CEO of Xallent.