Trump administration to inject up to $150 million into chip laser startup xLight

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By Stephen Nellis

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 1 (Reuters) – The Trump administration has agreed to take a stake in xLight – a startup seeking to develop free-electron lasers viewed as key to making faster computing chips.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said on Monday the government will inject up to $150 million into the company but did not disclose the size of the stake.

The department’s CHIPS Research and Development Office said that it has signed a non-binding preliminary letter of intent to provide U.S. government incentives. This marks the office’s first investment after the Trump administration took over a $7.4 billion Biden-era semiconductor research institute.

In the world of advanced chip manufacturing, the most critical tool is an extreme ultra-violet lithography machine that prints the pattern of chips onto silicon wafers. The Netherlands’ ASML is currently the only company in the world that makes such a machine, though startups such as Substrate are trying to develop rivals.

Within the lithography machine, the most difficult part to make is the laser.

XLight has proposed using technology derived from particle accelerators to create one that would use far less electricity than current lasers, and is working with U.S. national labs to develop a prototype that could be connected to machines made by ASML or others.

“For far too long, America ceded the frontier of advanced lithography to others. Under President Trump, those days are over,” Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said in a statement.

XLight also now counts former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger among senior management. He became executive chairman in March. 

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)