Australian semiconductor company Archer Materials (ASX: AXE) is one step closer to the commercialisation of their graphene-based Biochip, a recent design of which has been successfully manufactured by foundry partner Graphenea in Spain, carving a pathway towards its future production.
The milestone advances Archer’s Biochip capabilities in access to commercial semiconductor production facilities for technologies that will be attractive to the medical diagnostics industry where the Biochip is aimed at detecting for diseases from a single liquid sample, operating as a ‘lab-on-a-chip’.
Adopting a ‘fabless’ chipmaker model, Archer designs, and develops its chips while outsourcing manufacturing to specialised companies in the semiconductor supply chain which saves Archer the capital expense of building manufacturing facilities in Australia. It can cost upwards of US$270 million to build a graphene pilot production . For this Biochip, they sent the gFET (graphene field effect transistor) chip design to Graphenea for fabrication in December 2023, with this manufacturing run marking the first time Archer has utilised a 6-inch wafer for their gFET chip devices. The gFETs are the sensor components of the Biochip.
The gFETs are engineered with structures suitable for liquid multiplexing and feature advanced chip design elements, including gating design and materials, aimed at addressing the technological challenges of maintaining graphene device stability from chip to chip.
Multiplexing is a process that allows multiple signals or data streams to be transmitted simultaneously over a single physical channel. In the context of Archer’s Biochip, multiplexing is critical because it would enable the simultaneous detection and analysis of multiple biological markers or analytes within a single chip. This capability is essential for medical diagnostics as it allows for more comprehensive and faster testing, improving the efficiency and accuracy of disease detection and monitoring.
The 6-inch wafer run resulted in the production of 145 chips that are each about 10 mm in size, and each containing eight gFET devices. Archer confirmed that the gFETs performed as expected electronically, with the required stability within the desired voltage range during testing measurements.
“Archer has demonstrated its specialised gFET designs can be fabricated through a whole 6-inch wafer run,” said Archer CEO, Dr Mohammad Choucair.
“By performing these types of wafer runs, including in Graphenea’s commercial graphene foundry, Archer aims to optimise its gFET designs, performance, and readiness for compatibility with the advanced fabrication processes and equipment needed to potentially produce gFET chips at scale.”
This Graphenea milestone builds on previous achievements in Archer’s gFET design fabrication journey. Earlier efforts included a multi-project wafer run with a German foundry, in November 2023, and a whole four-inch wafer run at a foundry in the Netherlands, in September 2023.
The fabrication of Archer’s gFET designs on a 6-inch wafer represents a significant advancement in the context of the Company’s Biochip research and development progress. This represents an intermediary step towards scaling up fabrication capacity and efficiency over the typical 4-inch wafers used in their Biochip technology development.
Graphenea, known for its expertise in graphene production and foundry services, has been a crucial partner in this process. Their ability to fabricate gFETs on a larger scale wafer not only validates Archer’s designs to be processed on a commercially relevant production line but also demonstrates the potential for future large-scale production of these advanced chips.
At present, 8 and 12-inch wafers are the standard for high-volume commercial semiconductor production in the chip industry but the industry is rapidly moving forward in response to greater computer chip demand around the world and improved manufacturing capabilities. Subsequently, Graphenea as one of a few in the graphene manufacturing space introduced 6-inch graphene wafers on all standard substrates, meaning that new products have a good chance of being integrated in commercial fabrication lines, for applications such as electronics and biosensing.
The success of this fabrication run aligns with Archer’s strategic goals to optimise its gFET designs for better performance and to ensure they are ready for large-scale production.
Courtesy of their fabless business model where manufacturing for the Biochip and 12CQ qubit processor will be handled through their foundry network, Archer maintains a strong cash position with $20 million on hand as of 31 March 2024.
Alfred Chan is a Business Reporter at The Sentiment specialising in ASX-listed small cap companies, a bloodstock enthusiast and former equities analyst.
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1 Comment
Shraddha13
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