The Northeast Microelectronics Coalition (NEMC) Hub today announced $1,432,373 in awards to 19 startups and small businesses through its Powering Regional Opportunities for Prototyping Microelectronics (PROPEL) Operations Program. The PROPEL Operations Program helps companies reach commercial readiness by reducing day-to-day costs that include software licensing, employee training, securing patents and cybersecurity services.
With more than 250 member organizations spanning the Northeast and across the country, the NEMC Hub is building on the prior success of its PROPEL Manufacturing Program to strengthen the domestic microelectronics industry by further supporting private sector manufacturing, harnessing talent and advancing technology development across the region.
“Massachusetts has a strong innovation economy because of the work the NEMC Hub is doing to build a dynamic microelectronics ecosystem,” said Massachusetts Interim Economic Development Secretary Ashley Stolba. “Lowering barriers of entry for companies will help accelerate innovation and expand operations across the region allowing the state to more effectively compete globally.”
“The PROPEL Program is an ambitious effort to help startups bridge the ‘valley of death’ by reducing the high cost of microelectronics product development,” said NEMC Hub Director Mark Halfman. “This round of awardees demonstrates enormous potential to break new ground in several emerging markets.”
The NEMC Hub’s PROPEL Operations Program will help 19 companies, including Advanced Silicon Group, Cambridge Terahertz and Plaid Semiconductors accelerate the transition of technologies from laboratories to fabrication facilities, and prepare for new commercial investments.
Below, the awardees are listed along with a description of their work:
- Advanced Silicon Group (Lowell, MA) – $25,995. Advanced Silicon Group is lowering the barriers for protein sensing, so everyone has access to quality health care. Their sensors are low-cost, rapid to use, sensitive, highly multiplexed and easily manufacturable. While the technology is platform-based, the first application is to measure host cell proteins in the biopharma process.
- Alloy Enterprises (Burlington, MA) – $100,000. Alloy Enterprises is revolutionizing thermal management with novel aluminum components that help customers in data centers, photonics, semiconductors and defense dramatically improve heat dissipation in high-performance systems. Alloy’s patented Stack Forging™ process enables complex micro-geometries, which result in single-piece, leak-tight components that deliver superior cooling performance and lower pressure drops.
- Analog Photonics (Boston, MA) – $100,000. Analog Photonics provides comprehensive solutions in photonic systems and design, specializing in Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), optical phased arrays, tunable lasers, coherent detection/combination, datacom transceivers, Free Space Optical Communication (FSoC) and Process Design Kit (PDK) development. Their design expertise spans passive and active O- and SCL-band integrated photonics, lasers, optical amplifiers, free-space optics, custom CMOS and PCBs, packaging, as well as electrical, thermal and free-space characterization.
- Astrabeam LLC (Tarrytown, NY) – $80,198. Astrabeam is revolutionizing wireless sensing with cutting-edge, millimeter-wave and sub-terahertz devices, components, modules and systems. Their mission is to empower advanced wireless sensing solutions in complex environments, enabling safe and reliable autonomous operations for ground robots and drones.
- Aura Intelligent Systems Inc. (Boston, MA) – $98,539. Aura Intelligent Systems is revolutionizing spatial sensing for robotics and autonomous vehicles. Aura has unveiled the QuadRayTM Beta, a software-defined, integrated sensing and communications platform, marking a major milestone toward full commercialization.
- Ayo Electronics Inc. (Somerville, MA) – $61,767. Ayo Electronics is a Boston-based fabless semiconductor company developing a new type of processor for AI that offers orders of magnitude improvement in speed and energy efficiency.
- Cambridge Terahertz, Inc. (Cambridge, MA) – $99,978. Cambridge Terahertz is a fabless semiconductor company recently spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Using patented, high frequency phased array technology, the company’s goal is to democratize the promises of Terahertz wireless systems in a low-cost and scalable way.
- Eva Technology Corp. (Boston, MA) – $100,000. Eva Technology Corp. operates by the maxim: “Outcompute – Outcompete,” offering turn-key Artificial Intelligence as a Service (also known as AIaaS) solutions with unprecedented performance to enable advanced AI applications that are far beyond current reach. Powered by a semiconductor-level breakthrough combined with a hardware-software co-optimization approach, the company is building datacenter-scale AI training processors with 72 times higher performance than state-of-the-art Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) servers.
- Finwave Semiconductor Inc. (Waltham, MA) – $100,000. Finwave Semiconductor is shaping the future with innovative transistor designs and breakthrough process technology that unlock the full potential of Gallium Nitride (GaN). Founded by prominent MIT innovators, the company is driving revolutionary advancements for 5G and 6G mobile infrastructure, smartphones, medical devices and cloud computing. Finwave’s portfolio includes award-winning GaN FinFETs, advanced E-mode MISHEMTs and high-performance RF switches.
- Impact Nano LLC (Orange, MA) – $75,012. Impact Nano develops and manufactures advanced materials for use in the semiconductor, green energy and automotive industries. The company’s products are used in atomic layer deposition, chemical vapor deposition and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photoresist applications. They provide their customers and partners with high-quality, controlled fingerprint chemicals, which are manufactured safely, transparently and sustainably in their Devens and Orange, MA facilities.
- Irradiant Technologies (Waltham, MA) – $100,000. Irradiant Technologies is a pioneer in 3D nanofabrication, leading the way with its groundbreaking Nano-Scaffolding Assembly Method. This advanced 3D nanofabrication technology overcomes the limitations of traditional planar methods, enabling the creation of sophisticated optics. Irradiant’s advancements are poised to transform free-space optical microsystems accelerating AI computation, sensing technologies and other critical applications.
- Lelantos Inc. (New York, NY) – $75,000. Lelantos is a developer of miniaturized semiconductor gas sensors based in New York, NY. Lelantos’s novel gas sensing technology is targeted to high-value internet of things applications in environmental and air quality monitoring, threat detection, industrial safety as well as medical diagnostics.
- Lintrinsic Semiconductors Inc. (Somerville, MA) – $99,150. Lintrinsic Semiconductors is a startup building high-power, ultra-fast radio frequency switches for dual use applications. Radar and electronic warfare transceivers are dependent on high-performance switches to maintain range and resolution and to effectively protect Department of Defense systems from electromagnetic spectrum attacks. Beyond Department of Defense (DoD) applications, Lintrinsic’s switches will be critical in future deployments of 5G/6G cellular networks allowing lower latency, greater range and faster reconfiguration time in adaptive networks.
- Plaid Semiconductors (Atlanta, GA) – $76,500. Plaid Semiconductors is pioneering advanced glass substrates for next-generation AI computing, offering a 50 percent reduction in signal and power losses compared to traditional silicon interposers. This innovative technology revolutionizes chiplet-based architectures, delivering significant improvements in data rate, bandwidth, latency and power efficiency. Their solution addresses the critical challenges of current heterogeneous architectures, enabling faster, more efficient and scalable computing systems.
- Quantum Network Technologies, Inc. aka Qunett (Boston, MA) – $18,750. Qunett is developing scalable hardware solutions for quantum device connectivity that seamlessly integrates with existing infrastructure to enable deployable quantum networks. Qunett’s flexible architecture supports diverse quantum platforms, accelerating the adoption of quantum technologies. Designed to scale from data centers to metropolitan fiber optic networks and satellite-based global communication, Qunett’s solutions pave the way for secure, high-performance quantum applications.
- Sangtera Inc. (Lexington, MA) – $73,125. Sangtera is developing a breakthrough electrostatic actuator system with the potential to revolutionize multiple industries, from robotics to semiconductor advanced packaging. In robotics, their actuators offer torque densities hundreds of times greater than traditional options, enabling gearless and compact designs. In semiconductor advanced packaging, their high-accuracy, high-throughput chiplet placement tool enables high-volume production of next-generation 3D chiplet-stacked microprocessors.
- SiPhox Health (Burlington, MA) – $57,982. SiPhox Health is pioneering biotechnology innovation by developing silicon chips with advanced photonic biosensors for at-home blood biomarker measurement. SiPhox’s mission is to use semiconductor technology to scale personalized medicine and preventive health care, making them accessible to exponentially more people worldwide.
- Vapor Cell Technologies (Boulder, CO) – $45,000. Vapor Cell Technologies is a quantum manufacturer of atomic devices. The company produces tested, scalable and performant atomic sensors and standards for customers using proprietary materials, processes and algorithms for a robust quantum future.
- X-Sight Incorporated (Cambridge, MA) – $45,375. X-Sight is a startup founded in 2020 based out of Cambridge, MA developing new, silicon-based X-ray sources for distributed source X-ray imaging that will enable improvements in medicine, security and potentially change manufacturing. With a smaller form-factor and lower cost of ownership, X-Sight’s technology will enable faster X-ray imaging systems, making it more practical to use X-ray imaging, specifically for computed tomography (CT).
