CEO Interview with Sudhanshu Misra of ChEmpower Corporation

Tell us about your company?

ChEmpower Corporation is an advanced materials and specialized chemistry company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. The company develops and supplies chemically reactive pads for planarization, offering an abrasive-free alternative to traditional polishing processes. ChEmpower is dedicated to eliminating abrasives from the polish process, improving chip yields, and advancing sustainability standards within the semiconductor industry

Serving a range of semiconductor companies globally, ChEmpower is driving the future of semiconductor manufacturing, supporting the production of next-generation devices, and empowering innovation in high-performance technologies.

What problems are you solving?

A key enabling technology to chip manufacturing is planarization that is required to create flat surfaces to build the chip circuitry.

Our abrasive-free technology is revolutionary, providing a cleaner, more efficient, and sustainable method for achieving planarization. By eliminating the abrasive component, we significantly reduce the potential for defects and micro scratches, which are common issues with traditional CMP techniques. This reduction in defects not only improves chip yields but also enhances the overall performance and reliability of the semiconductor devices.

Moreover, our technology offers a cost-effective solution for chip manufacturers. Without the need for expensive abrasives, the operational costs are lowered, making the manufacturing process more economical. Additionally, our approach aligns with the growing emphasis on sustainability within the industry. By minimizing waste and reducing the environmental impact associated with traditional planarization methods, ChEmpower is setting new standards for eco-friendly manufacturing practices.

The potential market for our technology is vast. While the current market size for conventional CMP solutions is estimated to be around $3 billion, the opportunity for our innovative, abrasive-free technology is projected to be between $10 to $12 billion. This significant market potential is driven by the benefits of improved chip yield, enhanced sustainability, simplified process flows, and reduced costs.

What application areas are your strongest?

Our initial product is designed to enhance copper interconnects for integrated circuits (ICs) and advanced packaging applications. ChEmpower’s technology platform is versatile and can be adapted to other metals, including Molybdenum and Ruthenium, which are upcoming metals for next-generation chips. Additionally, our technology is applicable to silicon polishing and exotic materials such as glass and polymers, which require extremely smooth surface finishes in advanced packaging. By leveraging chemical action during the Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) process, ChEmpower’s technology ensures a more systematic, predictable, and controllable approach.

What keeps your customers up at night?

Yields and precise process control. Scalability to new materials and future advances are crucial concerns for our customers. They need solutions that not only address current manufacturing challenges but also adapt to the evolving demands of the semiconductor industry. Our technology provides the precision and control required to process these new materials, ensuring that manufacturers can meet stringent requirements for AI chips and HBMs.

What does the competitive landscape look like and how do you differentiate?

The competitive landscape is dominated by chemical companies on the polish slurry side while material companies on the polish pad side. The slurry market is highly fragmented with numerous chemical companies such as Fujifilm, Entegris, EMD and Fujimi to name a few. On the pad side, the dominant player is Dupont followed by Entegris, a distinct second.

What differentiates ChEmpower is that an abrasive-free technology requires innovation at both the materials and the chemicals side, and none of the chemical or material companies have it nor the motive without jeopardizing their existing businesses. Chempower has the unique technology platform that amalgamates both chemistry and material to create an abrasive-free technology. ChEmpower technology eliminates random defects, lowers operating costs, and enables sustainability. ChEmpower’s technology platform is differentiated and unique from any player in the market that none can even foreseeably attempt to compete with ChEmpower.

What new features/technology are you working on?

ChEmpower is targeting sub 10nm technology nodes with a first product launch for copper this year. We already have a silicon product in development that will be launched early next year. Our next product is for molybdenum followed by ruthenium interconnects. As you can see, ours is a technology platform that is chemistry driven, and we envision this to extend our product offerings to both metals and non-metals. Our first product for copper is well suited for hybrid bonding in advanced packaging applications. Other substrate polishes in advanced packaging are also attractive targets for abrasive-free ChEmpower technology.

How do customers normally engage with your company?

Customer engagement is a critical element in setting up the right expectations with our product.  ChEmpower has collaborative engagements with alpha customers, OEMs (equipment manufacturers) and strategic partners to establish the requirements of the customers and thus the solution we provide with our technology.  Our immediate approach is to engage both, directly and via partners, with customers in our pre-sales phase all the way through qualification, that typically can take 12-18 months.  We will also insert ourselves into the R&D phase early on for the newer advanced technology nodes that are opportunities for us to be adopted right from the onset of those technology nodes.  Our partnership strategy will be critical to our go-to market strategy as well as customer support that enables us a surgical approach to gain customer interest.

We will continue to deepen our engagement with customers on a broad basis to ensure we have the right market intelligence to drive alignment with their technology roadmaps.  For this effort, we will work closely with our strategic sales partners to drive internal development strategies with a laser focus to target specific customers and applications.

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