Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in the case of SixLine Semiconductor, not being able to see its product with the naked eye wasn’t an impediment to earning the grand prize last month in the 20th annual Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest.
SixLine, a Middleton-based company working with small but powerful conductive materials, aims to make a big impression in the field of next-generation electronics with its tiny tech. SixLine’s technology has the potential to address large markets in the electronics industry, including the development of wireless communication, computing, and sensing technologies.
For the uninitiated, nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter on a near-atomic scale to produce new structures, materials, and devices. But the sheer scale of nanotechnology can be hard to fathom. SixLine wants to enable high-performance electronics based on aligned carbon nanotubes — which are 50,000 times thinner than a single human hair — to meet key performance and integration needs in the electronics industry.
The company was formed in September 2022 as a spinout from the UW–Madison. Co-founder and CEO Dr. Katy Jinkins co-invented the technology at the heart of SixLine during her Ph.D. work in Prof. Michael Arnold’s laboratory at the university.
Carbon nanotubes are cylinders or straws that are made entirely of carbon atoms. These carbon nanotubes are produced via scalable processes which result in a mixture of both useful nanotubes and not useful nanotubes/other carbon nanomaterials, according to Jinkins. SixLine utilizes its processes to isolate out only electronically useful nanotubes and then deposit them in aligned films, ideal for semiconducting electronics applications.
“When organized into ideally aligned films, nanotubes promise to outperform current electronic materials and enable the dramatic improvements in speed and energy efficiency that cannot be met with current materials and are required for next-generation electronic devices,” explains Jinkins.
However, achieving these ideal nanotube films has been a major challenge that has prevented nanotubes from being incorporated into commercial electronics ever since they were discovered 30 years ago, she continues. SixLine overcomes this problem for the first time, using its room temperature, scalable, and industry-compatible processes to produce aligned nanotube films and high-performance semiconductor devices.
Jinkins notes the technology has been significantly de-risked through eight years of work at UW–Madison by herself and her co-founder, Dr. Arnold. This work includes demonstration of a nanotube transistor with performance exceeding incumbent materials and deposition of uniform aligned nanotube films across a 4-inch diameter area or substrate, which confirms the scalability of the company’s process.
The core nanotube alignment technology is so cutting edge that Jinkins notes it’s protected by a strong intellectual property (IP) library, which imposes significant obstacles to competition in the electronics space. “The technical results, IP protection, and strong need in the microelectronics industry for new materials made a compelling case for us to start a company around our technology.”
The young startup is so far just about as small as its tech. SixLine currently has one full-time and three part-time employees and is operating out of the labs at UW–Madison. It’s in the process of moving to a shared-use lab facility or an independent facility in the near future after the company finalizes its current funding round.
“We are very honored to receive the grand prize at the Governor’s Business Plan Contest,” says Jinkins. “Winning brings more awareness to the potential applications and benefits of carbon nanotubes for next-generation electronics and opens more doors for potential connections to help SixLine grow. I also received a lot of constructive feedback during the competition that helped shape our commercial plans and company presentation.”
SixLine Semiconductor Inc.
