IN Brief:
- Makr Microsystems has raised ₹10.2 crore in seed funding led by Bluehill VC.
- Its platform combines Acoustic AFM, optical tomography, and 3D analytics for buried semiconductor structures.
- Funding will support technology development, customer validation, and preparation for commercial deployment.
Makr Microsystems has raised ₹10.2 crore in seed funding to continue developing semiconductor metrology technology designed to inspect structures and defects buried beneath the surface of advanced devices and packages.
The Bengaluru company’s round was led by Bluehill VC with participation from Artha Venture Fund. Makr intends to use the capital for technology development, customer validation, and commercial deployment of its Acoustic Atomic Force Microscopy platform.
The measurement problem is becoming more difficult as semiconductor manufacturing moves further into three dimensions. Conventional surface metrology can resolve extremely small topographical features, but hybrid bonding, chiplets, buried interconnects, vertically structured transistors, and advanced packaging increasingly place critical interfaces beneath material that cannot be assessed through a simple surface scan.
Makr is developing a measurement stack combining Acoustic AFM, optical tomography, and 3D data analytics. Its objective is to inspect subsurface structures non-destructively while retaining nanoscale spatial information, reducing the need to cut or otherwise destroy a sample before the region of interest can be examined.
Acoustic AFM builds on conventional atomic-force microscopy by combining probe measurements with acoustic excitation and sensing. Makr describes a self-sensing and self-actuating probe operating around an engineered resonance, using acoustic behaviour to recover information from features below the sample surface.
The company is targeting very high spatial resolution, although the current funding announcement does not establish production throughput or fab qualification. Those omissions are significant because semiconductor metrology equipment must perform more than a compelling laboratory measurement before it can operate as a production tool.
Repeatability, tool matching, scan time, calibration, automation, contamination control, and integration with factory data systems all affect whether a new measurement method becomes useful on a manufacturing line. A technique capable of resolving a buried defect may still have limited production value if the measurement takes too long or cannot be reproduced consistently across wafers and tools.
The potential application set is nevertheless expanding. Hybrid-bonding interfaces can contain voids, particles, or alignment defects that become difficult to access after joining. Chiplet packages introduce further buried connections, while increasingly three-dimensional transistor and memory structures create interfaces that conventional optical techniques cannot always inspect directly.
Each additional processing stage also raises the cost of discovering a hidden defect late. Advanced wafers and packages can accumulate considerable value before final assembly, making earlier identification of process faults increasingly attractive where the measurement can be performed without damaging the device.
Makr’s technical material describes high-resolution stereo imaging, defect identification, 3D reconstruction, and a longer-term goal of high-throughput inline operation. AI-based classification and segmentation are also part of the software stack, indicating that the platform is being developed as both a measurement instrument and a data-analysis system.
The startup has participated in semiconductor programmes including Applied Materials’ ASTRA accelerator and SEMI’s Startups for Sustainable Semiconductors initiative. Participation does not establish production readiness, but it gives the company access to organisations capable of testing whether the measurement method addresses a genuine semiconductor process-control problem.
The ₹10.2 crore round remains modest beside the cost of developing semiconductor capital equipment. Precision mechanics, probes, electronics, controls, application engineering, software, and customer qualification can consume substantial resources before a tool reaches volume production.
Makr’s next tests will consequently be measurable ones: resolution on representative semiconductor structures, repeatability, throughput, tool stability, and evidence that the resulting data can improve process control or yield. Meeting those requirements would determine whether Acoustic AFM can complement established optical, electron-beam, X-ray, and other metrology techniques as semiconductor structures become progressively harder to inspect from the surface.
