IMAP Netherlands is pleased to announce that Applied Nanolayers (‘ANL’) has been sold to the leading producer of semiconductor technology, Black Semiconductor based in Aachen, Germany.

ANL is renowned for its high-quality graphene. Graphene is world's thinnest material, is stronger than diamond, is only one atomic layer thick and is a great conductor of electricity. Due to these unique features, graphene has found its way into semiconductors. 

Traditionally, ‘scaling’ – cramming more transistors on a chip – was the route to faster processing. This approach is reaching the physical limits of current technology. Graphene represents the next step in faster processing.

Graphene is a so called ‘2D’ material. The two main application areas for graphene are biosensors and photonics (combined a +EUR 50B market). The semicon market is yet to see the full impact of 2D materials. The ‘business challenge’ with graphene is obvious: how to make such a strong material a scalable part of semiconductor production? 

ANL has found the solution for this challenge and is now teaming up with the German semicon powerhouse Black Semiconductor. To quote Black Semiconductor: “We use graphene as enabler to create ultra-fast, energy-efficient, and scalable chip fabrics by connecting thousands of chips so they can interact as if they were one.” In simple terms, graphene is used as a bridge between computer chips that is only atomic layer thick.