“We started SemiQon with a different approach to solving a problem everyone in the quantum business is desperate to solve; scaling up qubits in an affordable and sustainable way,” Majumdar explains. “A year in, we are proud to say that we are consistently checking off both technology and business milestones and moving along our roadmap right on schedule,” he smiles.

Going after the holy grail of quantum computing

Two years ago, Majumdar and the three other members of SemiQon’s founding team, Chief Science Officer Dr Janne Lehtinen, Chief Research Officer Professor Mika Prunnila, and Fabrication lead Markku Kainlauri were all working on different aspects of quantum technologies at VTT Technical Research Center of Finland. VTT, which has long punched above its weight in microelectronics and quantum research, was an exciting place to work for anyone wanting a front row seat to newest developments in quantum technologies.  

A lot was happening, a new quantum computer was being built at the VTT premises, and Finland was becoming a more and more recognized player in the quantum game. But the problem that seemed to lack a solution was scalability. How to move from ultra-sensitive research devices with a handful of qubits to usable machines with hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of qubits?

The SemiQon founders felt confident they knew how.

“From the start, we knew that using silicon for our quantum chips would allow us to sidestep many of the challenges faced by other modalities and offer technological advantages over alternative approaches. But it wasn’t just that. We also saw the business advantages of developing a solution that relies on an existing industry,” Majumdar explains.  

“A year in, we are proud to say that we are consistently checking off both technology and business milestones and moving along our roadmap right on schedule."

In 2022, SemiQon got its start as part of VTT’s in-house accelerator program. The founding team started work on the first pieces of crucial IP as well as a business strategy for SemiQon. Early in 2023, the company spun out of VTT and hit the ground running.

“VTT is an incredible organization and a great place to start. Not only does it have world-class research infrastructures and top researchers, but its purpose is industry focused. Unlike universities that focus on basic research or private sector where the focus is on profits from the start, the goal of VTT is to develop commercially competitive innovations and push them out to the market, which is exactly what we wanted to do,” Majumdar describes.

“A hundred obstacles, but not one we couldn’t tackle”

“I’ve heard it said often that more startups fail because of the team than because of the idea,” Majumdar says, “which I thought was a good sign for us, since from the beginning, I’ve had enormous confidence in the team. We knew each other well, and I knew the team wasn’t just exceptionally competent but had the right mindset. I expected a hundred obstacles, but not a single one we couldn’t tackle.”

“What makes our team exceptional,” CSO Lehtinen pitches in, “is the ability to see and think across domains and areas of expertise. The secret sauce is the combination of big-picture thinking and hands-on experience.”

After the spinout, a lot started happening fast.  

During the first weeks and months, the design and fabrication of first components was already happening at Micronova, a cleanroom complex and research hub in Espoo, Finland, operated by VTT and Aalto University, and accessible to companies like SemiQon.  

“There was definitely a sense of: ‘This is real. We are doing this.'"

“Within a short time, we secured our initial funding, placed the order for our first cryostat, measurement equipment arrived and in three months, just as we had planned, we successfully completed our first fabrication batch,” Majumdar recounts. “There was definitely a sense of: ‘This is real. We are doing this.’”

“At the same time, we started seeing excitement from the field. When we shared our vision and strategy, we were met with encouragement from both the semiconductor industry and the quantum ecosystem. We didn’t have to work hard to convince others of what we were doing. Almost everyone recognized the need for scalable, good-quality quantum processors, and to people in the industry, our approach of putting qubits and cryo-CMOS on the same silicon chip made sense.”

From milestone to milestone with more to come

If, in their early stages, some startups are little more than an idea and a PowerPoint presentation, that was far from the case for SemiQon.

During the first year, the company has filed five patents, completed and stabilized fabrication runs, built quantum dots with good performance, shipped out the first chips to research partners, secured over 4M€ of public funding at the EU and national level, and most recently, created and verified what Lehtinen calls “world’s best transistors”.  

“In this first stage we’ve been working on individual pieces: designing them, manufacturing them, and carefully measuring them. And one after another, they’ve come together. Now that we have the different pieces in front of us, it’s time to put them together, which is of course a lot of work, but to me, it is also the most exciting part,” Lehtinen explains.

“But while we too are working with many individual pieces, our strategy has allowed us a level of focus through specialization that companies building full-stack quantum computers typically cannot afford. At this point, we are not trying to “do it all”, but to focus our efforts and resources on building truly quantum-optimized components and arriving at scalable quantum processors that will in the future power the million-qubit era,” Majumdar explains.

It’s a business, not an experiment

When Majumdar and Lehtinen describe their first year and a half steering SemiQon, it is easy to forget that what the team is working on is something that has never been done before. For SemiQon, this means breaking down deep-tech innovation into smart and profitable business.

“We must do novel things if we want to solve the problems that we know humanity will need to solve. And if we truly believe that we can do something that nobody else has been able to do, it feels like an easy choice,” Majumdar says.  

The business case for SemiQon’s technology is based on the fact that down the line, quantum computing will have to scale up, and its scale-up will need to be sustainable and cost-efficient. Bringing together quantum and semiconductors, SemiQon can build upon existing research and manufacturing infrastructure to deliver more affordable products, and ultimately, faster and more efficient scale-up.​ And although it is not the only company in the game, Majumdar and Lehtinen believe that SemiQon has advantages that few if any of their peers share. With valuable IP and access to a pilot-line, SemiQon is able to push forward with productization while keeping costs down.

“We must do novel things if we want to solve the problems that we know humanity will need to solve. And if we truly believe that we can do something that nobody else has been able to do, it feels like an easy choice.”

“Working on these problems among the first in the world puts us in an interesting situation. While it is of course challenging walking into the unknown, it also allows us to create valuable intellectual property that will not just benefit us, but also those working on other modalities and even other industries. It also means that those wanting to follow suit later, will likely depend on our IP,” Lehtinen notes.

One of the challenges that everyone in the quantum computing business has to deal with is that even though the market is projected to grow exponentially, for the time being, there really is no large market for on-site quantum computers. Therefore, the current scope of commercial operations is limited.  

Majumdar explains that SemiQon’s business strategy doesn’t hinge exclusively on its long-term objectives, but the company will be able to generate revenue also by productizing solutions it develops during the process.

“Our primary focus is of course on our quantum processors, but we want to be smart about how we run the business. For example, there is an existing demand for our cryo-CMOS, and it only makes sense to make the technology available to others, while also increasing our revenue.”

‍What’s next for SemiQon?

As SemiQon approaches the 18-month mark of operations, there are no signs of slowing down. Quite the opposite. The team has expanded to 12 people and new strategic collaborations are in the pipeline at the global scale. But first, Majumdar is preparing for SemiQon to raise additional funding in the third quarter of 2024.

“We are moving along our roadmap at an exciting pace. A lot is happening, and we’re ready to kick in the next gear.”

“The next few years are going to be endlessly interesting to both SemiQon as a company, and the industry as a whole,” Majumdar explains.  “We are becoming part of various European and Finnish national infrastructure investments, evaluating expansion to North America, and literally watching a new world-class pilot-line being built next door to our current facilities - knowing we will get to put it to good use,” he continues referring to Kvanttinova, Finland's microelectronics and quantum technology RDI hub, where 0.5B euros worth public and private investment is expected.

“We are moving along our roadmap at an exciting pace. A lot is happening, and we’re ready to kick in the next gear,” Majumdar concludes.

‍