Lux Semiconductors

Lux Semiconductors is an Albany, New York-based microelectronics company developing package substrates and interposers built on a metal core rather than conventional organic laminate or glass. Its platform, described as Smart Metal Substrate technology and earlier as System-on-Foil, targets system-in-package (SiP), multi-chip module and chiplet-based heterogeneous integration designs, and is positioned by the company as delivering 'More than Moore' gains at the system level rather than through transistor scaling.

The company states its metal substrates offer roughly 100x higher thermal conductivity than glass and 13x greater resistance to warpage than organics, with a rigid, low-CTE core that stays flat across temperature and supports low-loss power delivery networks patterned directly into the metal. A patented coaxial through-metal via (TMV) structure lets the metal act as an electromagnetic shield around signal lines, which the company says eliminates crosstalk within the substrate and maintains characteristic impedance for high-speed I/O and millimeter-wave RF. Lux describes the substrate as low-warpage down to 100 µm thickness with ultra-thin options below 25 µm for flexible applications, compatible with existing wafer toolsets and with potential for panel-based manufacturing. It publishes design rules for converting organic stack-ups to metal cores using standard EDA tools such as Cadence APD and Siemens XPD, positioning the product as a drop-in replacement in which only the core layer changes and total layer count can be reduced.

The technology originated to address defense electronics requirements — on-device compute, high-bandwidth memory and power-efficient communications under size, weight and power constraints — and the company is extending it to commercial markets including artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and advanced healthcare.

Founding story

Co-founders Shane McMahon (CEO) and Graeme Housser (CTO) both hold Ph.D.s in Nanoscale Engineering from SUNY Poly, and the company is described as a SUNY Poly alumni spinoff.

Business model

Lux designs and manufactures metal core package substrates and interposers in the United States for sale to chip and system designers, offering substrate design services, technical data sheets and design-transfer guidelines, and pursuing partnerships with manufacturers in commercial end markets.

Sale of metal core substrates and interposers, supported by substrate design work; the company has also drawn on non-dilutive government funding.

Traction

By February 2023 the company reported over $6 million in non-dilutive funding from the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Force, U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, backing from Techstars, a $1.7 million U.S. Space Force award in 2021, and space at Albany NanoTech taken in 2022; a Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories senior fellow is quoted endorsing the metal core substrate class.

Latest developments

In June 2024 the company listed a publication with RIT comparing thermal properties of a molybdenum substrate to silicon and glass for System-on-Foil integration; its website, dated 2024, markets metal substrates and interposers for SiP designs and advertises open positions.