Inefficient semiconductors caused the U.S. to lose $40.5 billion worth of electricity last year, and it took approximately one billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce this electricity, according to Cris Ugolini, who has a doctorate in physics and 15 years of experience in the industry.
This waste motivated Ugolini to quit his job and start Alithia Power, a Raleigh-based seed-stage startup that is developing a new kind of semiconductor. The startup has been selected to present at CED’s Venture Connect summit in Raleigh on March 20-21.
Ugolini also persuaded his long-time colleague Jeremy Jones to be his co-founder and chief commercial officer.
“Jeremy has been doing this for 35 years,” Ugolini said. “I wanted someone to help me understand the nuances of the things that I didn’t know.”
With several prominent competitors in the industry—including Durham-HQ’d Wolfspeed, which is building a $5B semiconductor production facility in Chatham County’s Siler City—Alithia Power plans to separate itself from its competition by making semiconductors that are more efficient and less wasteful.
Most of Alithia Power’s competitors produce either silicon or silicon carbide semiconductors, but these semiconductors can’t efficiently keep pace when handling higher voltages, according to Ugolini.
Alithia Power makes gallium nitride semiconductors, which Ugolini said are more efficient and lead to less wasted electricity.
Traditionally, device currents flow through a semiconductor chip vertically. But due to material constraints, competitors have only made lateral gallium nitride semiconductors, Ugolini said.
Thanks to a new process called Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxial (HVPE), which is used to make a semiconductor drift layer, Ugolini said Alithia Power can make vertical gallium nitride semiconductors.
“[Competitors] use MOCVD (Metal-Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition) for the drift layer; we don’t do that,” Ugolini said. “We use something else, and we’re the first people to commercialize the processes that we’re using. And because we use those processes, we have better materials. Therefore, our competitors can’t compete with us.”
Alithia Power isn’t set up to manufacture its semiconductor chips yet, so they’ll partner with other manufacturers to produce their chips. Once Alithia Power starts production, it will sell its semiconductor chips to end users such as Ford, GM or Mitsubishi or to component-level distributors like BorgWagner or Bosch.
Ugolini said Alithia Power’s total addressable market (TAM) is around $20 billion and that, eventually, the startup plans to build manufacturing facilities so it can make the chips independently.
But Ugolini has the startup focused on the tasks at hand. He said Alithia is aiming to show a proof of concept for the company’s thesis and start delivering tailored prototype semiconductor chips to customers by the end of the year.
Ugolini said that the company’s top priority this year is raising capital, as the company has mostly been funded through family and friends up to this point. That’s where presenting in front of the hundreds of investors that attend Venture Connect every year could come in.
In addition to producers showing interest, Ugolini said that conversations with potential customers give him reason for optimism. Ugolini said that three customers are asking for Alithia’s components.
“We’ve already spoken with our customers and got a lot of feedback about what they want,” Ugolini said. “We’re at the point now where the customers are like ‘We already know everything, just make it.’ And it’s similar with our partners. So the only thing I’m focused on right now is raising capital.”
