Chipmaking tool firm Nearfield Instruments raises $380 million at $1.6 billion valuation

By Stephen Nellis

SAN FRANCISCO, June 22 (Reuters) - Nearfield Instruments, a Netherlands-based firm whose machines help measure the features on advanced semiconductors, said on Monday it raised $380 million in new funding, bringing its valuation to $1.6 billion.

Nearfield makes devices called atomic force microscopes, which can take direct measurements of features of chips that are only a few atoms tall by dragging a probe across their surface, similar to how a needle moves across a vinyl record.

Those measurements are taken periodically during the hundreds of steps to make a chip to ensure that the manufacturing process is on track, a field called semiconductor metrology, which is dominated by KLA Corp.

Nearfield Co-founder and CEO Hamed Sadeghian said the funding will go toward expanding manufacturing and customer support operations amid a boom in AI chipmaking.

He declined to name specific customers but said Nearfield's tools are already in use by advanced chipmakers.

"We have significant demand for our systems from our customers in front of us, and we want to deliver on that demand," Sadeghian said. "That means increasing the productivity of our production line, increasing the capacity of production, reducing the lead times."

Fidelity Management & Research Company led the funding round, along with Temasek, Innovation Industries, M&G, Invest-NL and Walden Catalyst Ventures, the venture capital firm where Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is a founding managing partner.

Nearfield Instruments said Qatar Investment Authority participated in the round as a new investor, with existing investors TNO Ventures and ING also taking part.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Varun H K)