Finnish quantum startup SemiQon has raised €17.5 million ($18.3m) to support the development of cryogenic CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) technology.

Of the funds raised, €15m ($15.7m) was in equity and €2.5m ($2.6m) came from European Innovation Council grants.

Spun out from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, SemiQon has been developing cryogenic CMOS (cryo-CMOS) transistors in an effort to reduce the amount of expensive control electronics infrastructure required to build quantum computers. The company said its cryo-CMOS transistors consume 0.1 percent of the power when compared to traditional room-temperature transistors and have heat dissipation levels 1,000 times lower.

SemiQon unveiled its first cryo-CMOS transistor optimized for cryogenic conditions, designed to operate at temperatures of 1 Kelvin or below, in November 2024. As well as quantum applications, the company said the chips could be used in high-performance computing (HPC) or space applications.

The startup says it uses existing CMOS infrastructure to produce its transistors, reducing the energy consumption and costs associated with mass production.

“The strong customer demand for the cryo-CMOS will allow us to diversify our business to domains with faster commercial traction than quantum computing,” said SemiQon CEO Himadri Majumdar. “This funding helps us to take our cryo-CMOS product from current TRL6 (Technical readiness level) to TRL8 within the next two years as we initiate product testing with our customers at their product environment.”

The company expects to deliver its first cryo-optimized CMOS transistors to customers in 2025.