Dr. Maksym Plakhotnyuk
Six Questions for Maksym Plakhotnyuk, PhD – Founder and CEO of ATLANT3D of Denmark
Dr. Plakhotnyuk is a native Ukrainian who has been keen on chemistry since primary school. His university studies in Ukraine, USA and Denmark (where he received his PhD) included research on photovoltaics, material science including nanomaterials and quantum dots, solid-state physics and advanced process and characterization techniques for semiconductors fabrication. He is also a Fulbright Scholar and a Member of the Forbes Technology Council. Nearly 7 years ago, Dr. Plakhotnyuk founded ATLANT3D to commercialize breakthrough technology for atomic layer processing of advanced electronic materials and prototyping/manufacturing of micro and nanodevices. Two years ago, ATLANT3D closed a €14.2M Series A funding round led by UK-based West Hill Capital and Sony Corporation.
1. What problem is ATLANT3D solving and how?
Lithography remains the primary fabrication tool for semiconductor devices and while the details have become more refined, the basic methodology is over half a century old. It is highly complex with many steps and many different machines required. It’s a real bottleneck for the industry, not least because this complexity greatly expands the time and investment required for prototyping and iterating new designs. That’s why there are so few versions of new chips and only the largest volume designs can really afford the latest fab. ATLANT’s method is much simpler, faster, and lower cost and makes it much easier to do rapidly iterative design sprints and affordably produce lower volume designs
2. What is your background that led you to founding ATLANT3D?
Well, my father was a doctor, so I grew up amongst test tubes, chemicals and such and always had an affinity for chemistry. I was lucky to have a teacher in primary school that saw my talent and encouraged me to set up a lab at home, take any chemicals from school and run lots of different experiments. That’s when I got the love of science. As for being an entrepreneur, I grew up in 1990s Ukraine right after the Soviet Union and Soviet economy collapsed, so everyone had to hustle just to stay fed. First I helped my mother sell goods in the local street market. Then I had my own rabbit farm to sell meat. Then my father gave me vaccines to start providing vaccinations to the animals in our village, from which I made a profit. So, I came early to appreciate both science, technology and the craft of earning a profitable living from that. So, when I learned about the technical processes we’re now using, I naturally wanted to make a business out of it.
3. What is unique about your technology and what is it’s validation status?
We are a form of what is called “atomic layer deposition”, but unlike traditional A.L.D., we have pioneered and have I.P. on a continuous process. Traditional A.L.D. delivers it’s materials in a pulsing mode which is quite a slow process and consumes a significant amount of expensive chemicals. We have made a micro nozzle, basically a micro ALD reactor which works in continuous flow mode. The way in which we can stream allows us to deposit 50nm components in just a few minutes versus 2-to-3 hours with traditional A.L.D. and also with at least a hundred times less consumed materials. Our “Nanofabricator” is a machine that can replace a significant part of the innovation cycle in microfabrication. Each stage today needs from 5 to several dozen machines. You can replace those with basically one Nanofabricator for each phase, so maybe just 2-4 machines and that’s what we call an “A-hub”. So you can have a significantly smaller laboratory or facility which is also highly integratable with traditional processing equipment and flows. These setups can significantly reduce the cost, time, materials consumption and effort required to make micro devices from materials development to manufacturing. Since 2019 when we demonstrated our first prototype we have been engaged for pilot projects by large global companies like Merck and Sony, ST Microelectronics, and by first NASA and then the European Space Agency.
4. What are your Go-To-Market ideas and traction received so far?
Fortunately being a “better form of A.L.D.” a lot of technical people grasp the idea of our process, but commercially it’s always hard to envision where it can drop in. So our Go-to-Market has been to offer pilot projects and joint development efforts with industry and academia to show what’s possible and convert it into partnerships. Even before the prototype was completed in 2019, we reached out to companies like Sony and Merck, and also in 2020 to NASA when we said the space application, and we were fortunate enough to be able to convince all three of them that they needed to pay attention, that this is the future. As we made progress, we received another project from Merck, Sony decided to invest in us, and the NASA work got the attention of the European Space Agency who brought us an even larger project to build a module for the International Space Station. I’m happy to report that we just completed the assembly of this module earlier in January (2025). Now We’re going to bring the first atomic printer that can make microelectronics at zero gravity in space. Nobody else did this before.
5. What is next?
Basically, the next year or two will be refining our devices for general release by completing all of our pilots and demonstrations underway. Also, even though we were oversubscribed for our Series A funding, it’s never enough for a deeptech startup in the semiconductor space, so we’re planning a Series B solicitation in the second half of 2025.
6. Tell us about your experience with XTC
We are very grateful and happy and proud to be one of the winners of this competition. Victoria and the XTC organization did a great job. XTC has a huge credibility and a very strong partner network to engage. You are already helping us with introductions to partners and investors. And I honestly did not think we would win because there were so many good companies in the competition, so it’s a great community to be a part of. Whoever wants to apply to XTC in 2025, I would say, Go Ahead! It’s a great team, a great competition and a great community.
