Rohan Karthik
| Rohan Karthik | |
| Occupation | Co-founder and CEO, Inversion Semiconductor |
|---|---|
| Known for | Co-founding Inversion Semiconductor |
Rohan Karthik is an entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Inversion Semiconductor, a San Francisco-based startup developing next-generation semiconductor lithography technology by shrinking particle accelerators. The company was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2025 batch.[1]
Early life and education
Karthik attended Imperial College London, where he was involved in a rocketry project. He led a team of 75 students in building and launching a five-meter rocket in the Mojave Desert.[2]
Career
Karthik co-founded Inversion Semiconductor in 2024 alongside Daniel Vega.[3] The company is developing a lithography machine — equipment used to pattern circuit features onto silicon wafers during chip fabrication. Lithography is a critical step in semiconductor manufacturing, and the most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems are currently produced by only one company in the world, the Dutch firm ASML, at a cost of approximately $400 million per unit.[4]
Inversion Semiconductor's approach centers on shrinking particle accelerators by a factor of 1,000 — from kilometer-scale facilities to tabletop-sized devices — to create a high-power, tunable light source for lithography. The company uses laser wakefield acceleration, in which a high-powered laser is fired into a gas to generate strong electric fields that capture and accelerate electrons, producing the 13.5 nm EUV light wavelength used in current advanced chipmaking.[5]
According to the company, its technology could enable a 100% increase in transistor density for a given numerical aperture, 3x higher throughput per scanner, and greater than 25% improvement in critical dimension uniformity. The company states its goal is to manufacture the most powerful chips 15 times faster than current methods and to reshore advanced chip fabrication capabilities in the West.[6]
The company is categorized within the hardware, manufacturing, and semiconductors industries.[7]
References
- ↑ "Inversion Semiconductor – Y Combinator". 'Y Combinator}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Inversion Semiconductor". 'Rho}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Plans to shrink particle accelerators by 1,000x could speed chipmaking by 15X". 'Tom's Hardware}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Inversion Semiconductor". 'Rho}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Inversion Semiconductor". 'Inversion Semiconductor}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Inversion Semiconductor". 'Inversion Semiconductor}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Inversion Semiconductor – Y Combinator". 'Y Combinator}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.