> The founder is known con-artist involved in such other things as solving nuclear fusion and stealing $2.5M in a Kickstarter scam.
Haha, am I still supposed to believe VC’s are competent, intelligent people who deserve their stature when they fall for scams that should be more obvious than a Nigerian prince scam.
The rah-rah stuff on their homepage really put me off, as a European. I didn't expect it to be fraud though-- I thought it was rubbish, but that they actually had something somewhat useful, somehow, since I thought Peter Thiel was smart.
There are some strange things in this writeup-- I don't think it's clear that the machine they claim to intend to sell is supposed to be a direct writing machine, I assumed it was supposed to be like EUV but with X-rays and some kind of special x-ray tolerant photoresist, but the identity of the founders is at least quite damning, the electrostatic chuck thing might be damning I guess, unless there's some special concern. I assumed that even if it were sensible, it wouldn't work well enough, with damage to the resist or something else that manufacturers would find unacceptable, but this isn't my area, so I can't really judge.
I have been thinking, if the "generate soft xray for lithography by particle accelerators" is remotely feasible as being claimed by substrate. I remember reading some chineese startup / university also trying to do so. ASML is best position to execute this. They have the money, cashflow and talent, R&D culture all available. ASML may very well be the one actually doing this.
> Would you believe that the founder—who could not make an alarm clock for $70 M, but who has allegedly beaten ASML for under $100 M—has also found time to solve nuclear fusion?
Oof. Before this point in the article I wasn't sure if it's fraud, but comparing the money raised for a (failed) alarm clock vs money raised for supposedly-successful ASML competitor was a good of putting things in perspective. And the nuclear fusion thing... oh god.
It seems clear that the founder's record has some significant failures, but thinking the other way, are there other founders who've been successful today after similarly significant past failures? "Past performance isn't indicative of future results" or however it goes.
It's easy to get stuck judging people based on their history, so you easily skip over other details that might make their current efforts different, we all think (hope?) we grow, meaning so does this founder, despite past failures. I'm not trying to say that this is a signal either way, but I wish others don't judge me in the same basic way in the future, as I too have failed in the past (although not about solving nuclear fusion) but think I'm getting better every day. Of course, people will judge me and others either way, but it seems more reasonable to not not just jump into history first, and focus on other details that actually evaluate the ideas themselves.
Also, process fabs are volume driven technologies, and focus on getting as much product out the door as quickly as possible. A lot of technologies will never be compatible with that optimization in a business context.
Samsung was sort of the exception to this trend, and took huge risks that paid off =3
I was a process engineer for a decade. A lithography machine is one of the less interesting things that a compact particle accelerator would be useful for. They could sell 1000X more if they just focused on the accelerator, and medical diagnostic companies would buy them by the thousands
> These are extraordinary claims and thus demand extraordinary evidence. Let’s take them one-by-one:
And here is their conclusion:
> Naysayers will point out a million reasons why this is improbable, difficult, etc. - and they are mostly correct. There is a big difference between lab-scale and industrialized, high-volume tools. Substrate itself realizes this and agrees they are in for a lot of development and scaling pain. Still, they have at least developed some impressive capabilities on the most complex part of the process (litho) in a short amount of time (2-3 years).
15 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 47.4 ms ] threadCan Substrate disrupt ASML using particle acceleration?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/technology/can-a-start-up... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45732431)
See also:
Return to Silicon Valley
https://substrate.com/our-purpose
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45741489)
Haha, am I still supposed to believe VC’s are competent, intelligent people who deserve their stature when they fall for scams that should be more obvious than a Nigerian prince scam.
There are some strange things in this writeup-- I don't think it's clear that the machine they claim to intend to sell is supposed to be a direct writing machine, I assumed it was supposed to be like EUV but with X-rays and some kind of special x-ray tolerant photoresist, but the identity of the founders is at least quite damning, the electrostatic chuck thing might be damning I guess, unless there's some special concern. I assumed that even if it were sensible, it wouldn't work well enough, with damage to the resist or something else that manufacturers would find unacceptable, but this isn't my area, so I can't really judge.
Oof. Before this point in the article I wasn't sure if it's fraud, but comparing the money raised for a (failed) alarm clock vs money raised for supposedly-successful ASML competitor was a good of putting things in perspective. And the nuclear fusion thing... oh god.
US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45745536 - Oct 2025 (4 comments)
Can Substrate disrupt ASML using particle acceleration? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45732431 - Oct 2025 (11 comments)
It's easy to get stuck judging people based on their history, so you easily skip over other details that might make their current efforts different, we all think (hope?) we grow, meaning so does this founder, despite past failures. I'm not trying to say that this is a signal either way, but I wish others don't judge me in the same basic way in the future, as I too have failed in the past (although not about solving nuclear fusion) but think I'm getting better every day. Of course, people will judge me and others either way, but it seems more reasonable to not not just jump into history first, and focus on other details that actually evaluate the ideas themselves.
Also, process fabs are volume driven technologies, and focus on getting as much product out the door as quickly as possible. A lot of technologies will never be compatible with that optimization in a business context.
Samsung was sort of the exception to this trend, and took huge risks that paid off =3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCWDzWG1BcI
https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/how-to-kill-2-monopoli...
Skeptics welcome to review the following section:
> These are extraordinary claims and thus demand extraordinary evidence. Let’s take them one-by-one:
And here is their conclusion:
> Naysayers will point out a million reasons why this is improbable, difficult, etc. - and they are mostly correct. There is a big difference between lab-scale and industrialized, high-volume tools. Substrate itself realizes this and agrees they are in for a lot of development and scaling pain. Still, they have at least developed some impressive capabilities on the most complex part of the process (litho) in a short amount of time (2-3 years).