Quantum Diamonds Uses Diamond Sensors to Spot Flaws in AI Chips
Munich startup Quantum Diamonds has built microscopes that use synthetic diamonds to locate defects inside chips, backed by a 152 million euro production site.
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giftdetect· the right gift in minutesMunich-based Quantum Diamonds wants to make quality control in chip manufacturing faster and more precise. The startup builds quantum diamond microscopes that measure tiny magnetic fields and can locate defects inside a semiconductor without destroying it.
High-performance AI chips consist of many stacked layers, and flaws deep inside are hard to detect with conventional methods. That costs time and money and lowers production yield. Founded in 2022 by Kevin Berghoff and Fleming Bruckmaier as a spinoff of the Technical University of Munich, the company uses atomic defects in synthetic diamonds as sensors. In simple terms, they make electric currents inside a chip visible.
First systems in industrial use
According to the company, the method has been tested with nine of the ten largest chipmakers, including TSMC and Samsung. Since April 2026, first systems have been installed at Eurofins EAG Laboratories in California and Integrated Service Technology (iST) in Taiwan. The next hurdle is scale: so far the technology focuses on individual chips, but it is meant to inspect entire wafers with hundreds or thousands of chips quickly and reliably. Berghoff's stated goal is full quality control directly inside the chip fab.
152 million euros for a Munich site
Quantum Diamonds is investing 152 million euros in a production site in Munich, the first section of which opened in July 2026. Financing of 91 million euros helps make that possible: 15 million come from investors such as Berlin-based World Fund, and 76 million from the German federal government and Bavaria under the European Chips Act. The company had at one point considered moving to the US, where Arizona offered attractive subsidies and where TSMC and Intel are expanding capacity. With a subsidy rate of around 50 percent, Berlin and Bavaria kept it in Germany.
World Fund managing partner Daria Saharova says Quantum Diamonds has the potential to become Europe's next ASML. The comparison is ambitious, and the startup is still far from that position.
Part of a wider startup wave
Other German startups are targeting the chip industry too: Black Semiconductor in Aachen (optical chip interconnects, 228.7 million euros in public funding and 25.7 million from investors), FMC in Dresden (memory technology, 77 million euros from investors and 23 million in public funds) and NextGO Epi in Berlin (gallium oxide wafers). After Intel's Magdeburg and Wolfspeed's Saarland fab projects failed, specialized suppliers like these may gain importance.
Success is not guaranteed. Chipmakers adopt new tools only after extensive testing, and they demand measurable gains such as less scrap, lower costs or higher performance.
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