AlixLabs Sax Forma Beta Chamber Enters Final Assembly at VDL Projects
Lund, Sweden – August 28, 2026 – AlixLabs AB, a semiconductor equipment company specializing in advanced etch and patterning technologies, today announced that the assembly of its first Sax Forma Beta tool for Atomic Pitch Splitting, APS™, has commenced at VDL Projects, The Netherlands.
This milestone keeps AlixLabs on track to install the Sax Forma Beta tool in its own cleanroom by the end of 2026, enabling beta testing of APS™ for customers and partners.
The second Beta tool will enter the assembly phase as well before the end of this year. These developments are part of AlixLabs’ continued transition from technology validation toward deeper customer engagement, process integration, and industrial equipment deployment. Following the launch of Sax Forma, AlixLabs’ first commercially available APS™ System, the Sax Forma Beta tools represent the next step in preparing APS™ for evaluation in mass production environments.
“Starting the assembly of the Sax Forma Beta tool is an important commercial milestone for AlixLabs,” said Jonas Sundqvist, CEO at AlixLabs. “It means we are moving from demonstrating the core APS capability toward beta testing with customers where we can return contamination free wafers to the customer pilot lines and actual fabs. This is critical for process integration, showcasing manufacturing value, and the role APS can play in reducing patterning complexity and cutting cost for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.”
APS™ is designed as a complementary patterning system inserted downstream of established lithography-based process flows, including DUV, EUV, and nanoimprint lithography (NIL). By enabling controlled pitch splitting after the initial pattern has been defined, APS™ can increase pattern density without subsequent passes of lithography.
The Sax Forma Beta tools are being industrialized together with industry heavyweight VDL Projects, AlixLabs’ partner for system integration and high-tech equipment manufacturing. VDL Projects is supporting the transition of APS™ from advanced R&D and process validation into industrial equipment, drawing on its experience in design, engineering, realization, and scale-up of first-of-a-kind systems.
“Completing the design and engineering of the first-of-a-kind APS™ equipment on schedule has been a tremendous challenge,” said Sorin Stan, Senior Director for Emerging Technologies at VDL Projects. “We did not experience a single week of delay, which preserved the overall planning for the realization phase. The manufacturing and procurement of parts, the assembly currently underway, and the testing before shipment have been planned with half-day accuracy. This showcases our extensive experience in enabling ambitious, accelerated growth of both small and large companies at times when novel equipment is paramount to their success.”
Once installed in AlixLabs’ cleanroom, the Sax Forma Beta tools will support automated production-like APS™ demonstrations for customer evaluation, integration work, and validation on industry-relevant silicon design for logic and memory products at the advanced technology nodes. The beta testing will help semiconductor manufacturers assess how APS™ can be integrated into existing manufacturing flows while preserving fab infrastructure and reducing patterning complexity.
The Sax Forma Beta tools also support AlixLabs’ longer-term equipment roadmap, with additional deliveries scheduled for customers in 2027. The Beta tools also form an important step toward the company’s planned final high-volume manufacturing (HVM) Gamma platform targeted for 2028.
With the Sax Forma Beta tools now in full assembly, AlixLabs continues to advance APS™ toward commercial adoption as a semiconductor equipment platform for the Ångström era.
About AlixLabs
Established in 2019 in Lund, Sweden, AlixLabs emerged as a spin-off from Lund University with a mission to enable the cost-effective and energy-conscious fabrication of semiconductors, particularly logic and memory components. AlixLabs boasts patented recognition for its groundbreaking APS™ technique, a process that achieves nanostructure division through etching. This method holds approved patents across the USA, Taiwan, and Europe. The APS™ acronym signifies Atomic Pitch Splitting, leveraging ALE (Atomic Layer Etching), a plasma-based dry etching cyclic methodology. For more details, please visit www.alixlabs.com.
About VDL Projects
As part of VDL Groep of The Netherlands, VDL Projects has a proven track record in supporting innovative companies in the transition from the feasibility to the design, engineering, and realization of their equipment. With all needed expertise under one roof, VDL Projects scales up the equipment manufacturing from first-of-a-kind units to batch manufacturing, and further to turnkey realization of complex production lines. VDL Groep is an industrial conglomerate headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. It was founded in 1953 and consists currently of more than 100 specialized companies employing together more than 14,000 employees in 20 countries and operating in several industrial sectors. For more details, please visit https://www.vdlgroep.com/en.
