Nextreme Thermal Solutions (Durham, NC), which makes microscale thermal and power management products for the photonics and electronics industries, today announced securing $13 million in Series B financing. The round was led by Chart Venture Partners and included previous investors Redshift Venture Partners, Harris & Harris Group, Inc., In-Q-Tel, and RTI International, as well as Japan-based Itochu Corporation and Itochu Technology Ventures. The funding will be used to ramp Nextreme's products into full production in 2009 in response to demand from the photonics and military markets, and to develop new products for the computing, consumer, and mobile markets.
Nextreme began shipping its first product in October of 2007 and recently brought up production in a new facility.
"We are very pleased with where we are now positioned," said Jesko von Windheim, CEO of Nextreme. "We are seeing strong interest in the OptoCooler UPF4 and UPF40 products and anticipate design wins in the telecom industry this year. With financing in place and production up and running, we can concentrate fully on making that happen."
The OptoCoolers are tiny (millimeter-scale) thermoelectric modules that can be integrated directly into optoelectronic and electronic packaging. The UPF40, for example, has an active footprint of 5.1 mm2 and pumps a heat density of up to 72 W/cm2 at 25°C, which allows it to move a maximum of 3.7 W of heat. In one example application, it is embedded in a semiconductor optical amplifier package to maintain proper operating conditions. The module can also be used with a number of other optoelectronic devices, including high-brightness LEDs, laser diodes, VCSELs (vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers), and detectors.
Nextreme's thin-film thermoelectric products are manufactured in volume with the "thermal copper pillar bump" process, an established electronic-packaging approach that scales well into large arrays. The process integrates thin-film thermoelectric material into the solder-bumped interconnects that provide mechanical and electrical connections for high-performance/high-density integrated circuits.