en.Wedoany.com Reported - German hardware developer QuantumDiamonds GmbH (QD) implemented a dual-track market expansion in February 2026: collaborating with an academic engineering alliance in Europe while establishing strategic commercial channels in the East Asian memory semiconductor cluster. The Munich-based company formally established a technology diagnostic partnership with the Technical University of Munich (TUM), aiming to optimize quantum nitrogen-vacancy (NV) metrology technology for advanced artificial intelligence chips. Additionally, QuantumDiamonds signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Woowon Technologies Co., Ltd. at SEMICON Korea 2026, planning to distribute its non-destructive 3D magnetic current imaging equipment in Korean high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and packaging foundries.
The TUM academic alliance focuses on design-for-diagnostics for advanced AI processors. The alliance connects QuantumDiamonds with Professor Dr. Hussam Amrouch, Chair of AI Processor Design at TUM and Founding Director of the Munich Advanced Center for High-Tech AI Chips (MACHT-AI). The core of the joint research program is adapting wide-field quantum diamond microscopy (QDM) to the unique architecture of modern deep learning hardware. As sub-nanometer node AI accelerators increasingly adopt heterogeneous integration, chiplet layouts, and multi-layer vertical stacking, traditional thermal or optical emission microscopy fails to locate internal faults due to physical layer obstruction and severe spatial resolution limitations. The collaboration roadmap addresses these bottlenecks by implementing non-invasive design-for-diagnostics (DfD) workflows. QuantumDiamonds' QDM platform leverages spin-dependent fluorescence from subsurface nitrogen-vacancy centers in synthetic diamond substrates to directly map wide-field magnetic field vectors above active silicon. By capturing precise magnetic variations, the platform reconstructs two-dimensional and three-dimensional current density distributions through deeply buried layers of the device under test, enabling engineering teams to non-destructively visualize current flow inside ultra-efficient CMOS systems, facilitating rapid debugging, verification, and reliability testing of complex AI accelerator topologies during pre-shipment validation cycles.
The Woowon Technologies MoU aims to penetrate the Korean HBM supply chain. To gain direct market access in the East Asian memory hardware ecosystem, QuantumDiamonds established a strategic distribution and customer validation framework with Seoul-based Woowon Technologies. The agreement, finalized on-site at the SEMICON Korea exhibition, authorizes Woowon to manage localized customer evaluation cycles, technical maintenance, and deployment logistics for leading Korean electronics groups, including memory and HBM leaders Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
This distribution push coincides with the market introduction of the QD m.1 inspection system, which began customer shipments in the first quarter of 2026. Compared to the company's original QD m.0 prototype, the QD m.1 integrates automated machine learning algorithms to optimize signal sampling intervals, significantly reducing spatial measurement time. The tool achieves micron-level precision when diagnosing opens, parasitic resistance channels, subsurface voids, and micro-shorts within complex 3D stacked package layouts and wide-bandgap power semiconductors. By combining QuantumDiamonds' hardware with Woowon's established regional network, the partnership shortens tool qualification cycles for foundries managing critical yield thresholds on sixth-generation HBM (HBM4) and high-density DRAM production lines.
