SemiAI, Boosting Semiconductor Yield with AI, Secures Investment from Kakao Ventures

Semiconductor AI startup SemiAI announced on the 27th that it has successfully closed a seed round from Kakao Ventures. With this investment as a springboard, SemiAI plans to accelerate cooperation with global semiconductor manufacturers and various fabs.

Founded in December 2024, SemiAI was launched by CEO Taekwon Jee, who holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley. Jee has built a career as a semiconductor engineer at leading global firms including Intel, Lam Research, ASML, Samsung Electronics, and SK hynix.

SemiAI is developing 'SMILE,' an AI-based software that supports semiconductor yield improvement. Its core technology, Virtual Fab Data generation, validates sensor, equipment, and wafer data from every stage of the semiconductor process in a virtual environment. The system enables a single-pane view of past, present, and future defects in actual semiconductor processes, interpreting causal relationships between semiconductors to fundamentally improve yield.

SMILE's Agentic AI, which continuously learns from Virtual Fab Data in real time, classifies defect patterns and automates yield analysis and improvement. By learning engineers' past recipe adjustments and process improvement strategies, the system recommends the most suitable improvements for each process. This shortens the yield analysis and improvement cycle from over seven days to under ten minutes.

SemiAI plans to strengthen the reliability and validity of its virtual data through proof-of-concept (PoC) projects that compare it against data collected from real fabs, thereby enhancing applicability in real industrial environments. The ultimate goal is to grow into an AI infrastructure company that maximizes manufacturing efficiency by analyzing and optimizing the massive data generated across all stages of semiconductor production.

Youngmoo Kim, Partner at Kakao Ventures, said: "As AI computing power expands, memory efficiency will become the central theme next year, and the importance of semiconductors is greater than ever. SemiAI is a top-tier team capable of capturing this inflection point and driving innovation in yield improvement—the fundamental goal of semiconductor manufacturing."

Taekwon Jee, CEO of SemiAI, stated: "In the semiconductor industry, fabless design technologies for application-specific chips are important, but remarkable innovation is also needed in mass-production capability—that is, in yield improvement. SemiAI will lead data-driven semiconductor manufacturing innovation by making the yield improvement process intelligent and automated."