12.06.2023: Demo Day -3D Architech

KAI NARITA: Hello, everyone. So my name is Kai. I'm a cofounder of the 3D Architech. So I'm a visiting scientist at MIT. And also, our startup, 3D Architech, is selected for Start.nano accelerator program by MIT Nano.

So here's our vision. So we revolutionize the metal manufacturing platform to realize the imagination with a complete freedom of materials, microarchitectures, and production volumes. And behind this vision, we see the two fundamental problems in the metal manufacturing space.

The first problem is the manufacturable resolution, how fine you can make the meta devices. So performance and efficiency the meta devices are locked by currently the limited micron-scale control and also material selection that comes from such a micron-scale control. One of the good example is the heat exchanger heatsink. You know, those are made by the copper fin structure, which is 100 micrometers thick fins. If you can make it smaller, you could improve the cooling performance. However, we reach the-- currently, the how small, how fine you can make by current manufacturing process.

The other problem we see is the trade off between part cost and production volume. We always need a mass production because of the high upfront CapEx. Again, the good example, traditional example, is the metal injection molding. The mold cost $100,000, so you have to have to pay the upfront fee $100,000 to make even one developed product. Metal 3D printers have emerged. However, we still need the mass production by this technology. The reason is that metal 3D print is very expensive. Usually cost $1 million. The most affordable ones will cost $100,000.

So to tackle these challenges, we invented a new technology of making metals, which is a gel-based, metal 3D printing technology. So instead of using the-- any metal materials, such as metal powder, metal wire, we use a gel. So we have the proprietary gel materials, which can be 3D printed by commercially available, UV light-based 3D printer, which is typically used for making a resin or plastic. But by using this 3D printer, we make a 3D structural gel. We have the chemistry that can convert from gel to metal.

So basically, what we do here is that we use a commercially available UV light-based printer which is used for making the resin plastic, but we use this type of 3D printer to make metals.

So here's the advantage on the right. So you can offer 10 micrometer feature size, which is 10 times smaller than any metal 3D printer can offer. And also, you can make-- we can offer versatile material sections, including pure copper or tungsten. We can also do multimaterial 3D printing. And this type of 3D printing is very affordable, usually cost $1,000 per printer, so it's 100 times lower equipment cost. And this allows us to do low print cost, even from one piece of production.

And by using-- here's what we can make, just a good example. So here's silver structure, which has a 40-micrometer feature size. It's the half size of a human hair thickness. And by this high resolution of fine features, we can make more than 3 centimeter structure. It's a good size for the heat exchanger heatsink. It's made of copper. We can also make the different type of alloys [INAUDIBLE] different combination of metals.

And so far, we have gained more than PoC study requests from more than six companies in the different markets, the heatsink, hydrogen production, electrical connectors, and electrical motors. And today, we are working on mostly the heat sink market with six different customers.

And let me show you today the one use case, the data center cooling. So in the data center, the GPU TDP, the Thermal Design Power, has rapidly increased. And if you look into the energy consumption in the data center, 40% of the data center consumption comes from the cooling, so we need a new cooling solution, which provides a super-efficient cooling here.

So instead of using the traditional manufacturing structure, like the CNC machine structure, we offer 10 micrometer feature size with a topological optimized structure by using our technology, which offers four times energy efficient, and also, price point also is quite competitive by this technology.

So here's our ask for the partnership. So we do plan on growing our proof of concept study with various companies for future partnership, and its basic application we're working on is right now the heatsink, especially liquid cooling heatsink, wicks for the vapor chamber, and immersion cooling. We're also working is a company who's interested in the water electricity and fuel cells, gas diffusion layer. If you're also interested in this manufacturing process, we are happy to work with 3D printing service bureau, which should be equipped with a 3D printer they need. And also, we need some equipment for post-processing.

With that, thank you so much. We are 3D Architech. We are happy to answer any questions.

ARIADNA RODENSTEIN: Thank you guys so much. Could you talk a little more about the gel-to-metal conversion?

KAI NARITA: Right. So this is what we actually do. In practice, what we do here is that we don't have any metals, as I like to emphasize here, in the gel, in the starting material. It's just gel as a material, but instead, after printing the gel, we have some conversion process, basically infused into metal precursor solution to infuse metal precursor into the gel. It's a bonding process, basically, to bond out the gel and convert from gel-- sorry, convert metal precursor to metals and to make the metal structure here.

ARIADNA RODENSTEIN: OK. And how do you generally work with corporates? Do they provide a design? Do you provide that?

KAI NARITA: Yeah, that's a good question. So it's company by company. Some companies interested in our technology for the high resolution 3D printing, and specifically-- they have a specific application, but however, they don't know how to design or use-- take advantage of such refined features, so we have the simulation team in our company. So depending on the company, we offer design, or if the company has some design in mind, we offer to also just manufacturing as well.