The key to the AI era is ultimately electricity. To keep high-power servers from stopping, the "dam (capacitor)" that supplies electricity stably has to get bigger. HexaPro has dramatically increased the capacity of this dam by drilling billions of nano holes inside semiconductors based on anodizing, an aluminum surface treatment rooted in traditional core manufacturing.
HexaPro is a corporations that makes anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membranes with a nano-porous structure by using anodizing, an aluminum surface treatment method. Chief Executive Kim Tae-seon, who earned a master's in chemical engineering from Seoul National University and worked for 20 years as a veteran patent attorney starting in 2003, founded the company in 2022.
After stints with the Samsung SDI legal team and as a trial examiner at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (a civilian open Grade-4 technical official), Kim, who had witnessed countless fundamental technologies, decided to commercialize one directly—and that material was AAO. This material is drawing attention as a key component that determines the performance of AI Semiconductor chips with surging power demand and high-capacity capacitors for electric vehicles, which store and release electricity.
AAO is a promising material first proposed in the 1980s at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Thanks to its structure in which nanoscale (nm) micro-pores are uniformly arranged like a honeycomb, it has endless applications in semiconductors, bio filters, and more. But the conventional method required a "melt away" process that dissolves and removes the aluminum substrate, making manufacturing expense high and large-area production difficult, so it remained for research use.
Kim broke through this limitation with a "separation" technology. By developing a method to peel off only the AAO layer from the aluminum substrate, the substrate can be reused repeatedly.
Kim said, "While cutting the supply price to less than one-third of the conventional level, we also achieved, for the first time in the world, an 8-inch large-area implementation with a through-hole structure," adding, "We used to produce only one AAO sheet per piece of aluminum, but now we can stamp out 50 to 100 sheets."
HexaPro's technology shines brightest in the 3D silicon capacitor market. Capacitors store and release power, and the larger the electrode area, the greater the capacity. Using HexaPro's AAO membrane, the surface area can be expanded more than 1,000 times over the conventional planar structure, enabling the production of ultra–high-capacity chips.
Kim explained, "On a circuit board that used to require 10 to 20 conventional MLCCs (multilayer ceramic capacitors), a single 3D capacitor using our material is enough," adding, "We are challenging the market that Japan's Murata, the world's No. 1 in MLCCs, commercialized after seven years of development, with a more economical and efficient material."
HexaPro is currently conducting proof-of-concept (PoC) trials with domestic semiconductor conglomerates. HexaPro is raising a 2 billion won Series A investment. It has already completed seed funding from TIPS graduates and LF Corp. Investment, and its cumulative research and development spending amounts to 2.2 billion won. In particular, it secured technical credibility by being selected for a 9 billion won nano materials technology development project by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
The use of this investment is clear: building a dedicated mass-production line for semiconductors. Kim said, "For now we are responding with general industrial equipment, but we need dedicated facilities with temperature- and humidity-controlled chambers and automated lines tailored to semiconductor processes," adding, "By the first half of 2026, we will add a new line capable of manufacturing large areas of 8 inches or more to secure production capacity for annual sales of over 10 billion won."
HexaPro has completed internalization of technology spanning from materials to packaging processes by bringing in an expert who developed MLCCs at Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Ph.D.s from the Seoul National University Semiconductor Research Center.
Throughout the interview, Kim emphasized the role of "venture capital." Kim said, "Recently, VCs (venture capital firms) tend to invest only in startups that generate immediate revenue, which makes it tough, but even a materials company like EcoPro endured a difficult early period," adding, "HexaPro started in technologically advanced Germany, but we will become a game changer that turns AAO, which had remained at the level of 'possibility,' into the industry 'standard' with the power of K materials, components, and equipment."