We are pleased to announce that HallTech has joined Metheion as a Technical Recruiting partner.
Building the technology behind the next generation of chips
For decades, advances in semiconductor manufacturing have been driven by increasingly sophisticated lithography. Today, however, the industry faces another fundamental constraint: the materials themselves. As chip architectures become more complex, conventional thin-film deposition methods face growing challenges in balancing deposition speed, film quality, purity, and temperature control.
HallTech is developing a new physical vapor deposition (PVD) platform designed to overcome these limitations. Drawing on plasma physics and ion-beam technology, its approach enables precise control of atom energy upon reaching a substrate, aiming to combine high-quality thin films with high throughput and process control required for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
From plasma physics to fab-ready equipment
Founded in 2023, HallTech was built around a fundamental question: what if the limitations of conventional deposition technology could be overcome by rethinking the underlying physics?
The company's founders, Olivier Oomen and Andrey Nikipelov, met while working at ASML, where their backgrounds in applied plasma physics helped them recognize opportunities for fundamentally different approaches to material processing.
Today, HallTech's leadership combines scientific expertise with a focus on engineering scale-up.
Olivier Oomen, CEO and Co-Founder: With a background in applied plasma physics and experience in research and system industrialization at ASML, Olivier leads HallTech's strategy and commercial development.
Jacco Hubregtse, CTO: Jacco leads the engineering effort to scale HallTech's technology from a functioning prototype to a system capable of processing 12-inch wafers and ultimately operating in semiconductor fabrication facilities.
Andrey Nikipelov, CSO and Co-Founder: Andrey leads the scientific development of HallTech's ion-beam source technology and explores new applications of deposition principles.
Backed to take the technology from lab to fab
HallTech has attracted support from investors and deep-tech programs as it advances its technology toward industrialization.
The company received €350,000 in early financing associated with the Brabant Startup Fund. In July 2026, it closed a €20+ million pre-seed funding round led by Octopus Ventures, with SOSV and Ignite Next. The latest round supports the company's further development and ambition to bring its deposition platform into semiconductor manufacturing.
Metheion will support HallTech with technical recruiting across
Plasma Physicists
Specialists in plasma generation, plasma-surface interactions, ionisation mechanisms, and physical modelling who can help develop and optimise HallTech's deposition technology.Ion-Source Design Engineers
Engineers experienced in ion-source architecture, Hall-effect systems, ion-energy control, source geometry, and experimental optimisation of plasma-based equipment.Thin-Film Deposition Engineers
Specialists in PVD, thin-film growth, deposition mechanisms, and the relationship between process conditions and resulting material properties.Semiconductor Process Engineers
Engineers who develop and optimise deposition processes, establish process windows, improve film uniformity and repeatability, and translate laboratory results into scalable manufacturing processes.Materials Scientists and Thin-Film Researchers
Specialists in thin-film growth, surface and interface chemistry, microstructure, material properties, and the characterisation of deposited films.Vacuum System Engineers
Engineers responsible for vacuum architecture, pumping systems, pressure control, contamination prevention, and the design and optimisation of vacuum chambers for semiconductor equipment.Mechanical Design Engineers
Engineers experienced in precision mechanical design, complex equipment assemblies, chamber design, CAD, tolerancing, material selection, and design for manufacturing.Thermal Engineers
Specialists in heat transfer, thermal modelling, temperature management, and the design of equipment operating under demanding thermal conditions.Electrical and Power Electronics Engineers
Engineers who design electrical architectures, power supplies, and power delivery systems for plasma generation, ion sources, and semiconductor processing equipment.Plasma Diagnostics Engineers
Specialists in sensor selection, diagnostic systems, experimental instrumentation, data acquisition, and measurement techniques for characterising plasma and deposition processes.Control Systems and Automation Engineers
Engineers who develop equipment control architectures, process monitoring, feedback control, automation, and software interfaces for reliable and repeatable operation.Metrology Engineers
Specialists in film thickness measurement, surface analysis, material characterisation, defect detection, and the validation of deposition performance against semiconductor process requirements.Semiconductor Equipment Integration Engineers
Engineers experienced in integrating complex hardware, software, vacuum, thermal, electrical, and process subsystems into production-ready equipment, including wafer handling, fab automation interfaces, system qualification, and industrialisation.
The challenge is building an entire process, not just a deposition source
A new deposition technology must do much more than demonstrate that it works in the laboratory. Turning a new deposition source into a reliable deposition process, and further into viable semiconductor equipment, means engineering an entire system in which every subsystem and process parameter affects the final result.
Contamination control. Even if a deposition source produces the desired material, unwanted particles, impurities, or contamination from chamber walls and other components can compromise the resulting film. Vacuum design, material selection, surface conditions, and the management of particles and residues all become critical.
Film uniformity. Depositing a good film on a small test sample is not the same as producing consistent results across a 12-inch wafer. The equipment must control thickness, composition, microstructure, and other relevant film properties across the substrate and reproduce them from wafer to wafer and run to run.
Process control. Engineers need to establish how changes in plasma conditions, ion energy, temperature, and deposition parameters affect the resulting material. This requires reliable diagnostics, accurate measurements, well-characterized process windows, and methods to verify that the deposited films consistently meet their specifications.
Yield. In semiconductor manufacturing, a promising film is not enough. Defects, non-uniformity, contamination, and process variation can affect the performance and yield of the finished chips. The equipment must demonstrate the ability to deliver consistent, specification-compliant films without sacrificing throughput or repeatability.
Fab integration. A laboratory prototype must become a reliable fab tool that can be manufactured, operated, maintained, and integrated into a semiconductor fabrication facility. Vacuum and thermal management, motion systems, electrical hardware, software, automation, serviceability, uptime, and interfaces with the wider manufacturing process must all work as a coherent system.
These challenges are interconnected. Improving deposition speed can affect film properties, changing the source can affect thermal loads and uniformity, and optimizing one process parameter can introduce new constraints elsewhere. Solving these problems requires engineers who understand not only their individual disciplines but also how the entire deposition process behaves as a system.
Finding engineers who can bridge physics and engineering
This is what makes recruiting for HallTech particularly challenging. The required expertise spans several disciplines, and the right candidates may come from semiconductor equipment, plasma processing, aerospace propulsion, vacuum technology, precision engineering, thin-film research, or advanced materials development.
Some candidates will understand plasma physics but have limited experience designing industrial equipment. Others will have spent years developing high-precision vacuum systems or semiconductor manufacturing tools without working directly with Hall-effect technology. The challenge is to identify where their expertise lies and then determine whether this experience is well-suited to solving the specific problems HallTech faces during the development roadmap.
At Metheion, we look beyond job titles and keyword matches to evaluate candidates against the actual physics, engineering constraints, and manufacturing challenges of the semiconductor equipment technology they will work on.
We look forward to helping HallTech build the multidisciplinary engineering team to take its deposition technology from a functioning prototype to the fab.
