The Archer Materials Ltd (ASX: AXE) share price is in positive territory today following an update on its semiconductor chip testing.
During late afternoon trade, the advanced material company's shares are selling for 74.5 cents, up 2.05%.
What did Archer announce to the ASX?
Archer shares are set to finish the week higher after the company provided investors with a positive announcement.
In today's release, Archer advised it has progressed its biochip development by establishing testing and measurement for semiconductor chips themselves. This follows a previous update in which the company achieved the ability to analyse the individual materials in the components of the biochip.
The latest development marks a significant checkpoint passed in Archer's pursuit for commercialising its biochip technology. The global semiconductor industry is one of the most important drivers of the global economy, with use in almost all technological applications.
Recently, the company expanded its access to institutional deep tech infrastructure to analyse and distinguish the material properties of its devices. This is an important step as after assembly, the chip assesses operational performance.
Access to deep tech infrastructure allows Archer to build its chip technologies, including a graphene-based biochip for point-of-care medical diagnostics.
In addition, the company is working on advanced chips in the same semiconductor fabrication environment. This supports the company's efforts in building a qubit processor chip that can operate at room temperature and integrate into modern electronics.
Current quantum computing technologies are limited because they use qubit processors that can only operate at low temperatures and difficult to integrate into today's applications.
Archer CEO, Dr Mohammad Choucair touched on the company's latest chip development, saying:
The establishment of in-house semiconductor chip testing and measurement is a key operational requirement that is necessary to build our technology.
This will allow the Company to meet a number of milestones in the development of multiple chip types, including its biochip and also quantum computing chip.
About the Archer share price
Archer shares have gained more than 20% over the past 12 months, with year-to-date share price performance sitting above 40%.
On valuation grounds, Archer has a market capitalisation of roughly $169 million, with about 226 million shares on issue.
