Carbon Nanotube Firm Strengthens Executive Team to Build CNT Ecosystem

Canatu, a Finland-based carbon nanotube (CNT) technology company listed on Nasdaq Helsinki, last week announced a new CTO and CMO, following the hiring of a new CEO a couple of months ago. The leadership changes are intended to âaccelerate the commercial executionâ of the companyâs CNT technology for semiconductor manufacturing, mobility, and medical diagnostics. Founded in 2004 as a spinout from Aalto Universityâs nanomaterials group, Canatu has developed equipment and consumables for advanced CNTs using a proprietary process. The company said its patented dry deposition reactor produces higher-quality, higher-performance CNTs than conventional wet deposition techniques. The result, the company claimed, is better CNT membranes for EUV pellicles that protect photomasks in advanced node semiconductor manufacturing, CNT-based film heaters for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) in the automotive industry, and electrochemical sensing using CNT sheets for point-of-care diagnostics in medical applications. EE Times caught up with Canatuâs new CEO, Maximilian Slawinski, during a visit to London to learn more about Slawinski and the companyâs ambitions. You can watch the video interview here: The audio-only link is also available below: Learning lessons from power electronics and OLED Slawinski took over from former CEO Juha Kokkonen in May 2026 and last week brought in seasoned executives Walter Braun as CTO and Bernd Meier as CMO. Braun was previously with Scrona, a developer of microprinting technology for advanced semiconductor packaging, while Meier held global sales and marketing roles at Teradyne and Infineon Technologies. Our conversation with Slawinski revealed a highly qualified executive with a materials science background, eager to use the lessons learned over the last 15 years or so in materials technologies including OLEDs, power electronics, and wide-bandgap semiconductors, at companies such as Infineon Technologies and Soitec. Building on the foundation established by his predecessor at Canatu, Slawinski aims to accelerate the companyâs commercial growth by expanding its partner ecosystem and strengthening customersâ confidence in Canatuâs CNT solutions. He talked about the personal transformation from being very technical to now being commercially minded. Asked why he joined Canatu, he said, âAfter a decade in power semiconductors and half a decade in OLEDs [where he did a lot of research and founded a startup], I was presented with this opportunity to be a part of the advanced node supply chain at Canatu.â He added, âOur mission is to enable the improvement of well-being in society.â The latter statement sounded rather broad for a technology company, so when asked what exactly that meant, he brought this down to a level to make it more meaningful for Canatuâs target markets. For example, in semiconductor manufacturing, he said higher-quality EUV pellicles have the potential to improve yields by 8% to 15% by enabling more wafers to pass through production per hour and freeing up yield-related bottlenecks in the semiconductor supply chain. For ADAS, he said CNT-based camera heaters ensure higher levels of safety. For medical diagnostics, he said CNT sheets enable easier to modulate and ultrasensitive sensors. What is its business model? What traction has Canatu gained? What challenges does the company face in reaching its next stage of growth? These are the questions we address in the video interview. Read also: Carbon nanotube coating creates on-chip terahertz waveguides Indian Firm Scales Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Production for Batteries and Chips Molecular Contamination: The Hardware Reality of High-NA EUVNovel Dry Deposition Revolutionizes Carbon Nanotubes Leave a Reply You must Register or Login to post a comment.