August 19, 2026, Morrisville, North Carolina. The company breaking ground there was neither an automaker nor a well-known battery cell maker. Forge Nano, a materials-and-equipment company that has sold atomic layer deposition (ALD) coating technology, has moved to build its own lithium-ion gigafactory. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is providing up to $100 million in non-repayable funding, and Samsung SDI is lending support through strategic investment and technical cooperation.
Even after the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States still depends on Asia for a substantial part of its battery supply chain, and the defense sector has treated that dependence as a security risk. But why a coating-technology company with no history of mass-producing cells at scale would build its own gigafactory directly, and why cell maker Samsung SDI would enter this project as a partner rather than a competitor, both call for separate explanation. This piece examines whether this investment is simply a government-subsidy project, or the opening signal of a new business model built around coating patents (IP).
① What’s the Story
Forge Nano held a groundbreaking ceremony on August 19, 2026, at its plant site in Morrisville, North Carolina. The goal is to expand the existing site to approximately 315,000 square feet (roughly 29,300 m²) and secure lithium-ion cell production capacity of up to 3GWh per year. Funding comes from up to $100 million in non-repayable DOE money, with Samsung SDI participating through strategic investment, technical cooperation, and manufacturing support. Mass production is targeted for 2028, with manufacturing equipment to be brought in in stages over the next two years. The company has stated the plant’s purpose is to change the structure by which batteries used in national-security-related applications have depended on foreign-controlled supply chains.
Prior to this, on April 21, 2026, Forge Nano announced it would pursue a Nasdaq listing through a merger with Archimedes Tech SPAC Partners II, describing itself as “an American advanced manufacturing company for AI-era semiconductors and defense-grade batteries.” A company that grew through licensing its coating-technology patents has, within the span of a single year, clearly moved to expand vertically into cell manufacturing and the capital markets as well.
② Basic Principle — A Protective Layer Painted One Atom at a Time
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a process that adsorbs and reacts a gaseous precursor onto a surface one layer at a time, forming a thin film only one or two atoms thick. Rather than painting on a thick coat with a brush, think of it as coating the entire surface molecule by molecule, thinly and evenly. This precision is why it took hold first in semiconductor processes, and it is now also used to treat the surface of battery cathode material.
Source: reconstructed by the editorial team from claim 1 of US12027661B2
High-nickel cathode material (NCM, NCA family) with nickel content raised above 80% pays a price for its higher energy density: a less stable surface. Repeated charge-discharge cycles produce microcracks on the particle surface, and reaction with the electrolyte can leach out metal or change the crystal phase, degrading lifespan and safety. The industry’s common approach is that coating the particle surface with an ion-conductive layer at the nanometer scale, via ALD or molecular layer deposition (MLD), can suppress this degradation pathway. The key question is “how thin, how many times, and with what material,” and it is precisely these parameters that become the core elements of the patent claims (see Section ④).
③ Comparing Materials and Equipment Investments
| Company / Project | Details | Scale | Technology Focus | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forge Nano | Gigafactory groundbreaking (August 19, 2026) | 3GWh/year, up to $100M from DOE plus Samsung SDI strategic investment, site approximately 315,000 ft² | ALD/MLD nanocoating-integrated lithium-ion cells | North Carolina, USA |
| CIS | Operating an all-solid-state electrolyte pilot line, pursuing mass-production orders for a hybrid coater | Undisclosed (requires confirmation) | Materials/equipment vertical integration, hybrid coater | Daegu, South Korea |
| Hana Technology | Winning orders for WIP (Warm Isostatic Press) equipment | For a Korean battery maker’s pilot line; scale undisclosed (requires confirmation) | All-solid-state high-temperature, high-pressure press | South Korea |
| Reference: Global Battery Manufacturing Equipment Market | Market size outlook | Wide variance by research firm — reported at roughly $2.1B to $24.0B for 2026 depending on the report (requires confirmation) | Assembly, formation, and coating broadly | Global |
Source: compiled by the editorial team from Forge Nano’s groundbreaking announcement (August 19, 2026) and reports cited in the article (some figures to be verified)
What this table shows: cases of a company holding coating/materials IP vertically expanding into finished-cell manufacturing are taking concrete shape first in the United States. The production capacity itself (3GWh) isn’t overwhelmingly large compared with Korea’s pilot lines, but what sets this investment apart from other cases is that policy funding (DOE) and the strategic participation of an established cell maker (Samsung SDI) are attached to it at the same time.
④ Patent Perspective — A Structure Where Coating IP Itself Becomes the Barrier to Entry
Forge Nano states that it holds more than 200 patents, with high-nickel cathode-coating patents as a core pillar. A representative example is U.S. Patent US12027661B2 (“Nano-engineered coatings for anode active materials, cathode active materials, and solid-state electrolytes and methods of making batteries containing nano-engineered coatings”), granted on July 2, 2024 (current rights holder TBP Investments LLC / Forge Nano Inc, filed June 1, 2015, adjusted expiration April 23, 2036, status Active). Summarizing the scope of Claim 1: it covers a battery cathode configured so that an ALD or MLD process, applied in 4-8 cycles to the surface of a high-nickel cathode active-material particle with 80% or higher nickel content, forms an ion-conductive coating 2-10 nanometers thick, and this coating undergoes a solid-state reaction with the particle surface to suppress particle cracking, metal-distribution change, irreversible volume change, and crystal-phase change.
This patent’s prior generation includes US9196901B2 (“Lithium battery electrodes with ultra-thin alumina coatings”), granted November 24, 2015 (current rights holder Alliance for Energy Innovation LLC, inventors including Se-Hee Lee and Steven M. George, affiliated with the University of Colorado, adjusted expiration February 12, 2033, status Active). Both patents share the point of coating a lithium-ion electrode by ALD, but they differ in target (a fully assembled electrode vs. an active-material particle coated before being formed into an electrode), coating material (limited to alumina vs. a broad range including metal oxides, halides, and phosphates), and coating-thickness range (2-20Å vs. 2-10nm) — a detailed claim comparison is covered in a follow-up patent-analysis piece.
From a design-around perspective, designing the coating thickness below 2 nanometers or above 10 nanometers, or forming the same protective layer with a different process such as sputtering or physical vapor deposition (PVD) instead of ALD/MLD, could potentially lower literal-infringement exposure. That said, in a Doctrine-of-Equivalents determination, the functional sameness of the result could become the issue at hand, making it difficult to conclude infringement definitively either way. If a Korean cell maker or materials company is running its own ALD or dry-coating process, it appears that checking the actual coating thickness and cycle count against these claim elements should come first.
⑤ Limitations and Outlook
This case, in which a materials company holding coating IP leverages defense-supply-chain policy funding to expand vertically into finished-cell manufacturing, could potentially become one model for the United States’ push to diversify its battery supply chain. That said, the optimistic outlook needs a counter-scenario alongside it. The DOE’s non-dilutive funding could be reduced or delayed amid an administration change or budget cuts, and in that case, a vertical-integration model led by a materials company with limited cell mass-production experience could be relatively vulnerable to funding risk.
As a strategic alternative, one option worth considering is securing long-term offtake agreements with automakers or ESS companies early, to reduce dependence on policy funding. Whether the participation of an established cell maker like Samsung SDI goes beyond technical cooperation and turns into an actual volume contract will likely be a point worth watching going forward.
Action to verify: planning and IP staff who have either developed their own high-nickel cathode coating process or licensed one in are advised to first check their own ALD/MLD process’s measured coating thickness and cycle count against US12027661B2’s claim elements (80%+ nickel, 2-10nm, 4-8 cycles).