Applied Materials plans to invest up to $4 billion over the next 7 years in Silicon Valley to build "the world’s largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment research and development (R&D)."
The new Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center is planned as the heart of a high-velocity innovation platform designed to accelerate development and commercialization of the foundational technologies needed by the global semiconductor and computing industries.
The facility will include more than 180,000 square feet of state-of-the-art cleanroom for collaborative innovation with chipmakers, universities and ecosystem partners.
“While semiconductors are more critical to the global economy than ever before, the technology challenges our industry faces are becoming more complex,” said Gary Dickerson, President and CEO of Applied Materials. “This investment presents a golden opportunity to re-engineer the way the global industry collaborates to deliver the foundational semiconductor process and manufacturing technologies needed to sustain rapid improvements in energy-efficient, high-performance computing.”
Applied’s new EPIC Center is designed to be a premier platform for leading logic and memory chipmakers to collaborate with the equipment ecosystem. For the first time, chipmakers can have their own dedicated space within an equipment supplier facility, extending their in-house pilot lines and providing early access to next-generation technologies and tools – months or even years before equivalent capabilities can be installed at their facilities.
Leading semiconductor and computing companies voicing support include AMD, IBM, Intel, Micron, Nvidia, Samsung, TSMC and Western Digital.
