Business · Companies · 3 hrs ago
Applied Materials opens semiconductor research center with major chipmakers
Applied Materials opened its EPIC research center in Sunnyvale, California, on October 12.
Samsung and SK Hynix are among its founding partners, alongside TSMC, Intel and Micron.
The facility is designed for companies to develop and test chip technologies together with Applied Materials researchers.
In the past, work on materials, equipment, manufacturing processes and trial production often happened in separate places and in sequence.
Bringing those stages together aims to shorten development time as demand for advanced chips grows with artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Partners plan to work on areas including memory, logic chips and advanced packaging.
The center aims to speed the move from research to commercial production; no specific timeline for that work was given.
Applied Materials opened its EPIC Center in Sunnyvale, California, on Oct. 12, as a shared semiconductor research and development facility.
Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, TSMC, Intel and Micron are founding partners.
The center brings materials research, equipment and process development, and pilot production together in one location.
Applied Materials says the approach is intended to shorten the time needed to develop and commercialize next-generation chip technologies.
The facility includes an advanced cleanroom, and capital spending is expected to reach about $5 billion over the long term.
- Who
- Applied Materials opened the center with major chipmakers including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, TSMC, Intel and Micron.
- What
- It opened the EPIC Center, a shared semiconductor research and development facility.
- When
- Oct. 12, local time.
- Where
- Sunnyvale, California, United States.
- Why
- To bring research and development stages together and speed the development and commercial application of semiconductor technologies.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Applied Materials unveiled the EPIC Center in Sunnyvale, California.
Electronic Times and Yonhap News Agency reported the center’s opening and the participating companies.
- Location
- Sunnyvale, California
- Facility size
- About 600,000 square feet
- Advanced cleanroom
- About 4 acres
- Long-term capital spending
- Expected to reach about $5 billion
- Founding partners
- Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, TSMC, Intel and Micron
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What people are saying
AI infrastructure expansion and the demands of high-performance computing are creating unprecedented complexity across the semiconductor manufacturing technology development roadmap.
Applied Materials has unrivaled process equipment capabilities in all three areas.
The key challenge in AI computing is to deliver data quickly enough to make full use of processors.