Applied Materials opens $5 billion EPIC research center where chipmakers work alongside the equipment maker
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
Chipmakers and equipment makers will develop new generations together in one center in the US to bring them to market faster.
The world's largest maker of chipmaking equipment officially unveiled the EPIC center in Sunnyvale, California, on Monday: a two-year construction project, a 600,000-square-foot building, with cleanrooms the size of three football fields. According to Fortune, Applied Materials called it the largest-ever US investment in R&D for advanced semiconductor equipment; total capital investment will reach $5 billion. Intel, TSMC, Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung will place their own research teams on site and get early access to new equipment, and competitors such as Micron and SK Hynix get separate private test areas. According to the company, working together will cut the path from "concept to commercialization" of a new chip architecture from 10–12 years to about six. The center is for research and does not produce chips in volume.
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