Advanced R&D facility located in Sunnyvale, California

Center expected to dramatically shorten time from technology development to mass production

Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and TSMC among founding partners

Applied Materials unveils its $5 billion EPIC Center, a dedicated research and development facility in Sunnyvale, California, on Monday (local time). [Applied Materials]
Applied Materials unveils its $5 billion EPIC Center, a dedicated research and development facility in Sunnyvale, California, on Monday (local time). [Applied Materials]

Applied Materials, the US semiconductor equipment maker, unveiled its $5 billion EPIC Center on Monday (local time) — a dedicated research and development facility in Sunnyvale, California.

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, both founding partners of the EPIC Center, said they will work alongside Applied Materials scientists and engineers to further accelerate innovation in AI memory chips.

Applied Materials built the EPIC Center to deepen collaboration with partners across the AI technology landscape as the field grows increasingly complex.

Founding partners include Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, TSMC, Intel, Micron, Broadcom, Advantest, Screen, Kioxia and Besi.

The EPIC Center spans about 55,700 square meters and houses roughly 16,200 square meters of advanced clean-room space. Its construction consumed enough steel to build two Eiffel Towers and enough concrete to fill 34 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Leaders from partner companies attended the opening event and toured the facility's interior for the first time.

Gary Dickerson, chairman and CEO of Applied Materials, said the EPIC Center will "dramatically accelerate the path from materials innovation to high-volume manufacturing" through close collaboration among the world's leading chipmakers, systems designers, equipment partners and researchers working alongside the Applied Materials team.

Gary Dickerson, chairman and CEO of Applied Materials, delivers remarks at the EPIC Center opening event in Sunnyvale, California, on Monday (local time). [Applied Materials]
Gary Dickerson, chairman and CEO of Applied Materials, delivers remarks at the EPIC Center opening event in Sunnyvale, California, on Monday (local time). [Applied Materials]

Traditionally, each stage of R&D — from basic materials research to equipment and process development to pilot production — has been conducted in separate environments. The EPIC Center brings materials developers, equipment makers and chipmakers together under one roof, and is expected to significantly speed up the commercialization of advanced semiconductor technologies.

Chipmakers will gain early access to next-generation materials and equipment, shorten their learning cycles and reach mass production faster.

Prabu Raja, president of Applied Materials' Semiconductor Products Group, said technologies developed through the EPIC Center will reach high-performance, high-yield mass production more quickly once they arrive at a fab, because customer engineers are involved in optimization before the technology is even introduced to the fab.

Kwak Noh-jung, CEO of SK hynix, said the company will combine SK hynix's advanced memory leadership with Applied Materials' expertise in materials engineering and semiconductor manufacturing at the EPIC Center to address key technology inflection points across HBM, DRAM and NAND, and to accelerate memory innovation in the AI era.

Song Jae-hyuk, president and chief technology officer of Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions division, said Samsung Electronics is driving advances in computing technology for the AI era on the strength of its capabilities spanning memory, advanced logic and advanced packaging. Through the EPIC Center, he added, the company will further accelerate the entire process — from developing and refining innovative technologies to applying them in practice — in step with the pace of AI advancement.


joze@heraldcorp.com