Applied Materials unveils EPIC center in the US with investments of up to $5 billion — Fortune

Applied Materials has unveiled the EPIC semiconductor research center in Sunnyvale, California. The company expects total capital investment in the facility to reach $5 billion, Fortune reports.

The center was built on the Applied Materials campus near the company’s headquarters. Construction took two years. The glass, concrete and steel building covers 600,000 square feet, or about 55,700 square meters.

Joint research by chip manufacturers

Intel, TSMC, Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung became partners in the project. They will have their own research teams at the center, working alongside Applied Materials engineers and receiving early access to the company’s new equipment. The goal of the cooperation is to develop technologies for microprocessors and memory chips.

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EPIC’s cleanrooms, where researchers will work with equipment for etching microscopic patterns onto silicon wafers, will cover an area equivalent to three football fields. Competitors in the memory market, including Micron and SK Hynix, will have separate testing areas with advanced equipment and specialized Applied Materials teams.

Stated goal is to shorten the development cycle

Applied Materials called EPIC the largest investment in the United States in research and development of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. According to the company’s estimate, joint work at the center could reduce the path from the concept of a new generation of chip architectures to commercialization from the typical 10–12 years to six years.

Applied Materials President and CEO Gary Dickerson said that developers working together in one place and gaining early access to technologies for new artificial intelligence architectures could significantly change the chip creation process. EPIC is intended solely for research, not commercial semiconductor production.