Applied Materials launches EPIC Center in California, invests $5 bn initially

Semiconductor materials engineering major Applied Materials on Monday launched its Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialisation (EPIC) Center, in Sunnyvale, California, with an initial $5 billion capital investment.

The 600,000-square-foot facility features nearly four acres of advanced cleanroom space designed to bring together chipmakers, systems companies, equipment vendors, and university researchers to accelerate semiconductor process technology and equipment R&D for the artificial intelligence era.

“To win the race for AI leadership, our industry must rethink and re-engineer how we collaborate to develop and commercialise the next generation of semiconductor technologies,” said Gary Dickerson, president and CEO of Applied Materials.

Dickerson added that the facility enables leading chipmakers, system designers, equipment partners, and researchers to work side by side with Applied’s engineering teams to transition materials innovations into high-volume manufacturing faster.

The EPIC Center is designed to replace traditional, sequential R&D handoffs by conducting foundational materials research, equipment development, process integration, and pilot production in a single collaborative environment.

The facility opens with a founding roster of semiconductor majors, including TSMC, Intel, SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung Electronics, alongside innovation partners Broadcom, Advantest, SCREEN, KIOXIA, and Besi.

Academic research partners participating in the EPIC ecosystem include Arizona State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.

“At today’s atomic-scale dimensions, many materials and materials interfaces behave in entirely new ways, and making them work at industry scale demands coordinated development and integrated solutions,” said Prabu Raja, president of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials.

Raja noted that parallel innovation of materials, process technologies, and equipment increases the success rate of new technologies and ensures solutions arrive at customer fabs ready for volume production.

The collaborative operating model aims to provide chipmakers with earlier access to next-generation materials and shorter learning cycles, while giving Applied multi-generation visibility to guide its internal R&D investments.