Applied Materials Unveils $5 Billion EPIC Center For Semiconductor R&D

(RTTNews) - Applied Materials, Inc., (AMAT), a provider of materials engineering solutions, equipment, services, and software, Monday unveiled its Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization or EPIC Center having a capital investment of $5 billion.

The company hopes this center is the world's largest facility dedicated to collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment R&D.

"Inside the EPIC Center, leading chipmakers, systems companies, equipment partners and university researchers will work side by side with Applied's scientists and engineers to accelerate the pace of chip innovation for the AI era.", Applied Material said in a statement.

The 600,000-square-foot structure houses nearly four acres of advanced cleanroom space with a foundation that holds enough concrete to fill 34 Olympic-sized swimming pools, and its steel-reinforced structure holds enough steel to build two Eiffel Towers. Thirty-four roof trusses cover the cleanrooms, each spanning nearly 300 feet in length and weighing as much as 12 school buses.

With this center the company is expecting to reinvent the R&D model by putting the people who invent the materials, build the equipment, and make the chips together in a state-of-the-art facility purpose-built for commercialization instead of the previous practice of foundational research happening in one environment, equipment and process development in another, and so on.

On Monday, shares closed at $497.53, down 1.87% on the Nasdaq.