“Applied Materials and Micron have a long-standing partnership focused on driving higher performance and more energy-efficient advanced memory chips by pushing the boundaries of materials engineering and manufacturing innovation,” said Gary Dickerson, President and CEO of Applied Materials. “We are excited to deepen our collaboration with Micron as a founding partner at the EPIC Center as next-generation memory technologies play an increasingly vital role in the future of AI systems.”
“Memory and storage are essential enablers of AI, and sustained innovation in these technologies is critical to unlocking AI’s full potential,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, Chairman, President and CEO of Micron Technology. “Micron has collaborated with Applied Materials for decades to deliver materials engineering innovations for new memory and storage devices, and we are pleased to extend this partnership to Applied’s new EPIC Center in Silicon Valley. Combined with Micron’s U.S.-based R&D and manufacturing hubs, this partnership creates a unique lab-to-fab pipeline to advance American memory innovation.”
Teams from Applied Materials and Micron are collaborating on the development of next-generation materials, process technologies and architectures for advanced DRAM, HBM, and NAND for AI applications. The partnership also includes development on advanced packaging to enable high-bandwidth, low-power memory solutions for power-intensive AI workloads.
“As memory scaling becomes more complex, advances in chipmaking equipment are essential to enable energy-efficient, high-performance devices,” said Dr. Prabu Raja, President of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials. “Our collaboration with Micron at the EPIC Center will bring together deep expertise to accelerate materials innovation into production-ready solutions for next-generation memory.”
“Our technology leadership position is strengthened by ecosystem collaborations that help move new ideas into production faster,” said Scott DeBoer, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology and Products Officer at Micron Technology. “Our EPIC Center engagement with Applied Materials goes beyond the next node — it’s about driving advances in disruptive tools, materials and processes that enable future memory and storage architectures, technologies and the extreme scaling needed to deliver higher performance and energy efficiency for our customers.”
Applied’s new, $5 billion* EPIC (Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization) Center in Silicon Valley represents the largest-ever U.S. investment in advanced semiconductor equipment R&D. Opening this year, the center is designed from the ground up to dramatically reduce the time it takes to commercialize breakthrough technologies from early-stage research to full-scale manufacturing. For chipmakers, the EPIC Center will provide earlier access to Applied’s R&D portfolio, faster cycles of learning and accelerated transfer of next-generation technologies into high-volume manufacturing. In addition, the co-innovation programs at the EPIC Center will provide Applied with greater multi-node visibility to guide R&D investments while increasing R&D productivity and value sharing.
