Applied Materials said the research centre will come online in 2026 and create up to 2,000 jobs. — Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO: US semiconductor toolmaker Applied Materials Inc says it plans to spend up to US$4bil (RM18.2bil) on a research centre in the heart of Silicon Valley to speed up advances in semiconductor manufacturing.
The centre, based in Sunnyvale, California, will come online in 2026 and create up to 2,000 jobs, said Applied Materials, the world’s biggest maker of tools used in manufacturing chips.
The facility will host about US$25bil (RM113.9bil) of research work over its first decade, pulling together staff from research universities and chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, among others.
The announcement comes as the US is trying to bring back advanced semiconductor manufacturing with a US$52bil (RM236.9bil) measure passed last year.
Applied Materials said the new facility, called the Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialisation (Epic) Centre, will be the size of more than three American football fields.
Applied Materials said it will invest in it over seven years and wants subsidies from the government through the CHIPS and Science Act.
“We’re absolutely going to go forward. The scale of how fast we invest is going to be tied to the government incentives,” Gary Dickerson, chief executive officer of Applied Materials, told Reuters.
“The economics of this are compelling in terms of accelerating the technology road maps for our customers and also for Applied.” — Reuters
