Applied Materials Brings Besi Into EPIC Center as Innovation Partner

Applied Materials and BE Semiconductor Industries (Besi) announced an expansion of their longstanding strategic partnership on October 1, 2026, with Besi joining Applied’s EPIC Center in Silicon Valley as an Innovation Partner and extending a joint development program the companies launched in 2020.

The expansion extends the companies’ co-innovation beyond hybrid bonding into new interconnect architectures and applications supporting the semiconductor industry’s AI-driven scaling roadmap, according to the joint announcement. With the AI infrastructure build-out driving demand for higher-density, higher-bandwidth chip-to-chip and chip-to-package interconnects, the companies said the expanded partnership is intended to give mutual customers earlier access to co-optimized process and assembly solutions spanning the full advanced packaging flow, from wafer-level hybrid bonding through panel-scale integration.

Singapore Center of Excellence and the Kinex System

In 2020, Applied and Besi established a joint Center of Excellence at Applied’s Advanced Packaging Development Center in Singapore. The center paired Applied’s process expertise in etch, planarization, deposition, wafer cleaning, metrology, inspection and particle defect control with Besi’s die placement, interconnect and assembly technology. The companies say the collaboration resulted in Kinex, which they describe as the industry’s first integrated die-to-wafer hybrid bonding system.

Richard Blickman, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management of Besi, said the Singapore center of excellence has been foundational to Besi’s hybrid bonding roadmap. He described joining the EPIC Center as a natural next step, one that gives Besi a seat alongside leading logic, memory and systems companies as it advances TCB scaling, die-on-panel integration and the interconnect technologies set to define next-generation AI and photonics systems.

Expanded R&D Scope

Gary Dickerson, President and CEO of Applied Materials, said Besi has been a trusted partner since the companies began co-developing next-generation hybrid bonding solutions. “With Besi joining EPIC as an Innovation Partner, we’re extending that collaboration across the interconnect technologies our customers need to scale AI systems,” he said, adding that bringing the work into the EPIC Center gives both companies earlier visibility into the roadmap’s direction and allows them to co-optimize the full packaging flow.

Under the Innovation Partner arrangement, Besi engineers will work with Applied’s teams at the EPIC Center on joint development spanning a wider range of interconnect and integration technologies. The expanded collaboration will focus on next-generation 3D IC scaling and logic and memory integration for AI compute and memory architectures. The companies expect R&D programs to include new platforms for die-to-wafer hybrid bonding that build on the Singapore Center of Excellence, scaling of thermo-compression bonding (TCB) and its surrounding process ecosystem, new die-on-wafer, die-on-die and die-on-panel integration platforms, and photonics-enabled interconnect applications supporting co-packaged optics and AI system scaling.

“Advanced packaging is no longer a back-end assembly step – it is a materials engineering challenge that demands the same precision and cleanliness as front-end wafer fabrication,” said Dr. Prabu Raja, President of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials. Raja said developing the technologies alongside Besi engineers in a front-end R&D setting such as the EPIC Center lets the companies treat the work as a single connected flow instead of isolated steps, giving mutual customers earlier access to co-optimized solutions and a faster path from development into high-volume manufacturing.

The EPIC Center in Silicon Valley

Applied describes its new EPIC (Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization) Center as a $5 billion investment and the largest-ever U.S. investment in advanced semiconductor equipment and process technology R&D. A footnote in the announcement states that capital spending is expected to scale over time to approximately $5 billion as customer projects commence. The company said the center is designed to dramatically reduce the time needed to commercialize breakthrough technologies from early-stage research through full-scale manufacturing.

Applied first announced the EPIC Center investment on May 22, 2023, describing it as a landmark commitment to build the world’s largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment R&D at the company’s Silicon Valley campus. According to the company’s EPIC page, the center is designed as a foundational network connecting chipmakers, equipment manufacturers, universities and research institutions, enabling parallel development, agile handoffs and early access to next-generation processes across the ecosystem rather than a serial, compartmentalized development cycle. The page states that the facility’s three floors place the cleanroom on top, the subfab equipment running those tools in the middle and building support systems below, and that the center is on track to commence operations in 2026.