Applied Materials opens $20 mn worth validation centre in Bengaluru

US-based semiconductor company Applied Materials looks forward to working with the new and upcoming fab centre at Dholera, Gujarat, said company’s top executive during a media discussion on Saturaday. India’s first commercial semiconductor fab will be built by Tata Electronics in partnership with Taiwan-based Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. To be sure, this project along with two other semiconductor projects worth ₹1.26 lakh crore (or over $15 billion) was approved by Union Cabinet in the last week of February. 

The remark was made by Sonny Kunnakkat on the sidelines of the Applied Materials' new validation centre commissioning. Named the ‘India Validation Center’ (IVC) at Bengaluru, this centre is being built at an investment of $20 million. This is in addition to the $400 million investment over four years announced by the company in 2023. The validation centre is equipped to handle 500 people working at the centre, and the company plans to expand the capacity over time. 

The centre enables early pilots, talent, and capability development for the upcoming India Collaborative Engineering Centre including validation, process engineering, lab management. In this lab, Applied Materials demonstrated the capability to process 300-mm wafers in IVC; a first for private industry in India. One of the first such wafers was presented to Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Electronics and IT, who was the chief guest at the event. 

“The India Validation Centre is a testament to the dedication and effectiveness of our approach to build India’s resiliency in chip manufacturing and Applied Materials has been a trusted partner in enabling the Indian Semiconductor dream. Almost every consumer tech product that runs on a chip today has Applied Materials engineering imprinted in them,” the minister said adding that this Centre will further help develop manufacturing capabilities in the sector and exemplify the trust that global companies have placed in India.

Applied Materials has the largest site outside of the US in India. It has 7,500 employees here, accounting for a fifth of its overall workforce. Present in the country for over two decades, the company carries major research and development work in India.