Lam Research, a global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductor manufacturing, plans to invest more than $3 billion over the next five years to expand its global research and development lab network, adding infrastructure and capabilities expected to increase experiment capacity by more than 50% as semiconductor manufacturers address new device architectures, materials and increasingly complex nanoscale features. Spanning the United States, Asia and Europe, Lam’s global R&D network currently supports more than one million experiments annually through specialized facilities designed to address different stages of the semiconductor innovation cycle, including laboratories focused on foundational research involving new chemistries, materials and mechatronics, as well as process development facilities that move emerging technologies toward production readiness.

Lam Research engineer inside semiconductor R&D lab | Semiconductor Industry Monthly

A Lam Research engineer works inside an R&D laboratory supporting semiconductor process development.

With these new capabilities, Lam intends to further compress semiconductor development cycles from early-stage pathfinding through fab deployment by combining research, process development, engineering and manufacturing resources across its global network. Engineering, product development and manufacturing teams work side by side on the same tools within its process development facilities, while technology centers located near customer operations allow qualification and validation activities to be carried out in closer collaboration with customer engineering teams. The integrated lab network also allows tools, experimental data and technical expertise to be shared across facilities and time zones so that advances made at one location can be incorporated into work elsewhere in the network, increasing the amount of research and process development that can take place in parallel. Lam reports that this approach has shortened process development by as much as 2.5 times in recent customer engagements.

The investment comes as AI-related semiconductor development drives requirements for new chip architectures, different materials and increasingly complex features engineered with nanoscale precision, placing greater demands on the wafer fabrication processes required to manufacture advanced devices. Lam’s technologies support critical semiconductor manufacturing processes, including deposition and etch, as well as applications spanning advanced memory, logic, interconnect, patterning and advanced packaging, with the expanded laboratory infrastructure intended to help move new process technologies from research through customer qualification and manufacturing more quickly. Lam plans to begin expanding its global lab network in 2026.

About Lam Research

Lam Research is a global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry, designing, manufacturing, marketing, refurbishing and servicing semiconductor processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. Headquartered in Fremont, California, the company supports semiconductor manufacturers through operations around the globe. For more information, please click here.

Source/Photo Credit: Lam Research

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Molly Bakewell Chamberlin
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