A major American semiconductor equipment manufacturer announced Wednesday the launch of a new research facility in Salzburg, Austria, dedicated to developing advanced chip packaging methods that could boost production efficiency and reduce manufacturing expenses as artificial intelligence drives unprecedented demand for processors.
Lam Research revealed that their Austrian location will concentrate on panel-level packaging techniques, which substitute the industry’s standard round silicon wafers with rectangular panels for semiconductor production.
Traditional circular wafers result in material waste along the curved perimeters where complete chips cannot be manufactured. Rectangular panels eliminate this wasted space, enabling manufacturers to create additional chips per surface area while lowering per-unit production costs — a vital benefit as artificial intelligence creates processor shortages.
Rising demand for increasingly sophisticated and powerful processors has created a boom in orders for wafer manufacturing equipment, which consists of complex and costly machinery supplied by companies such as Lam, Applied Materials, Dutch company ASML and KLA Corp.
Among Lam’s clientele are Samsung Electronics and the globe’s top contract chip producer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
The corporation stated that the new research and development location leverages the knowledge of Semsysco GmbH, a Salzburg-based chip equipment company established in 2012 that Lam Research purchased in 2022.
According to the company, the Salzburg location represents Lam’s inaugural panel-focused wet-processing laboratory, which employs liquid chemicals for cleaning and preparing semiconductor materials.
“This new campus, a state-of-the-art laboratory for panel-level processing, seamlessly bridges the gap from research and development to production,” Salzburg Governor Karoline Edtstadler said in a statement.
