Tim Agne/KJZZ

A sign on Apache Boulevard at ASU Tempe Campus in February 2021.

Arizona State University, the Arizona Commerce Authority and the private firm Applied Materials are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a new semiconductor research facility in Tempe. 

The facility is designed to bring ideas to the prototype stage with equipment supplied from Applied Materials, which also makes software for the manufacturing of semiconductor chips. It will also provide students and faculty with learning and research opportunities with those tools. 

More than two-thirds of the funding for the $270 million Materials-to-Fab Center at ASU’s Research Park will come from Applied Materials. It is anticipated to be operational in two years.