India, Oct. 9 -- Applied Materials Inc. and BE Semiconductor Industries N.V. (Besi) have announced an expansion of their longstanding strategic partnership, with Besi joining Applied's EPIC Center as an Innovation Partner.

The collaboration builds on the companies' joint development program launched in 2020, and extends co-innovation beyond hybrid bonding into new interconnect architectures and applications supporting the semiconductor industry's AI-driven scaling roadmap.

As the AI infrastructure build-out drives demand for higher-density, higher-bandwidth chip-to-chip and chip-to-package interconnects, the expanded partnership is intended to give mutual customers earlier access to co-optimized process and assembly solutions spanning t...