Imec expands strategic partnership with Western Digital

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Imec, the research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology, has announced that it has expanded its long-term joint research efforts with Western Digital Corporation, a leader in data storage technologies and solutions.

Under a new agreement, imec and Western Digital will collaborate in research and development of a broad range of advanced semiconductor technologies.

The agreement builds on imec’s six-year relationship with Western Digital through which the two have collaborated on emerging memories, NAND flash memory technology and advanced patterning.

“Having Western Digital, a world leader in data storage technology, as as a full core partner brings unique and valuable knowledge to our research,” said Luc Van den hove, president and CEO at imec. “The new three-year agreement confirms the industrial value and impact our R&D programmes have on advanced semiconductor scaling. Through such strategic partnerships, we can continue to collectively tackle the scaling challenges posed by today’s fast-evolving, equipment-intensive

consolidating semiconductor landscape, offering our partners the industry’s most advanced research infrastructure."

Imec’s industrial affiliation programmes represent the industry’s largest partner ecosystem, delivering product-relevant funneling and concrete solutions for next-generation logic and memory devices, in an open innovation mode. Through the three-year agreement, Western Digital will now become a full partner in imec’s ‘core’ programmes in advanced semiconductor technology, comprising of R&D in the field of next-generation logic and memory devices, advanced patterning, and advanced nano- and system interconnect technologies.