UCLA Samueli Launches $125 Million Semiconductor Hub Backed by Broadcom, Applied Materials, GlobalFoundries, Meta and Synopsys

By NineScrolls Team · 2026-05-31 · 5 min read · Industry

A First-of-Its-Kind Five-Year Pact

On May 21, 2026, the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering unveiled a $125 million Semiconductor Hub backed by Broadcom, Applied Materials, GlobalFoundries, Meta and Synopsys. The initial commitment runs five years and combines philanthropic gifts with in-kind support across chip design, software, manufacturing, equipment and advanced materials.

The launch event in UCLA's Mong Auditorium drew about 250 industry executives, faculty and Ph.D. students, plus UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, former California Governor Gray Davis, and Broadcom Chairman Henry Samueli, a three-time UCLA engineering alumnus who cofounded Broadcom while teaching at the school. A video message from U.S. Senator Alex Padilla underscored the federal government's stake in the partnership.

Five Founding Members Span Design, Software, Equipment and Foundry

The five companies cover the full semiconductor stack. Broadcom and Meta represent fabless design and hyperscale demand. Synopsys brings electronic design automation. GlobalFoundries contributes foundry capacity. Applied Materials anchors the equipment and materials side — covering deposition, etch, implant, metrology and the materials engineering needed for sub-2nm logic and high-bandwidth memory.

"Strengthening the ties between industry and academia is more important than ever as semiconductor complexity increases and the pace of AI development accelerates," Applied Materials President and CEO Gary Dickerson said in a statement. GlobalFoundries CEO Tim Breen framed the partnership around developing "the talent that will sustain U.S. innovation."

Co-Design Targets That Read Like a Plasma and Thin Film Roadmap

The hub's stated research thrusts target precisely the bottlenecks that plasma processing and deposition equipment makers are trying to solve at the leading edge: AI-native hardware and software systems, ultra-broadband data links, energy efficiency, thermal management and advanced packaging. The goal, per UCLA, is to move beyond traditional silicon-based scaling limits and enable new computing modalities.

Mona Jarrahi, UCLA Samueli's Northrop Grumman Professor of Electrical Engineering, will serve as faculty director. Research thrust leads include Jason Cong, the Volgenau Professor for Engineering Excellence, and Alexander Balandin, the Fang Lu Professor in Engineering — a materials specialist whose work on phonon transport and 2D materials feeds directly into next-generation thermal management for stacked die.

Doctoral Students, Internships and the 67,000-Worker U.S. Shortfall

The hub will fund doctoral research at UCLA and yearlong internships at the founding member companies. The workforce angle is not incidental. A joint SIA-Oxford Economics study cited across recent industry reporting estimates the United States faces a shortfall of about 67,000 technicians and engineers, and SEMI projects the global semiconductor industry will need more than one million additional workers by 2030.

For equipment makers in particular, the talent pipeline matters. Applied Materials, GlobalFoundries and their suppliers all need engineers trained in materials, plasma physics, RF and process integration to staff the fabs and tool-development sites coming online under the CHIPS Act.

Why Industry Is Funding University Labs Now

The $125 million hub lands in the middle of an industry capex surge. SEMI projects global 300mm fab equipment spending to rise 18% to $133 billion in 2026 and 14% to $151 billion in 2027, with cumulative spending of $374 billion across 2026-2028. Wafer fab equipment spending alone is now projected at a record $145 billion in 2026, and Applied Materials raised its 2026 equipment-growth outlook from over 20% to more than 30% after its Q2 FY2026 print.

That spending wave is colliding with a research-to-production cycle that is getting harder, not easier. The transition from FinFET to gate-all-around at 2nm, the move from 12-high to 16-high HBM stacks, panel-level advanced packaging, and the shift to backside power delivery all require new process chemistries, new materials and new metrology. Industry alone cannot fund all of the upstream physics work needed to keep these roadmaps on schedule.

What This Means for Plasma Processing and Thin Film Deposition

Three of the hub's named focus areas — advanced packaging, thermal management and energy efficiency — map directly onto the plasma processing and thin film deposition equipment supply chain that NineScrolls serves.

Advanced packaging. Co-packaged optics, chiplet stacking and panel-level interposers all depend on plasma-based processes: deep reactive ion etch (DRIE) for through-silicon vias, PECVD silicon nitride and silicon oxide passivation, PVD seed and barrier layers for redistribution layers, and atomic-layer deposition for diffusion barriers between fine-pitch copper interconnects. Applied Materials' own panel-level electrochemical deposition push, capped by its NEXX acquisition earlier this month, sits squarely in this lane.

Thermal management. Stacking 16 DRAM die at 30µm wafer thickness inside a 775µm HBM package — the spec NVIDIA is now pressing memory makers to hit by Q4 2026 — creates heat dissipation problems that adhesives and underfill alone cannot solve. The hub's work on novel materials and packaging is the upstream side of a downstream demand for plasma-activated bonding, dielectric ALD, and high-thermal-conductivity thin films that vacuum equipment, plasma sources, sputter targets and precursor suppliers will need to deliver.

Energy efficiency at the device level. Moving past silicon scaling limits points toward new channel materials, ferroelectric memory, 2D materials and backside power — every one of which depends on atomic-precision deposition and selective etch. Funding the physics now is how the equipment companies guarantee themselves a customer pipeline a decade out.

For the broader equipment supply chain — plasma sources, RF generators, vacuum components, gas delivery, mass flow controllers, process monitoring and chamber consumables — the hub matters less for any single research output and more as a signal. The full stack of U.S.-based silicon companies is now publicly committing capital to the materials and process problems that determine how fast new tools can be qualified.