EMD Performance Materials, a unit of Merck KGaA, has opened an R&D Collaboration Center at the company’s site in Branchburg, it announced recently.
The Philadelphia-based business cut the ribbon on the facility last week, it said in a news release. The center is focused on semiconductor materials research and development, including advanced lithography products.
Branchburg Mayor Anna Columbus, who took part in the ceremony along with other township officials and company executives, called the site “a wonderful, beautiful and great addition to our industrial base” in a prepared statement.
“(It is) a truly world-class high-tech enterprise within Branchburg,” Deputy Mayor Bob Petrelli said in a statement. “EMD Performance Materials accentuates Branchburg’s impact on the semiconductor and electronics industries.”
The site includes workstations, team meeting rooms, quiet zones and other collaboration-oriented features, EMD said.
“R&D is a team sport, so we needed the whole team to be in an environment which is conducive to collaboration,” Karl Skjonnemand, head of R&D at the Branchburg location, said in a statement. “While we may be divided into different business fields and project teams, we need technical challenges to be tackled by experts from the whole department, so we have dozens of brains working together to find a solution.”
Branchburg-based HF Planners LLC was the lead interior designer on the project.
