Micron to Select Athinia™ for Pioneering Data Collaboration

A long-term, strategic, enterprise-level technology collaboration aims to further increase production efficiencies and reduce costs for Micron and its suppliers

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Athinia™ announced that Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), a global leader in innovative memory and storage solutions, plans to use the Athinia™ data analytics platform to create a pioneering data collaboration ecosystem that will help lead a continued journey of digital transformation with Micron's critical suppliers. Athinia™'s state-of-the-art AI-driven quality control methodology will be able to further improve process and device yield, reduce costs and accelerate time to value generation using select data and insights from Micron's supply chain. Athinia™, launched in December 2021, is a partnership between Merck (DAX:MKGAF) and Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR).

From left to right:Laura Matz, Chief Science & Technology Officer of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and CEO of Athinia; Micron- Manish Bhatia, EVP of Global Operations at Micron Technology; Kai Beckmann - Member of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and CEO Electronics; Palantir - Ryan Taylor, Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer at Palantir

"The secure architecture provided by Athinia™ will allow Micron and its suppliers to share a single source of real-time data without compromising data ownership, governance, privacy and security," said Laura Matz, CEO of Athinia™ and Chief Science and Technology Officer of Merck. "Through data sharing and collaboration, the platform leverages machine learning-driven analytics to solve critical challenges."

Using Athinia™'s platform, Micron's suppliers will be able to share their process and manufacturing data as well as key parameters, offering secure collaboration on a much larger population of critical data analytics. Micron and its suppliers can expect to see improvements in yields, shortened qualification times and enhanced quality.

"Our selection of Athinia™ will enable Micron to build on our established industry leadership in technology and quality through improved data analytics across our supply chain partners," said Manish Bhatia, Executive Vice President of Global Operations at Micron. "As leading-edge technologies become more challenging, solutions like Athinia™ provide the kind of multi-party collaboration and data insights that make new leading generations of memory possible."

"Micron is leading the industry in adopting the Athinia™ platform for its new ecosystem. Through data collaboration, Athinia™ can help to achieve key objectives for the semiconductor industry such as the improvement of material quality and sustainability, supply chain resilience as well as the acceleration of innovation cycles," said Kai Beckmann, Member of the Executive Board of Merck and CEO Electronics. "Ultimately, data analytics and collaboration will allow a wide range of benefits to the entire semiconductor industry."

"The production and delivery of semiconductors is absolutely vital to our collective welfare and security," said Alexander C. Karp, co-founder and chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc. "We are committed to ensuring that Micron and Athinia™ have the software they need to address the supply chain challenges involved in the distribution of one of the world's most essential and important products."

About Athinia Technologies LLC
Data for Pioneers. Athinia™ provides a data analytics platform that brings manufacturers and materials suppliers together to share, aggregate, and analyze data to unlock efficiencies and time to market, while improving quality, supply chain and sustainability. All this without taking ownership of data.

Athinia™ is a partnership between Merck (DAX:MKGAF), and Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR). Athinia is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, USA. Athinia operates independently from the Electronics business of Merck. More information can be found at www.athinia.com, LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Merck
Merck, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and electronics. Around 60,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people's lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2021, Merck, generated sales of € 19.7 billion in 66 countries.

Scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to Merck's technological and scientific advances. This is how Merck has thrived since its founding in 1668. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck operate as MilliporeSigma in life science, EMD Serono in healthcare, and EMD Electronics in electronics.

About Palantir Technologies Inc.
Foundational software of tomorrow. Delivered today. Additional information is available at https://www.palantir.com.

For more information please contact nuria.aranda-bosch@athinia.com