What is an MPW?

MPW stands for Multi-Project Wafer. MPWs refer to semiconductor wafers that are shared by multiple customers or projects to fabricate different integrated circuit (IC) designs in a single manufacturing run. This approach significantly reduces prototype costs and is commonly used for prototyping and academic research, allowing several designs to be produced simultaneously before full-scale production. MPWs are popular in the chip design industry for validating new ideas, testing silicon performance, and speeding up development cycles.