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Infineon Technologies

Infineon Technologies AG was founded in April 1999 when the semiconductor operations of parent company, Siemens AG, were spun off to form a separate legal entity. As of September 30, 2007 Infineon has about 43,000 employees worldwide, 6000 of them involved in research and development. In the 2007 financial year, the company achieved sales of US$11.66 billion. In 2007 a 14.6% rise in projected calendar year revenues saw Infineon taking 10th place in iSuppli's global semiconductor sales ranking, thus gaining five places from 2006.

On May 1, 2006, Infineon's Memory Products division was carved out as a distinct company called Qimonda AG. It employs about 13,500 people worldwide. Qimonda has been listed on the NYSE.

The markets of Infineon Technologies

Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg near Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for automotive, industrial and multimarket sectors, for applications in communication, as well as memory products through its subsidiary Qimonda. With a global presence, Infineon operates through its subsidiaries in the USA from Milpitas, California in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo.

Infineon has a number of facilities in Europe. Infineon's high power segment is in Warstein (Germany), Villach (Austria) and Cegléd (Hungary). It also runs R&D centers in France, Singapore, Romania, Taiwan & Banglore, India & fabrication units in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia & China.

Infineon is listed on the DAX 30 index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX).

What Infineon means

The name Infineon combines the English word "infinity" (Latin word "infinitas") with "eon," the ancient Greek word for eternity, in an attempt to call to mind the idea of unlimited potential.

Product lines

Infineon's main product lines are ICs in the following areas:

Communications (wired and wireless)

VoIP products
ISDN products
Mobile Phone Products
Ethernet over VDSL 10Base-S products

Automotive, Industrial & Multimarket

Power ICs, Coolset, CoolMOS
DC-DC power management ICs & AC-DC power management ICs
Sense and Control products, TPMS (SensoNor)
Smartcards
TriCore, C166 and 8-Bit Micro-controllers

Memory Products - Now with Qimonda

DRAM

Infineon also has an HPS (High Power Segment). The front-end of this production is in Warstein (GER), the back-end is in Cegléd (Hungary). Thyristors, diodes and IGBTs are manufactured here.

Apple iPhone chips

The Apple iPhone contains baseband processor (PMB8876 S-Gold 2 multimedia engine with EDGE functionality) and GSM RF transceiver chips supplied by Infineon.

Automotive

During the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijng in August, Chinese automobile manufacturer Chang'an Motors will supply a number of hybrid-drive cars as taxis for the athletes and spectators. The power electronics for the "mild hybrid" drive (HybridPACK 1) will be supplied by Infineon..

Buyouts

Infineon announced the buy-out of the cellular division of LSI in August 2007 . This division belonged to the erstwhile Agere Systems before it merged with LSI.
In August 2007 it completed the acquisition of TI's DSL CPE business group. This group has been merged with the communications product group at Infineon.

Competitors

Investors

Major institutional investors in Infineon are: Dodge and Cox International: 10.03%, Merrill Lynch International: 5.25%, Templeton Global Advisors Limited: 5.16%, Capital Group International: 4.14%.

Price fixing controversy

In 2004–2005 an investigation was carried out into a worldwide DRAM price fixing conspiracy during 1999–2002 that damaged competition and raised PC prices. As a result, Samsung is to pay $300 million fine, Hynix was to pay $185 million in 2005, Infineon: $160 million in 2004. Micron Technology cooperated with prosecutors and no fine is expected.

Community support

Infineon technologies supports local high schools with F.I.R.S.T. robotics

They currently help three local schools in Richmond, Virginia - Atlee HS, Tucker HS, and Highland Springs Tech Center (HTA)

AENEON

AENEON was introduced in 2005. AENEON is a DRAM memory family of Infineon and fits into standard PCs and notebooks.

AENEON targets whitebox (non-brand) PC and notebook manufacturers world wide, as well as the European retail segment and end users (web shop). AENEON DRAM memory focuses the "price-performance" segment.

Price advantages are obtained due to a limited product portfolio (only unbuffered and SO-DIMM), and due to outsourced module assembly. The DRAM components, however, are "Made by Infineon".