The swings in demand for memory chips has overshadowed Infineon’s other operations where the company has a strong customer base in the automotive and communications business sectors. The volatility of the DRAM business was a big factor in the decision of German conglomerate Siemens AG to spin out Infineon in March 2000.
This would be a good time to spin out the memory business and it is currently on an upswing. In its second quarter to March 31, revenue of Infineon’s memory products rose 9% to 665m euros ($787.4m) and accounted 39.7% of the company’s total sales.
Infineon has a partnership deal with Taiwanese vendor Nanya Technology Corp covering joint development of 0.09-micron and 0.07-micron wafer production technology. The companies are currently building a $1.3bn 300mm factory in Taiwan, with a capacity for 50,000 wafer starts a month.
Infineon has had a turbulent time recently. Earlier this month it appointed Wolfgang Ziebart to run the company in place of ex-CEO Ulrich Schumacher who quit the chipmaker abruptly in March after clashing with other senior management and upsetting the trade unions.
