An Infineon Subsidiary Seeks for Financial Aid from Portugal

by Anton Shilov
07/14/2003 | 02:09 AM

Technicos-Fabrico de Semiconductores SA, a subsidiary of Infineon Technologies AG located in Vila do Conde, Portugal, is seeking for financial aid from the Portuguese government to upgrade its facilities. Infineon was one of those, who asked European Commission to investigate on financial aid received by Hynix Semiconductor from Korean government.

The Portugal firm wants to receive aid amounting to $76.8 million euros (about $87 million) from the government for the extension of a semiconductor test and assembly plant used by Infineon for DRAM packaging.

The investigation is begun in order to determine whether the company is eligible for regional investment aid under European law and whether such aid does not have any restrictions. A key factor in assessing eligibility for regional investment aid is whether the proposed project would take place in a sector suffering from structural overcapacity, EBN quoted European Commission’s statement.

It is almost clear that in general Infineon, a not profitable company, does the same its rival Hynix did in the course of the previous couple of years: seeks for aid from the government. European Trade Commission as well as FTC imposed penalty tariffs on the South Korea-based memory firm because the aid was said to be illegal.