Infineon Spins Off Memory Division

Infineon Establishes Qimonda

by Anton Shilov
03/31/2006 | 11:09 PM

Infineon Technologies AG officially announced spin off of its memory products business group. The new company named Qimonda will be fully independent of Infineon and will begin its operations starting from the 1st of May, 2006, a bit ahead of the original schedule. Eventually, the company will undergo initial public offering (IPO), which may allow Infineon to fully quit the unstable dynamic random access memory (DRAM) business.

 

Infineon Technologies AG and Qimonda AG will be two highly focused companies with clearly defined strategies, each providing its customers, employees, and investors with a clear company vision.

From May 1st, 2006, onwards, Qimonda will operate from a strong market position as a Top 4 DRAM company worldwide (according to Gartner Dataquest, February 2006) and will be fully equipped for further growth. The new company will have access to five 300mm manufacturing sites on three continents and will operate five major R&D facilities, including the R&D-center in Dresden. Qimonda intends to accelerate its manufacturing efficiency through a faster transition from the 90nm to the 75nm technology node. Qimonda will have approximately 12 000 employees worldwide.

Qimonda, headquartered in Munich, Germany, will have the legal form of a German Aktiengesellschaft (AG). The new company will initially remain a wholly owned subsidiary of Infineon. It is the clear intention of Infineon to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Qimonda as the preferred next step. The CEO-designate of Qimonda AG is Kin Wah Loh, who has been head of the Memory Products business group since last summer and a member of the management board of Infineon Technologies AG since the end of 2004. Before becoming a member of the Infineon board, he was president and managing director of Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific.

Meanwhile, Infineon will concentrate on the more stable markets and businesses. Already today, Infineon’s logic business has leading market positions in segments such as automotive electronics, industrial electronics and power management, chip cards and cecurity ICs, radio-frequency solutions, platforms for mobile telecommunications and broadband communications. The company indicated that it will further focus on the aforementioned products.

“Through the strategic realignment, Infineon is significantly strengthening its competitive position. From May 1st onwards, both forceful players will operate in their own markets as industry leaders”, said Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart, CEO of Infineon Technologies AG.

Earlier it was reported that Needham & Co. said in a research note that Micron would buy Infineon’s U.S. memory assets and Nanya, Taiwan’s second-largest memory chip maker, would buy its non-U.S. memory assets, including Infineon’s flagship plant in the German city of Dresden.