Infineon plans big US plant investment

23 April 2004

MUNICH – Semiconductor company Infineon Technologies AG reported Friday that it is planning to invest USD one billion (EUR 845,000) in its plant in Richmond, Virginia for the production of advanced DRAM chips on 300 millimetre wafers.

Infineon said the development will help to increase the company’s flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs in memory and logic products.

Production startup for the 300mm DRAM chips will begin in early 2005.

“Overall customer demand – both for logic as well as memory chips – is increasing at a strong pace. This initial expansion of capacity at Richmond will allow us to accelerate the shift of production from memory to logic products at our 200mm plant in Dresden,” said company chief operating officer Andreas von Zitzewitz.

“The excellent infrastructure and state-of-the art manufacturing expertise at Richmond make this the fastest and most cost effective way for us to respond to changing market conditions,” he said.

Once the initial expansion is completed, the Richmond plant will be able to process 25,000 wafer starts per month in 300mm technology.

Infineon will also continue its 200mm wafer production at Richmond, where the current workforce of 1,750 employees is to be increased by 800, the company said.

Infineon’s plant in Richmond was founded in 1996 and began making memory products in August 1998.

On the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Infineon shares were down 0.70 percent to EUR 11.28 on the news of the Richmond investment.

DPA

Subject: German news