Infineon Expands its Memory Development Center in Dresden Creating 120 New Jobs

Feb 6, 2004 | Business & Financial Press

Dresden, Germany – February 6, 2004 – Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX) will expand the Memory Development Center at its Dresden reference location with the aim of further strengthening and extending the central role of the site in the development of process technology, particularly for DRAM and flash products. Toward that end, the company will erect a new building on the premises of its Dresden plant, with a development cleanroom at its center. Investments totaling around Euro 120 million will be spent on the project over the next two years. Infineon currently expects to take on about 120 new hires for the Development Center expansion in the current fiscal year.

The Memory Development Center’s extra capacity will be housed in a new building complex to be erected immediately next to Infineon’s existing semiconductor fab by early 2005. Construction is scheduled to start in the middle of this year. When completed, the new complex will provide around 2,300 m² of additional cleanroom space. Areas of suitable size will also be allocated to accommodate the technical infrastructure for the cleanroom as well as office space. The new adjunct to the Development Center will focus on the development of innovative memory concepts and fabrication processes on 300mm wafers for the manufacture of future memory generations. Infineon’s aim is to extend its technology and cost leadership in the global race to deliver the coming semiconductor generations.

“Dresden is the prime example of Infineon’s consistent record of taking on new employees and creating high-quality production jobs in Germany. Over the last year we have also concentrated the technology development activities of the Memory Products Group in the Memory Development Center,” said Dr. Harald Eggers, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Memory Products Group at Infineon Technologies. “By expanding the Development Center we are taking another step forward and creating the space we need to develop the next-but-one technology generations at 70 nanometers and below, which will enable us to secure our leading competitive position in this sector.”

Technical background to production processes

During the fabrication of a memory chip, the silicon wafers pass through approx. 400 to 500 discrete manufacturing stages. A new technology is rolled out into production every 12 to 15 months, permitting the manufacture of smaller feature sizes and hence a higher number of transistors and memory cells per wafer. This development cycle is often referred to as Moore’s law, which states that the transistor density per square centimeter of silicon area doubles every two years. Producing smaller geometries while maintaining virtually identical electrical characteristics imposes huge demands on the development of the entire process sequence as well as on the individual process steps. Development centers come up with solutions to arising challenges and introduce these solutions into the production environment.

About Infineon Technologies Dresden

Infineon Technologies Dresden is a fabrication and development facility of Infineon Technologies AG, producing memory chips and high-grade logic devices using complex manufacturing technology based on 200mm and 300mm silicon wafers. Volume production and technology development on 300mm-diameter wafers began as long ago as in 2000. This has resulted in cost savings of up to 30 percent compared to chip production based on 200mm wafers. Originally planned to accommodate a 1,450-strong workforce at full capacity, the Dresden location today employs 5,400 people. By the end of fiscal 2004 this number is expected to increase to 5,800. Within the framework of Infineon’s international production operations, the Dresden plant is the reference facility in the company’s DRAM “fab cluster” - a distributed manufacturing network with locations in Europe, Asia and the USA.

About Infineon

Infineon Technologies AG, based in Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for the automotive and industrial sectors, for applications in the wired communications markets, secure mobile solutions and memory products. In fiscal year 2003 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 6.15 billion with about 32,300 employees world-wide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com.

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Information Number

INFXX200402.033

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