Infineon Technologies opens development center in France to address the rapidly growing fiber optic market

Nov 16, 2000 | Market News

Munich/Grenoble, France –November 16, 2000 – Infineon Technologies strengthens its activities in the rapidly growing fiber optics market by opening a new development center located in Echirolles, near Grenoble, France. The new center will develop chips for high-speed data transmission using most advanced silicon germanium (SiGe) and complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) technologies.

“The new development center allows Infineon to leverage our mixed signal technology for the early development of next generation communications products, emphasizing our focus on the fast growing communication markets”, explained Dr. Soenke Mehrgardt, Chief Technology Officer at Infineon Technologies. “At this new R&D site, we will develop advanced solutions for high-speed applications, such as SDH and SONET, and expand our leading position in the Gigabit Ethernet segment.”

As part of Infineon’s worldwide development network strategy, the new development center will play a key role in complementing the 26 existing major R&D sites around the world ensuring a constant exchange of knowledge. Infineon Technologies chose to open the center in the close vicinity of Grenoble - a technological center and capital of the alpine region because of its high density in development companies and research dedicated to information and communication technologies.

Infineon Technologies is already well established in France with a first Research and Development Center opened in March 1998, in Sophia-Antipolis (French Riviera), a sales unit in Saint-Denis (Paris region), and Altis Semiconductor, a joint venture with IBM located in Corbeil-Essonnes (Paris region), manufacturing advanced logic circuits.


About Infineon



Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for applications in the wired and wireless communications markets, for security systems and smartcards, for the automotive and industrial sectors, as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In the fiscal year 2000 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 7.28 billion with about 29,000 employees worldwide. 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.

Information Number

INFXX200011.011e