Infineon Technologies - Infineon Technologies

Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded on 1 April 1999, when the semiconductor operations of the parent company Siemens AG were spun off to form a separate legal entity. As of 30 September 2016, Infineon had 36,299 employees worldwide. In fiscal year 2016, the company achieved sales of €6.473 billion.

On 1 May 2006, Infineon's Memory Products division was carved out as a distinct company called Qimonda AG, which at its height employed about 13,500 people worldwide. Qimonda was listed on the New York Stock Exchange until 2009.

Markets

Infineon Technologies AG, in Neubiberg near Munich, offers semiconductors and systems for automotive, industrial, and multimarket sectors, as well as chipcard and security products. With a global presence, Infineon operates through its subsidiaries in the USA, from Milpitas, California, and in the Asia-Pacific region, from Singapore and from Tokyo, Japan.

Infineon has a number of facilities in Europe, one in Dresden, Germany, Europe's microelectronic, and emerging technologies center. Infineon's high power segment is in Warstein, Germany; Villach and Graz in Austria; Cegléd in Hungary; and Italy. It also runs R&D centers in France, Singapore, Romania, Taiwan, UK and India, as well as fabrication units in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China. There's also a Shared Service Center in Maia, Portugal.

Infineon is listed in the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

In 2010, a proxy contest broke out in advance of the impending shareholders' meeting over whether board member Klaus Wucherer would be allowed to step into the chairman's office upon the retirement of the then-current chairman Max Dietrich Kley.

After several restructurings, Infineon today comprises four business areas:

Automotive (ATV)

Infineon provides semiconductor products for use in powertrains (engine and transmission control), comfort electronics (e.g., steering, shock absorbers, air conditioning) as well as in safety systems (ABS, airbags, ESP). The product portfolio includes microcontrollers, power semiconductors and sensors. In fiscal year 2013 (ending September), sales amounted to €1,714 million for the ATV segment.

Industrial Power Control (IPC)

The industrial division of the company includes power semiconductors and modules which are used for generation, transmission and consumption of electrical energy. Its application areas include control of electric drives for industrial applications and household appliances, modules for renewable energy production, conversion and transmission. This segment achieved sales of €651 million in fiscal year 2013.

Power Management & Multimarket (PMM)

The division Power Management & Control sums up the business with semiconductor components for efficient power management or high-frequency applications. Those find application in lighting management systems and LED lighting, power supplies for servers, PCs, notebooks and consumer electronics, custom devices for peripheral devices, game consoles, applications in medical technology, high-frequency components having a protective function for communication and tuner systems and silicon MEMS microphones. In fiscal year 2013 PMM generated €987 million.

Chip Card & Security (CCS)

The CCS business provides microcontrollers for mobile phone SIM cards, payment cards, security chips and chip-based solutions for passports, identity cards and other official documents. Infineon delivers a significant number of chips for the new German identity card. In addition, CCS provides solutions for applications with high security requirements such as pay television and Trusted Computing. CCS achieved €463 million in fiscal year 2013. "Infineon is the number 1 in embedded security" (IHS, 2016 â€" IHS Embedded Digital Security Report).

Acquisitions and divestitures

The former memory chip division was carved out in 2006 as Infineon’s subsidiary Qimonda, of which Infineon last held a little over three quarters. In January 2009, Qimonda filed for bankruptcy with the district court in Munich.

On 7 July 2009, Infineon Technologies AG agreed by contract with the U.S. investor Golden Gate Capital on the sale of its Wireline Communications for €250 million. The resulting new company is now known as Lantiq.

On 31 January 2011, the sale of the business segment of wireless solutions to Intel was completed. The resulting new company has approximately 3,500 employees and now operates as Intel Mobile Communications (IMC).

In July 2016, Infineon announced it agreed to buy the North Carolina-based company Wolfspeed from Cree Inc. for $850 million in cash.

ADMTek

Infineon bought ADMtek in 2004.

International Rectifier

Infineon Technologies agreed on 20 August 2014 to buy the International Rectifier Corporation for about $3 billion, one third by cash and two third by credit line. The acquisition of International Rectifier was officially closed on 13 January 2015.

Innoluce BV

In October 2016, Infineon acquired the company Innoluce which has expertise in MEMS and LiDAR systems for use in autonomous cars. The MEMS lidar system can scan up to 5,000 data points a second with a range of 250 meters with an expected unit cost of $250 in mass production.

Management

On 18 May 2016 Infineon decided to reinforce the management board and therefore added a new, 4th member to the board of directors. From July 1, 2016 the board of directors consists of:

Reinhard Ploss, CEO

Dominik Asam, CFO

Helmut Gassel, Sales and Marketing

Jochen Hanebeck, Operations

Investors

Major institutional investors in Infineon are: Dodge and Cox International Stock Fund: 9.82%, BlackRock, Inc.: 5.10%, Capital Research and Management: 5.09%, UBS AG: 3.28%.

Price fixing controversy

In 2004â€"2005 an investigation was carried out into a worldwide DRAM price fixing conspiracy during 1999â€"2002 that damaged competition and raised PC prices. As a result, Samsung is to pay $300 million fine, Hynix was to pay $185 million in 2005, Infineon: $160 million in 2004. Micron Technology cooperated with prosecutors and no fine is expected.

AENEON

AENEON was introduced in 2005. AENEON is a DRAM memory family of Infineon and fits into standard PCs and notebooks.

AENEON targets whitebox (non-brand) PC and notebook manufacturers worldwide, as well as the European retail segment and end users (web shop). AENEON DRAM memory focuses the "price-performance" segment.

Price advantages are obtained due to a limited product portfolio (only unbuffered and SO-DIMM), and due to outsourced module assembly. The DRAM components, however, are "Made by Infineon".