Infineon to expand foundry services

Christoph Hammerschmidt, EE Times
(05/09/2006 3:48 PM EDT)
 
MUNICH, Germany — After spinning off its memory unit, Germany’s Infineon Technologies AG said that it plans to expand its silicon foundry services.

The move is somewhat expected. Late last year, Infineon (Munich) entered the foundry market with the aid of its French affiliate, Altis Semiconductor SA, according to first customer — Toumaz Technology Ltd. Infineon has initially focused on specialized manufacturing processes: RF-CMOS, bipolar and silicon-germanium, and high-frequency applications.

Infineon has dropped other hints about its foundry efforts, which, in turn, could be competitive to those of the company’s technology partners. IBM, Chartered, Infineon and Samsung have disclosed a series of complex agreements to collaborate on advanced process technologies. The agreements have been announced in steps over the past few years.