Infineon Technologies

Infineon Technologies AG
Type Public
ISIN DE0006231004 Edit this on Wikidata
Industry Semiconductor
Founded 1 April 1999
Headquarters ,
Germany
Key people
Products
Revenue Increase 11.06 billion (2021)
Increase €1.47 billion (2021)
Increase €1.17 billion (2021)
Total assets Increase €23.33 billion (2021)
Total equity Increase €11.40 billion (2021)
Number of employees
50,288 (2021)
Divisions
  • Automotive
  • Industrial Power Control
  • Power & Sensor Systems
  • Connected Secure Systems
Website infineon.com
Footnotes / references

Infineon Technologies AG is Germany's largest semiconductor manufacturer.

The company was spun-off from Siemens AG in 1999.

Infineon has about 50,280 employees and is one of the ten largest semiconductor manufacturers worldwide. In 2021 the company achieved sales of €11.06 billion.

Markets

Infineon markets semiconductors and systems for automotive, industrial, and multimarket sectors, as well as chip card and security products. Infineon has subsidiaries in the US in Milpitas, California, and in the Asia-Pacific region, in Singapore and Tokyo, Japan.

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

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

In 2010, board member Klaus Wucherer was elected to step into the chairman's office upon the retirement of the then-current chairman Max Dietrich Kley following a proxy contest in advance of the shareholders' meeting.

In 2023, it was Germany's largest chip manufacturer.

As of 2011, Infineon comprised four business areas after several restructurings:

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 the fiscal year 2018 (ending September), sales amounted to €3,284 million for the ATV segment.

Green Industrial Power (GIP)

The industrial division of the company (named IPC until 2023 ) 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 €1,323 million in fiscal year 2018.

Power & Sensor Systems (PSS)

The division Power & Sensor Systems 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 the fiscal year 2018, PSS generated €2,318 million.

Connected Secure Systems (CSS)

The CSS business provides microcontrollers for mobile phone SIM cards, payment cards, security chips and chips for passports, identity cards and other official documents. Infineon delivers a significant number of chips for the new German identity card. CSS achieved €664 million in fiscal year 2018. "Infineon is the number 1 in embedded security" (IHS, 2016 – IHS Embedded Digital Security Report).

Acquisitions and divestitures

Overview Infineon's Business Developments Over Time
Year action
2004 acquired ADMtek
2006 carved out subsidiary Qimonda AG
2009 bankruptcy of Qimonda AG
2009 sold "Wireline Communications" to U.S. investor Golden Gate Capital Resulting company Lantiq
2011 wireless business segment was sold to Intel Result Intel Mobile Communications (IMC).
2014 bought International Rectifier Corporation (IR)
2016 tried to buy Wolfspeed (North Carolina) of Cree Inc. - stopped US National Security "concerns"
2016 acquired Innoluce (produces MEMS and LiDAR systems for use in autonomous cars).
2018 sold its RF Power Business Unit to Cree Inc.
2020 bought Cypress Semiconductor (announcement 2019, bought in April 2020)
2023 Plans to build two additional plants in Dresden (European Chips Act)
2023 Expansion plan by investing EUR 5 billion into its semiconductor fab in Kulim, Kedah, Malaysia
2023 Acquired Imagimob
2023 Acquired GaN Systems

In 2004, Infineon bought ADMtek .

in 2006, the former Memory Products division was carved out as Infineon's subsidiary Qimonda AG, of which Infineon last held a little over three-quarters. At its height Qimonda employed about 13,500 people; it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange until it filed for bankruptcy with the district court in Munich in January 2009.

In July 2009, Infineon agreed by contract with the U.S. investor Golden Gate Capital on the sale of its Wireline Communications for €250m. The resulting company was named Lantiq and had around 1,000 employees. Lantiq was acquired by Intel in 2015 for $345m (USD).

In January 2011, the wireless business segment was sold to Intel for $1.4b (USD). The resulting new company had approximately 3,500 employees and operated as Intel Mobile Communications (IMC). The smartphone modem business of IMC was announced to be acquired by Apple Inc. in 2019.

In August 2014 Infineon Technologies agreed to buy the International Rectifier Corporation (IR) for about $3b (USD), one third by cash and two-thirds by credit line. The acquisition of International Rectifier was officially closed on 13 January 2015.

In July 2016, Infineon announced it agreed to buy the North Carolina-based company Wolfspeed from Cree Inc. for $850m (USD) in cash. The deal was however stopped due to US security concerns.

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.

In March 2018, Infineon Technologies AG sold its RF Power Business Unit to Cree Inc. for €345m.

In June 2019, Infineon announced it would acquire Cypress Semiconductors for $9.4b (USD). The acquisition closed on 17 April 2020. The acquirement was completed in 2020.

As of 2023 Infineon was planning to build two additional plants in Dresden for €5b, asking the government to subsidize it with 1b, financed through the €42b European Chips Act. It would employ 3000 people.

In May 2023, Infineon acquired tiny machine learning company Imagimob, a Stockholm, Sweden based company with a platform for development and deployment of edge AI applications.

In October 2023, Infineon completed the acquisition of GaN Systems (headquarter Ottawa, Canada).

Financial data

Financial data in € billions
Year 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Revenue 3.843 4.320 5.795 6.473 7.063 7.599 8.029 8.567 11.060 14.218
Net Income 0.272 0.535 0.632 0.743 0.790 1.075 0.870 0.368 1.28
Assets 5.905 6.438 8.741 9.087 9.945 10.879 13.412 21.999 23.334 26.912
Employees 26,725 29,807 35,424 36,299 37,479 40,100 41,418 46,665 50,288 56,194

Directors Board - Management

Currently the following persons are in the following positions:

  • Jochen Hanebeck (CEO)
  • Helmut Gassel (CMO)
  • Rutger Wijburg (COO)
  • Elke Reichart (CDTO)
  • Sven Schneider (CFO)

Litigation

In 2004–2005, an investigation was carried out into a DRAM price fixing conspiracy during 1999–2002 that damaged competition and raised PC prices. As a result, Samsung paid a $300 million fine, Hynix paid $185 million, Infineon $160 million.

Security flaw

In October 2017, it was reported that a flaw, dubbed ROCA, in a code library developed by Infineon, which had been in widespread use in security products such as smartcards and TPMs, enabled private keys to be inferred from public keys. As a result, all systems depending upon the privacy of such keys were vulnerable to compromise, such as identity theft or spoofing. Affected systems include 750,000 Estonian national ID cards, 300,000 Slovak national ID cards, and computers that use Microsoft BitLocker drive encryption in conjunction with an affected TPM. Microsoft released a patch that works around the flaw via Windows Update immediately after the disclosure.