Power semiconductors: more production capacity for Infineon

The German chipmaker will be able to cope with global supply shortages and meet the needs of its European customers thanks in part to its new power semiconductor plant that will soon be operational in Villach, Austria.

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infineon Austria Villach

by Laura Reggiani

As Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon, recently stated, the new plant built in Villach, Austria, will start production by the end of the summer and will be able to produce enough power semiconductors each year to equip the drivetrains of 25 million electric vehicles.

The semiconductor supply crisis forced carmakers such as Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors to halt some production after the chip market was overwhelmed by high demand from higher-margin consumer electronics. Analysts agree that the supply of automotive products will remain limited for a long time to come, as chipmakers first adjusted to the demand that fell sharply with the outbreak of the pandemic and then suddenly rebounded driven by a resurgence in the consumer sector.

Infineon, which had weathered last year's turbulence relatively well by building up significant customer support stock, had, like many players in the chip industry, faced a number of challenges caused by the problems associated with the limited share of production carried out in Asia at global foundries such as Tsmc and Global Foundries, as well as the production shutdown at its Austin, Texas, plant due to the severe winter storm that hit the area, which has now resumed normal operations. With the commissioning of the new fab in Villach, Infineon will add a similar sister plant to the one in Dresden, Germany, in order to achieve greater flexibility. "This will allow us to control production at the two sites as if they were a single factory," Reinhard Ploss told shareholders attending the annual general meeting. Infineon also confirmed its forecast to achieve sales of €10.8 billion and a profit of 17.5% in the fiscal year ending 30 September. The company also announced that it will complete the integration process related to the recent $10 billion acquisition of US-based Cypress by this autumn.

A plant that creates chips and jobs

It is a new, fully-automated, €1.6 billion plant that will be dedicated to the production of chips on 300 millimetre wafers. The facility, which has just been completed, covers an area of approximately 60,000 square metres and will also create 400 new highly skilled jobs. The production system adopted will be a clone of the one in Dresden, which has proved to be very stable and efficient, and which uses the "Adabas & Natural" technology from Software AG as a key component of the central manufacturing execution system (IFX Core MES System). Infineon uses Adabas' NoSQL technology for efficient storage and fast access to its matrix of measurement data from all product areas for chip production automation. "Chip production is extremely complex and requires perfect collaboration, uncompromising quality and professionalism in all our processes. Our new plant in Villach will apply the Dresden digitisation models and cooperate in their continuous development. Thanks to Adabas & Natural, we have a stable platform that meets all the requirements in our production environment and ensures that we can fully exploit the synergies at both locations in the long term." The power semiconductors that will be produced in Villach on 300 millimetre wafers enable energy savings and are used in a wide range of applications, from smartphones to household appliances, from cars to medical devices. Of the additional 400 highly skilled jobs required by the new chip factory, around 40 per cent have already been filled, with the remaining positions to be filled during the coming year.

A significant presence in Italy

Infineon also has an important presence in Italy, where it is headed by Alessandro Matera, with a sales office in Milan employing around 30 people, a research centre in Pavia with over 50 researchers, and a research centre in Padua employing around 210 people, which has been growing steadily since 2001, when the first group of researchers identified the city in Veneto as the ideal location, thanks also to the presence of qualified human capital trained by the local university, with which Infineon has forged important relationships from the outset. Today, the Padua research centre focuses on automotive applications, developing solutions for autonomous driving and new generations of intelligent headlights, as well as artificial intelligence and deep learning.

In Italy too, as sales manager Roberto Legnani explained, a significant process of expansion and strengthening is underway, which will soon lead to new investments in people dedicated to technical support and sales. Infineon's objective, as confirmed by Giuseppe Finazzi, head of sales in distribution, is to become an increasingly important reference point, also through the support of the indirect channel, for all those Italian customers who today play a more fundamental role than ever in terms of demand creation and the development of new technological solutions.


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