Description
Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999, when the semiconductor operations of the former parent company Siemens AG were spun off. Infineon has about 46,665 employees and is one of the ten largest semiconductor manufacturers worldwide. It is market leader in automotive and power semiconductors. In fiscal year 2020, the company achieved sales of €8.6 billion. Infineon bought Cypress in April 2020.
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 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 2018 (ending September), sales amounted to €3,284 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 €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 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 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, CSS provides solutions for applications with high security requirements such as pay television and Trusted Computing. CSS achieved €664 million in fiscal year 2018. "Infineon is the number 1 in embedded security" (IHS, 2016 – IHS Embedded Digital Security Report).
