© Infineon
A fully automated chip factory for producing 300 mm thin-wafer chips will be constructed at the Villach site. Investments totalling about EUR 1.6 billion are planned over a period of six years. The new, highly efficient factory will create approximately 400 new jobs, mainly highly qualified positions.
Infineon CEO Reinhard Ploss stated that key criteria for selecting a site was the prospect of lower taxes, the country’s good position with regard to research promotion and stability. However, the decisive reason for choosing Austria is the competence and know-how of the employees in Villach.
The Villach facility serves as the competence center for power semiconductors in the group and has long been an important Infineon innovation hub. The manufacturing of power semiconductors on 300 mm thin wager was developed in Villach, which was then expanded in recent years to fully automated volume production at the Dresden plant. Due to the larger diameter of this disk, the use of this technology generates substantial advantages in productivity and reduces the level of capital employed.
These energy-saving chips control the flow of current as efficiently as possible in a large number of applications such as e-cars, trains, wind and solar power generating facilities as well as network components for mobile phones, notebooks and computer centers.
Over the past ten years, Infineon already invested about EUR 1 billion in Austria. In the meantime, about one-tenth of the 37,500 employees in the group work in Austria, 3,100 of them in Villach.
