Infineon Technologies

Acquisitions and divestitures[edit]

Infineon bought the Taiwanese chip designer ADMtek in 2004.^[14][15] 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.^[16] When Infineon sold Wireline Communications in July 2009 to Golden Gate Capital for €250 million,^[17] the resulting company was named Lantiq. With around 1,000 employees,^[18] Lantiq was acquired by Intel for US$345 million in 2015.^[19] Infineon's wireless business segment was sold to Intel in January 2011 for US$1.4 billion,^[20] with the resulting new company named Intel Mobile Communications (IMC).^[21][22] IMC had approximately 3,500 employees.^[21][22] The smartphone modem business of IMC was acquired by Apple Inc. in 2019.^[23]


In August 2014 Infineon Technologies agreed to buy the International Rectifier Corporation (IR) for about US$3 billion,^[24] one third by cash and two-thirds by credit line.^[25] The acquisition was officially closed on January 13, 2015.^[26] In July 2016, Infineon agreed to buy the North Carolina-based company Wolfspeed from Cree Inc. for US$850 million in cash,^[27] although the deal was ultimately stopped due to US security concerns.^[27][28] 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.^[29][30] Infineon Technologies AG sold its RF Power Business Unit in March 2018 to Cree Inc. for €345 million.^[31] Infineon announced in June 2019 that it would acquire Cypress Semiconductors for US$9.4 billion.^[32][33] The acquisition closed on 17 April^[34] of 2020.^[35]


In May 2023, Infineon acquired "tiny machine learning" company Imagimob, a Stockholm, Sweden based company with a platform for development and deployment of AI applications.^[36] Infineon acquired GaN Systems, headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, in October 2023.^[37] Infineon in 2023 acted on an expansion plan by investing EUR 5 billion into its semiconductor fab in Kulim, Kedah, Malaysia.^[38] As of 2023 Infineon was also planning to build two additional plants in Dresden for €5 billion, asking the government to subsidize it with €1 billion, financed through the €4 billion European Chips Act. It would employ 3000 people.^[9]