The chip maker Infineon have plans to invest several billion euros in the purchase of companies to fuel its growth, according to Reuters. For now, yes, he is still looking for the right companies for it, as he has stated its CEO, Jochen Hanebeck.
The plans of this German company come at a time when the demand for chips for integration into all types of devices, from smartphones to cars, is going through a crisis due to bottlenecks in the supply chain that has lasted almost two years. years, and that it is one of the main headaches for all types of sectors, from the automotive sector to healthcare, including electronics and telecommunications.
Infineon, which has experienced a 63% increase in sales in the chip area to enter 3.6 billion dollars in the fiscal year that ended on September 30, has stated that it sees growth possibilities in electromobility, autonomous driving, renewable energy , data centers and Internet of Things.
Infineon’s CEO has noted that the company could expand its product portfolio in a few changes, including boot semiconductors, sensors, software, and Artificial Intelligence. But so far he hasn’t given names of companies he wants to buy, although he has noted that it’s quite possible that startups that aren’t sufficiently well-funded, for example, might want to join a larger company.
Infineon bought US rivals Cypress Semiconductor for $10 billion and International Rectifier for $3 billion. He did it in 2019 and 2014, respectively. In both cases, with the same objective: to expand its latest generation technologies for the Internet and the automotive sector.
Besides shopping, Infineon also has plans to build a new plant manufacturing of semiconductors in Europe. It will do so in the city of Dresden, in eastern Germany, and plans to invest 5,000 million dollars in it. These plans are part of the European Union Chips Law, approved last February, and whose objective is to boost the production capacity of chips in Europe to reduce its dependence on the Asian market and also to increase the production of chips in the region.
As part of this plan, the EU has allocated 15,000 million euros of public and private investment to the sector from this year until 2030, which is added to another 30,000 million euros of public investments that they already had planned for it, and that will go to collaborate in the construction or expansion of semiconductor factories in the region.
Thus, in addition to Infineon, among others, TSMC also seems to be negotiating to build a factory in Europe. It would be TSMC’s first in Europe, and if all goes according to the company’s plans, it will also be in Dresden. Meanwhile, Intel seems to be slowing down its plans to start building its chip plant in Germany. It planned to do it in the first half of 2023, but for now it has postponed the start of construction without a date.
