2011-03-02

Qimonda

The business unit of Qimonda has failed a couple of years ago in Portugal. This company, formely known as Infineon, a spin-off of Siemens, used to be one of the major memory manufacturers in the world. This European giant has lost their ground to companies such as Samsung and Hynix from South Korea. As Siemens continues to shed off increasingly more production offshore or mothballing units, it makes one ponder how long will this corporation continue to have presence in our shores.

The fab, if it has any equipment left, could be used as a starting point for a semiconductor R&D center similar to the ones in Dresden or the ones being planned by ATIC in Dubai. Another alternative would be to sell the assets to a company such as SMIC. The Chinese cannot use modern lithography tools in mainland China and could be interested in a business if the powers that be would be in favor. Another alternative is to propose to European manufacturers to do the wire bonding in Portugal instead of Malaysia or other places with cheap hand labor as the chips roll off the semiconducting presses.

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