Infineon
More info
- Released
- 1999
- Predecessor
- Siemens semiconductor division
- Headquarters
- Neubiberg, Germany
Siemens's spun-off chipmaker, the world's largest in power semiconductors and a major supplier of security chips.
Siemens spun off its semiconductor arm in 1999 and listed it in Frankfurt the following year. The memory business was pushed into Qimonda, which went bankrupt in 2009 — in hindsight a neat way to get out of the DRAM cycle. What remained was power semiconductors for cars, trains and inverters, increasingly in silicon carbide and gallium nitride. Buying Cypress in 2020 added microcontrollers and wireless.
Infineon also makes the chips in smart cards, passports and TPMs. In 2017 the ROCA vulnerability showed that its library generated RSA keys that could be factored, and Estonia had to revoke the certificates on hundreds of thousands of ID cards.