March 12, 2007 – Qimonda AG, the former memory unit of Infineon, has announced the planned expansion of its existing facility for the assembly and testing of memory ICs (backend) in China’s Suzhou Industrial Park, located 80 km west of Shanghai. Qimonda says it will construct a second building, doubling the factory’s capacity, beginning this month. Investment in construction of new facility, including infrastructure, production equipment, and IT, amounts to around €250 million over the next three years. The expansion adds to the ongoing investment in the existing manufacturing facilities in Suzhou Industrial Park.
The backend facility in Suzhou is a joint venture of Qimonda AG and China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park Venture Co (CSVC) Ltd., set up in 2003, and operates under the name of Qimonda Technologies (Suzhou) Co. Ltd.
The new site is expected to be ready for equipment installation by late 2007. A new cleanroom of 10,000 sq. meters will be added to the existing cleanroom of the same size. The expansion will also increase headcount to more than 3,000 employees (current staff numbers about 1,700).
“Growth in our frontend capacities, with more than two-thirds of our DRAM bits shipped now produced on 300mm manufacturing lines, clearly requires an increase in our backend capacities. With the expansion in Suzhou we are now excellently set up to further leverage our competitive advantage in 300mm manufacturing,” says Kin Wah Loh, president and CEO of Qimonda.
Qimonda has access to five 300mm manufacturing sites on three continents and currently uses four sites for backend manufacturing (located in Suzhou, Malaysia, Portugal, and Germany).