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Infineon Technologies AG is on schedule with the construction of the Smart Power Fab in Dresden and is initiating the final construction phase. During a visit, the Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, officially handed over the last outstanding building permit for the new fab issued by the State Directorate of Saxony.
The excavation of the building pit has now been completed. The shell and building construction are currently progressing on the concrete foundation, which is up to two meters thick. Infineon officially broke ground for the new plant in Dresden in May 2023. Manufacturing is scheduled to start in 2026. The production will focus on semiconductors that promote decarbonization and digitalization.
With a total investment of five billion euros, the company is making a significant contribution to the European Commission goal to increase the EU’s share of global semiconductor production to 20 percent by 2030. The semiconductors manufactured in Dresden will secure future value chains in key European industries. The products manufactured in the new production facility will be used in the automotive and renewable energy industries. The interaction of power semiconductors and analog/mixed-signal components enables particularly energy-efficient and intelligent system solutions – hence the name Smart Power Fab.
“The construction of the Smart Power Fab is a big win for Dresden, Saxony, Germany and Europe,” says Michael Kretschmer, Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony. “Infineon’s fourth production module in Dresden is another important building block in strengthening Europe’s resilience in the field of microelectronics. It is a further step towards achieving the European Commission’s goal of increasing Europe’s share of global chip production to 20 percent. Thanks to a thoughtful cooperation between the company, the Free State of Saxony, the local authorities, and the federal government, it has been possible to get the investment off the ground and to issue the relevant permits quickly. As a result, the semiconductors that we urgently need for the mobility and energy transition can be produced in the new fab starting in 2026.”
“We are making excellent progress with the construction of our state-of-the-art Smart Power Fab in Dresden. We are right on schedule also thanks to the excellent cooperation with the authorities,” says Dr. Rutger Wijburg, Member of the Management Board and Chief Operations Officer of Infineon. “With our strategic decision to continue investing in Dresden, we are securing the long-term future of the site and strengthening the manufacturing base for semiconductors in Europe.”
The dimensions of the construction site are impressive. On average, construction workers have removed around 8,000 tons of soil every day since the start of work. A total of 450,000 cubic meters of excavated soil has been produced, which corresponds to the volume of 180 Olympic swimming pools.
The soil is being temporarily stored in a specially prepared area near the Dresden Airport freeway junction. The 22-metre-deep pit not only compensates for the natural gradient, but also provides a firm foundation for the 150- to 190-centimetre-thick base plate, which is intended to reduce vibrations – from passing streetcars, for example – to a minimum. Even minimal vibrations can affect the sensitive semiconductor production.
In the next construction phase, the basement levels will be built, along with other levels. The clean room – the heart of the Smart Power Fab – is planned for the fourth level. Once completed, it will be at the exact same height as the site’s three existing production rooms. This will optimize an integrated production. The future construction phase of the project includes a total of ten tower cranes, some of them 80 meters high to support up to 1,200 construction workers who will be working on the site every day in multiple shifts.
The investment in Dresden is part of the company’s strategy to reach CO 2-neutrality by 2030. The Smart Power Fab sets new efficiency standards for the consumption of important resources such as energy and water. This has a positive impact on the carbon footprint of Infineon. Even today, Infineon’s products, which are used in solar and wind power plants, reduce 34 times the amount of CO 2 emitted during their production over their lifetime.
With the investment in the new plant, Infineon is creating an additional 1,000 jobs in the Saxon state capital. The company currently employs approximately 3,250 people in Dresden. The number of trainees has already been significantly increased with the new Fab. Subject to the European Commission’s state aid decision and the national grant procedure, the project is to be funded in accordance with the objectives of the European Chips Act. Infineon is aiming for public funding of around one billion euros.
Original – Infineon Technologies
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Power semiconductors companies continue to invest heavily in new factories, production capacity expansions, and R&D centers. Thus, recently the total value of the active investment projects launched since 2021 has surpassed 70 billion USD.
Driven by the pandemic and geopolitics, major power semiconductors companies started to invest more in new factories and joint ventures to have more confidence in their own supply chain in the future.
As of today, it is obvious to see the major split of power semiconductors into three geographical regions – the USA, Europe, and Asia. Asia may as well be divided into several regions with China being the leading investor of all.
Despite the ongoing tensions and export restrictions between the US, Europe, and China related to advanced semiconductors, when it comes to power semiconductors European companies continue to invest in the Chinese market expanding their product capacity or establishing new joint ventures like STMicroelectronics and Sanan Optoelectronics did recently.
Even with some delay, Japanese companies like ROHM, Mitsubishi Electric, Fuji Electric, Renesas Electronics, Toshiba, and others, pushed by their US and European competitors, announced their own projects aimed to secure the capacity on the wafer and device level to correspond to the growing demand for Si and SiC based power semiconductors coming from the electric vehicle and charging, photovoltaics, battery energy storage systems, and the other emerging applications.
If we take a closer look at all projects announced, SiC is the leading technology with over 60% of total investment. Over 25 market leaders announced their plans to invest in silicon carbide.
Thus, ROHM is investing in new production to multiply its SiC capacity in the coming years. Mitsubishi Electric teams up with Coherent to scale manufacturing of SiC power devices on a 200 mm SiC technology platform as one of the steps of their 260 billion yen investment project planned till March 2026.
Infineon Technologies continues to bet on both local European and Asian markets investing in their new fab in Dresden and expanding backend operations in Indonesia. STMicroelectronics continues to invest in WBG semiconductors with the ongoing construction of a new wafer fab in Sicily announced in 2022.
With a global total number of new investment projects of over 80, the US companies Wolfspeed, onsemi, and Microchip Technology, similar to their European counterparts, invest locally, in Europe and Asian markets. Totally the US semiconductor companies announced new projects valued at almost 9 billion USD.
With the US and EU Chips Acts, and similar initiatives in China, Japan, South Korea, and some other countries, it is clear that the investment into power semiconductors industry will continue to reach 100 billion USD soon.
