Munich, Germany--Infineon Technologies has announced plans for its remaining fiber optics assets: the manufacturing facility in Trutnov (Czech Republic) and the parallel optical link (PAROLI) business.
The automotive supplier Siemens VDO (Frankfurt/Main, Germany) has signed a definitive agreement to take over Infineon's plant in Trutnov from July 1st, 2006, onward. Until next summer, Siemens VDO and Infineon plan to work in parallel at the Trutnov site, thus enabling Siemens VDO to ramp-up its production of electric motor drives while allowing Infineon to continue fulfilling all of customers' requirements. Siemens VDO intends to recruit its personal preferentially among the current Infineon workforce. As of today, Infineon employs approximately 500 people in Trutnov.
The PAROLI products have been put on "end-of-life" status through mutual agreements with key customer requirements. The customers have placed their last-time buy orders that will be fulfilled by Infineon over the course of the coming quarters.
In August 2005, Infineon signed a definitive agreement with EZConn (Taiwan) concerning the sale of the bidirectional components (BiDi) business for FTTx applications. EZconn acquired all assets and IP needed to continue and to grow the business with FTTx products. The deal includes Infineon's wafer level micro-module processes, an enabling technology for the next generation of higher performance and more efficient volume OSA manufacturing. Furthermore EZconn will open a design and marketing center in Berlin, Germany, offering key employees of Infineon new jobs to continue serving Infineon's and EZconn's customers.
In January 2005, Infineon sold the fiber optics transceiver business to Finisar (Sunnyvale, CA). Soon thereafter, the plastic optical fiber (POF) business was reorganized to become part of Infineon's Automotive, Industrial and Multi-Market (AIM) Business Group.
Overall, the restructuring measures undertaken led to the elimination of operating losses in the fiber optics business, according to an Infineon statement.