Infineon Technologies will invest $160 M this year to expand its production capacity and research and development and upgrade its manufacturing facilities in Malacca, Malaysia. The investment will mainly increase the capacity to produce power semiconductors for energy efficiency applications and will add 350 jobs to the approximately 7,000 employees currently employed in Malacca.

This investment is another step by Infineon to expand its presence in Asia and to integrate more tightly into local market structures. In the fiscal year 2010, the company generated 42 percent of its revenue in the Asia region including Japan, thus being the front-runner in that category among all big German companies listed on the DAX stock exchange index.

Peter Bauer, CEO of Infineon Technologies AG, commented, “In order to be successful in Asia you have to do more than just business. It is about recognizing the culture and becoming a part of society. We aim to create local value added, contribute knowhow and employ and groom talent.”

In recent years, Asia has developed into a key market for global semiconductor sales and Infineon has been continuously expanding its Asian business. As Microwave Journal reported at the beginning of the year, in January, the company opened a new entity in Beijing, China, called Infineon Integrated Circuits (Beijing) Co. Ltd. In addition to sales and marketing, application R&D and central functions, the new entity houses a technical center for automotive solutions and an Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT) stacks manufacturing facility.