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Qimonda AG (NYSE: QI) is a leading global memory supplier with
a broad diversified DRAM product portfolio. The company generated net sales of €3.81
billion in its 2006 financial year and has approximately 13,000 employees
worldwide. Qimonda has access to five 300mm manufacturing sites on three
continents and operates six major R&D facilities. The company provides DRAM
products for a wide variety of applications, including in the computing,
infrastructure, graphics, mobile and consumer areas, using its power saving
technologies and designs. Further information is available at www.qimonda.com.
see also:-
Qimonda
- editor mentions on STORAGEsearch.com
- editor's notes:- in April 2008 - Infineon officially announced that
Qimonda is up for sale.
So it seems timely to extract the article I
wrote 2 years ago when Qimonda was first announced. I haven't changed a word of
the original text. See the sidebar on the right.
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Siemens
Semiconductors? Infineon Technologies? Qimonda?
the names change but the problems remain the same |
Munich, Germany - March 31,
2006 - Infineon Technologies AG announced today more details of its
makeover strategy.
The splitting out of its memory business group
into a new company, called Qimonda, will be effective on May 1st. Qimonda,
headquartered in Munich, will have the legal form of a German Aktiengesellschaft
(AG) and will be the world's 4th largest
DRAM company. The new
company will initially be a wholly owned subsidiary of Infineon but may be spun
off in an IPO later. ...Infineon
profile,
renamed storage companies
Editor's
comments:- there are two root tensions behind the long running business
soap opera which predate the 1999 spin off of Siemens Semiconductors as
Infineon, and the next episode as Qimonda.
First - the DRAM business
has historically followed a pattern of boom to bust business cycles - which
makes it more like gambling than a sensible form of business investment. The
stakes required to stay in the game at each new cast of the DRAM technology
dice are huge.
Second -
Germany is
not a good location to site the headquarters of a high tech world class chip
company. The local EU currency market is slow/no growing. Labor costs are high.
The best thing would have been for all assets to be taken out of Germany
altogether and moved to Asia or the US. Failure to do this in the past has had
more to do with top management comfort levels and arcane legal restrictions than
best business practice.
..more storage news from
March 2006. | |
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