Fraunhofer IPMS reveals smart power collaboration
Year long project has focused on smart power process development at Infineon's Dresden site
Fraunhofer IPMS says it has supported the 300 mm process development of smart power technologies for the semiconductor manufacturer Infineon at the Dresden site.
For the joint project, which spanned around a year, Fraunhofer IPMS provided supplied selected process modules to Infineon within the entire CMOS process value chain on 300 mm wafers.
Over 2000 wafers were successfully processed as part of this collaboration. The wafers were exchanged several times between Fraunhofer IPMS and Infineon Dresden to ensure optimal use of resources and optimum integration into the production lines.
"The results of this joint project are extremely promising and mark a significant step forward for the production of smart power technologies at Infineon Dresden," commented project manager Andreas Thamm from Infineon. "The close collaboration and the provision of process modules by Fraunhofer IPMS have enabled us to move ahead faster than planned with the process transfer to 300mm equipment needed to expand our manufacturing capabilities."
"We have been working together for years," confirms IPMS project manager Malte Czernohorsky "In this project, Fraunhofer experts worked closely with colleagues from Infineon. The teams are now well attuned to each other", he said. "Based on the positive experiences from previous years, we are already thinking about follow-up projects."
With the construction of the new Smart Power Fab, Infineon says it is making one of the largest single investments in its history. The aim of the semiconductor manufacturer is to increase the speed at which it expands its semiconductor production capacities and to further strengthen Europe as a chip manufacturing location.
Infineon's work is being funded by the European Union, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection and the Free State of Saxony as part of an Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) in the fields of microelectronics and communication technologies.
