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Spin-off won't affect vendor ties: Infineon

"There will be no major changes in our businesses with local partners."

Daniel Wong, Asia-Pacific president for Qimonda AG.

Infineon Technologies AG, Germany's largest maker of semiconductors, yesterday said that the spin-off of its memory-chip business would not affect its relationship with Taiwanese vendors, and business would continue as usual after the new entity becomes fully operational on May 1.

"There will be no major changes in our businesses with local partners," Daniel Wong (黃振潮), Asia-Pacific president for Qimonda AG -- the new spin-off from Infineon -- told reporters yesterday.

The company also announced that Infineon would shift its stake in Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技) -- a 50/50 joint venture with Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) -- to Qimonda before May 1.

After the date, Qimonda will be the main business contact window with Taiwanese partners, according to Pow Tien-tee (潘先弟), regional president and managing director of Infineon Technologies Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd in Singapore.

Inotera's shares rose 0.5 percent to close at NT$30 yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Infineon announced last Friday that it was two months ahead of schedule for divesting its memory-chip business thanks to rapid progress.

It also said it hoped to spin off the unit through an initial public offering (IPO).

However, both Wong and Pow were tight-lipped when asked about Qimonda's IPO details, saying that it was still too early to make any announcements.

"This will depend on the company's performance and the overall market situation," Wong said.

The new business may be listed on the Hong Kong, Singapore or Taipei exchanges, said a report by Germany's Focus-Money magazine on March 21.

According to Infineon, Qimonda -- set to be the world's No. 4 largest dynamic random access memory (DRAM) maker -- posted a pre-tax profit of 122 million euros (US$148 million) on sales of 2.82 billion euros in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

The separation of Qimonda is a necessary step for Infineon to diversify its product portfolio and client base, Wong said.

Servers and computing were Infineon's major businesses in the past, but the company is working on increasing the proportion from graphics and mobile electronics, he said.

"Mobile, computing and entertainment are being converged in future consumer electronics products, and this is where our low-power DRAM trench technology will come into play," he said.

The global DRAM market is expected to post a strong revenue growth to US$26.4 billion this year, up 6.2 percent from US$24.8 billion last year, mainly fueled by applications in video game consoles and mobile phones, iSuppli Corp said in a report last Tuesday.

The market researcher previously forecast a 5 percent contraction in DRAM revenues for the year.
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