November 14, 2005 Munich, Germany -- After the sale of a significant part of its Fiber Optics group, Infineon Technologies today announced that it has resolved all of its outstanding fiber-optics assets, including a manufacturing facility in Trutnov, Czechoslovakia, as well as the company's Paroli business.
According to a press release, the automotive supplier Siemens VDO has signed a definitive agreement to take over Infineon's plant in Trutnov, starting July 1, 2006. Until that time, Siemens VDO and Infineon plan to work alongside 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 its customer requirements. Siemens VDO says it intends to recruit its personal preferentially among the current Infineon workforce. Infineon employs approximately 500 people in Trutnov.
Also according to the release, Infineon's Paroli products have been put on "End-of-Life" status with mutual agreement regarding respective key customer requirements; consequently, customers have placed their final "buy" orders, which will be fulfilled by Infineon over the course of upcoming quarters.
In August 2005, Infineon signed a definitive agreement with EZConn Corp. of Taiwan concerning the sale of Infineon's bidirectional components (BiDi) business for FTTX applications. Under the terms of this agreement, EZconn acquired all assets and IP needed to continue and to grow the FTTX products business. The deal included Infineon's wafer level micro-module processes, an enabling technology for high performance, more efficient volume OSA manufacturing. Further, EZconn agreed to open a design and marketing center in Berlin, Germany, offering key employees of Infineon new jobs to continue serving customers of both companies.
Also, in January 2005, Infineon sold its Fiber Optics transceiver business to Finisar. Soon thereafter, Infineon reorganized its Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) business to become part of its Automotive, Industrial, and Multi-Market (AIM) business group.
Overall, Infineon says the restructuring measures have led to the elimination of operating losses in the company's fiber-optics business.