TechPowerUp - Infineon's New 300 mm Fab Opens Three Months Ahead of Schedule
 
“Finally, some good news from the semiconductor industry, Infineon has announced the opening of its new €1.6 billion, 300 mm, or 12-inch wafer semiconductor factory.
 
The fab has nearly 60,000 square meters of gross floor space and production will be ramped up over the next four to five years, so it's not going to alleviate the current chip shortage any time soon. The fab is located in Villach, Austria and has taken three years to build. The first wafers produced in the fab are said to be leaving it this week and although Infineon didn't specify what chips they'll end up as, the fab is set up to initially cater for the automotive industry, data centers and the renewable energy industry.
 
Infineon is expecting the new fab to generate a potential yearly sales revenue of around two billion euros per year, while at the same time generate an additional 400 jobs in the region, of which two thirds have already been hired. The fab is said to be recycling waste heat from the cooling systems, which can provide as much as 80 percent of the heating needs for the fab during the colder months of the year. In addition to this, Infineon is expecting to be producing all hydrogen needed for the production on site, starting next year.”
 
Fabs are expensive and time consuming to build before the first wafer is produced.  I hope that all manufacturers will continue construction/expansion of fabs after the current flurry of announced fabs or producing in two to three years.  With the rapid increasing demand for chips, we may have another massive shortfall in a few years.