In order to facilitate higher production output, Infineon plans to invest €10 million (about $14.7 million) into manufacturing equipment. Earlier this week, Infineon Executive Vice President Reinhard Ploss has mentioned that the company's Dresden production site is fully utilized.

While Infineon did not elaborate on the kind of manufacturing equipment it plans to invest in, a company spokesperson said that the investment will be completed by the beginning of 2010 and the manufacturing capacity expansion will take effect during Q1/2010.

The company sees the need to crank up production for automotive chips as well as chips for smart cards and security devices. Also wireless communication products are in strong demand, the spokesperson explained. The capacity expansion will add some 70 jobs at the Dresden site where the company currently employs 1800 persons.

The move is consistent with Infineon's strategy to go fabless for geometries of 65 nm and less since in Dresden it produces microcontrollers for larger geometries, the spokesperson said.

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