Infineon Announces Availability of Environment-friendly DRAM Components and Modules - "Green" Products Support Cost-effective Recycling

Munich, Germany – September 30, 2003 – Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX) today announced the availability of environment-friendly DRAM components and modules, underlining the company’s commitment to leadership in the electronics industry transition to nonpolluting technologies. Concurrent with production ramp-up of its 110-nm-process technology for high-density memory products, Infineon now offers lead- and halogen-free DRAM components, and is preparing to offer lead-free and halogen-free memory modules.

In the electronics industry, the term “green” refers to a product that contains practically no materials defined by regulatory agencies as harmful to the human body, such as lead and halogen substances. Usually, lead is found in lead finish, solder balls and solder paste, while halogen substances are used for PCB (printed circuit board) assembly and component molding compounds. Based on industry standard specifications, lead-free means less then 0.1 percent (1,000 ppm) lead content in DRAMs and modules and halogen-free is specified as less then 0.09 percent (900 ppm) of chlorine and bromine content. Eliminating the lead in components represents the first step in environment friendliness. Halogen-free packaging constitutes another step towards “green” by eliminating several other potentially dangerous chemical components of chip-based devices. These include bromine, chlorine or antimony oxide.

“Infineon is leading the way as an environmental-friendly supplier, ahead of legal requirements,” said Dr. Carsten Gatzke, Senior Director, Commodity DRAM Marketing of Memory Products Group at Infineon Technologies. “Early availability insures that our customers have enough time to completely test and evaluate the benefits of ’green’ products.”

The European Union Directive Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), requires products sold within the EU countries to be recycled, beginning in January 2007. The directive covers a broad range of common electronic hardware. Thus, the EU countries have to define and implement recycling processes in the next few years. The elimination of lead and halogens will help to make the recycling process easier and less costly. There is also a Restriction of Hazardous Substance (ROHS) directive, which bans the use of lead and certain other hazardous materials beginning in July 2006. With the introduction of environment-friendly products, Infineon supports the successful implementation of these directives by all parties involved.

Availability

Infineon´s TSOP packaged components based on the 110-nm-process will be both lead-free and halogen-free. This includes 256 Mbit, 512 Mbit and 1 Gbit densities of DDR in TSOP and Specialty Memory such as GraphicsRAM, MobileRAM, and CellularRAM. Unbuffered Modules based on the “green” 256 Mbit DDR TSOP components are available now, and other components will be available later in the year. Infineon plans to introduce several types of DRAM modules (unbuffered, registered, SO-DIMMs) based on this environment-friendly technologies. FBGA packages of DDR and DDR2 including the corresponding memory modules will be gradually transferred to “green” starting in mid 2004.

Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for the automotive and industrial sectors, for applications in the wired communications markets, secure mobile solutions as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In the fiscal year 2002 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 5.21 billion with about 30,400 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com.