Volkswagen to Use Infineon Microcontroller in Convenience Electronics

Neubiberg, Germany – January 14, 2008 – Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYE: IFX) today announced that Volkswagen has chosen to use a microcontroller designed by Infineon for use in automotive body and convenience electronics. The chip, which delivers the performance of a 32-bit microcontroller, is a member of the XC2200 family recently unveiled by Infineon. Volkswagen will use the microcontroller to provide greater gateway capabilities in automobile body and convenience electronics to support the increasing networking and communication requirements between individual automotive subsystems.

Today’s cars have as many as 50 different subsystems, grouped in separate communication networks. These subsystems take care, for example, of everything from engine and powertrain management to body and convenience electronics and infotainment applications, and need to communicate with one another, depending on current driving conditions. This communication is managed by a dedicated control unit known as Central Gateway Unit which is built around the microcontroller. The central gateway unit’s task is to exchange, reconcile and prioritize data across the various networks. It controls all of the internal interfaces, including those for engine management, entertainment systems, the instrument cluster, and the control units that manage the body and convenience electronics, as well as the external communication capabilities needed to allow future software updates to be installed by auto dealerships.

Model year 2009 cars and later based on the Golf platform will need a gateway with a sixth CAN interface and at least two LIN interfaces. Infineon is currently developing an XC2200 microcontroller for Volkswagen that will incorporate this functionality.

“Volkswagen decided in favor of a microcontroller from the XC2200 family not just because of the compelling feature set but also because Infineon has built up considerable expertise over many years of serving the automotive sector and is involved in a number of strategic collaboration projects with the Volkswagen Group and many of its electronics suppliers,” says Jochen Hanebeck, senior vice president, Microcontrollers at Infineon Technologies.

Automotive system suppliers have already begun developing new control units based on the XC2200 microcontroller. The XC2200 currently under design for use in Volkswagen’s new automotive central gateway unit will also be available to other automobile manufacturers in due course.

Infineon’s XC2200 microcontroller family is designed specifically to meet the needs of automakers and tomorrow’s car body applications. With XC2200 microcontrollers, system makers can cover almost the entire gamut of car body and gateway applications with a single hardware and software architecture, because the XC2200 products are scalable and compatible across the entire range from the low end to the high end. This means, for example, that microcontrollers will be available with embedded flash memory ranging in size from 32 kilobytes (KB) to 1280KB and in packages with between 64 pins and 176 pins. To help keep costs down, the microcontrollers will also feature EEPROM emulation in flash memory.

The new 16-bit product family will be manufactured using field-proven 130-nm embedded flash technology, the same technology as used in Infineon’s 32-bit TriCore microcontrollers, which have been in volume production for over a year now. These microcontrollers have already proven themselves and been qualified for automotive use in several Volkswagen control units.

Infineon supports the standardization of software interfaces and modules for automotive systems by supplying AUTOSAR software drivers for all its XC2200 products.

Technical information on Infineon’s XC2200 is available at www.infineon.com/xc2200

Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions addressing three central challenges to modern society: energy efficiency, communications, and security. In the 2007 fiscal year (ending September), the company reported sales of Euro 7.7 billion (including Qimonda sales of Euro 3.6 billion) with approximately 43,000 employees worldwide (including approximately 13,500 Qimonda employees). With a global presence, Infineon operates through its subsidiaries in the U.S. from Milpitas, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore, and in Japan from Tokyo. Infineon is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX).