Toppan Photomasks, Inc. (TPI) and GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced that they have formed a joint venture for operation of the Advanced Mask Technology Center (AMTC) in Dresden, Germany. The joint venture will provide leading-edge photomasks to GLOBALFOUNDRIES and to TPI's European and global networks of customers.

Under terms of the venture, TPI's Dresden manufacturing facility and the AMTC will be combined into a single manufacturing facility. TPI will retain its Dresden sales, customer service and mask front-end functions. The new integrated organization builds on the AMTC's history of providing advanced masks, TPI's and GLOBALFOUNDRIES' manufacturing excellence in Dresden, Toppan's world-class mask technology development, and the extensive collaborative relationships that GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Toppan have established in the industry.

AMD today announced the appointment of Thomas Seifert as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Seifert, 46, will report to Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief executive officer, and will have responsibility for leading the company's global financial organization. Seifert succeeds Robert Rivet, who was previously promoted to chief operations and administrative officer.

"Thomas is a talented industry veteran with a wealth of knowledge and experience managing the operations and finances of companies in the most difficult and competitive sectors of the semiconductor industry," said Meyer. "This knowledge and experience will enable him to further strengthen AMD's financial foundation and help accelerate our transformation into a product design and marketing leader."

In a move that signals a firm and ongoing commitment to advanced semiconductor technology leadership, IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Infineon Technologies, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., and STMicroelectronics have defined and are jointly developing a 28-nanometer, high-k metal gate (HKMG), low-power bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process technology.

The low-power, 28nm technology platform can provide power-performance and time-to-market advantages for producers of a broad range of power-sensitive mobile and consumer electronics applications, including the fast-growing mobile Internet device market segment. The favorable leakage characteristics of the HKMG technology result in optimized battery life for the next generation of mobile products.

Qimonda AG (NYSE: QI) and Qimonda Dresden OHG have filed an application with the local court in Munich today to open insolvency proceedings. Their goal is to reorganize the companies as part of the ongoing restructuring program. The court will now appoint a preliminary insolvency administrator.

The Qimonda Management Board intends to restructure key business units within the context of the insolvency regime. "German insolvency law offers the opportunity to accelerate the restructuring process that has already been started in order to reposition the company back onto a solid base," said Kin Wah Loh, President and Chief Executive Officer of Qimonda AG. Qimonda possesses established products and, with its Buried Wordline technology, is currently bringing a promising future technology to the market.

Infineon Technologies today announced that the company has acquired one hundred percent of Primarion, Inc. to further strengthen its activities in the field of power management applications. Primarion is among the leaders in designing, manufacturing and marketing digital power ICs for computing, graphics and communication applications. Primarion is a fabless company, headquartered in Torrance, California.

Today at the Cartes Trade Show in Paris, Infineon Technologies AG announced a strategic technology collaboration for the development of optimized chip solutions for high-density (HD) SIM cards with Intel Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, Infineon will architect modular chip solutions with Intel offering memory capacities from 4MB to 64MB (Megabytes). Infineon contributes its vast expertise in security hardware and will develop a 32-bit security microcontroller based on its existing SLE 88 family for use with HD SIM cards. Intel is contributing its leading-edge flash memory technologies, capabilities and manufacturing.