Infineon Is World's First Semiconductor Manufacturer to Begin Volume Production of 130nm Embedded Flash Microcontrollers for Automotive Systems

Munich, Germany – April 6, 2006 – Infineon Technologies AG (FSE/NYSE: IFX) today announced that is has begun series production of its most advanced 32-bit embedded flash microcontrollers for automotive applications. This distinguishes the company as the world's first semiconductor manufacturer to achieve high-volume output of embedded flash products using 130 nm technology.

Developed for use with engine and gearbox control systems in light vehicles, trucks, and motorcycles, the Infineon 32-bit flash microcontrollers of the AUDO-NG family, the TC1796 and the TC1766, will help to combine improved performance, reliability and safety with minimum fuel consumption and emissions. Infineon expects to supply around six million of these microcontrollers to European automotive manufacturers by the end of 2007 and to further expand its current 30 percent share of the world market for chips used in powertrain control. Statistically speaking, every second automobile in Europe and every third auto made worldwide already contains an Infineon diesel or gas engine control chip, which is used to control such functions as injection, ignition, lambda control and exhaust gas recirculation.

The microcontrollers are manufactured at Infineon's Dresden plant. The automotive sector requires products of the very highest quality, so Infineon produces all of its automotive chips exclusively in its own production facilities, which have been optimized to meet all of the applicable quality specifications of the automotive industry.

According to Christopher Hegarty, vice president and general manager, Microcontrollers, at Infineon's Automotive, Industrial and Multimarket business group, “Safety is priority number one in the automotive sector, but optimal safety is impossible without high product quality. About three years ago we have therefore established the most comprehensive quality management initiative in our sector, our Automotive Excellence Program. It aims to make zero-defect products a reality.” The TC1796 and TC1766 flash microcontrollers differ from each other in their clock frequency, the size of the embedded flash memory and the set of peripherals they offer. Each is designed for use in a different type of vehicle.

The TC1796 is optimized primarily for top-end vehicle classes with engines of six or more cylinders, and the TC1766 intended for four to six cylinder engines. The microcontrollers meet the very demanding performance, safety and reliability requirements of modern intelligent diesel and gas engine control systems and help to reduce fuel consumption and emissions so that vehicles comply with European and American emission regulations.

Infineon's microcontrollers will help vehicles achieve the standards set by the European ACEA (Automobile Manufacturers Association), which calls for manufacturers to achieve average carbon dioxide emissions per kilometer and vehicle to be cut from today's figure of approximately 170g to just 140g by 2008. The European Commission's Euro 5 proposal, which is intended to come into force from 2008, proposes a further reduction of 80 percent in particle emissions from diesel vehicles (from today's figure of 25 mg/km) and 20 percent in nitric oxide (from today's figure of 250 g/km).

Infineon believes that no other microcontroller currently on the market offers the same level of performance: “The TC1766 and TC1796 have significantly improved real time performance that no other existing microcontroller can match,” said Mr. Hegarty.  “System performance beats other current systems by a factor of ten or below, partly because of the increased CPU clock rates of the AUDO-NG products and partly because of their architecture, which incorporates fast bus systems for on-chip communication and intelligent peripheral units. Additional functions include fast analog/digital converters, which enable software knock detection without external filters, while new interfaces for efficient linking of units such as power modules enhance the product.”

Technical data for the AUDO-NG family The TC1766 was developed for use in cost-optimized engine and transmission control systems. It offers clock rates of up to 80 MHz and a powerful set of peripherals tailored to the requirements of standard powertrain applications, and comes with 1.5 Megabyte (MB) of embedded flash memory. The TC1796 operates at clock rates of up to 150 MHz and has 2 MB of embedded flash memory. It is almost twice as fast as the TC1766, has around 30 percent more memory and considerably more I/Os (input/output). It also offers an expanded peripheral set capable of satisfying the requirements of even the most complex engine control systems. Over the course of this year and next, additional products derived from these microcontrollers and providing optimized feature sets for the various different requirements regarding powertrain applications will be introduced into the AUDO-NG family.

The AUDO-NG family is based on Infineon's TriCore processor architecture, which combines the strengths of a microcontroller, a microprocessor and a digital signal processor (DSP) in a single core. All AUDO-NG products feature a multiprocessor interface (MultiLink Interface MLI) specially matched to the demands of powertrain applications. This interface allows multiple AUDO-NG microcontrollers to exchange data streams with each other and is a key enabler for future powertrain systems based on multiple microcontroller distributed intelligence platform. Further information about the AUDO-NG family of microcontrollers for automotive applications may be found at www.infineon.com/audo

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