Germany’s Infineon Technologies signed a partnership with India’s CDIL Semiconductors on Thursday to manufacture chips for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems, marking Infineon’s first manufacturing collaboration in the country.
Under the agreement, Infineon will supply wafers to CDIL, which will handle packaging and assembly at its facility in Mohali, Punjab. The chips will target applications in electric two- and three-wheelers, solar inverters, and energy storage systems.
See also: EU Approves €920 Million German Grant for Infineon’s Dresden Semiconductor Plant
“We believe that India is still in the more early stage of an exponential curve, but we do believe that this market will accelerate significantly in the next few years because a lot of trends start to overlap … you have the electrification and batterification of everything,” said Richard Kuncic, Infineon’s senior vice president and general manager for power systems.
CDIL general manager Prithvideep Singh said the partnership will initially focus on producing MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors), which regulate electricity flow in electronic devices. Over time, CDIL plans to expand production to include IGBTs (insulated-gate bipolar transistors), used for high-voltage power control in EVs and renewable energy systems.
See also: Stellantis and Infineon Collaborate to Enhance Power Architecture for Next-Generation Vehicles
CDIL’s semiconductor packaging facility has an annual capacity of 600 million power semiconductor units, with room for future expansion based on demand, Singh said. The company has been working with silicon carbide for four years and has exported materials to markets including China, though the Infineon partnership will primarily serve domestic demand.
While Infineon has no immediate plans to set up wafer manufacturing in India, it intends to pursue additional collaborations in the country. “We are not starting five things just for the sake of it … We are doing one after another,” Kuncic said.
See also: Infineon Launches HybridPack Drive G2 Fusion Power Module for Electric Mobility