Infineon opened a new backend manufacturing site in Samut Prakan, near Bangkok, on 1 October — a plant where wafers are cut, assembled and tested into finished semiconductors rather than fabricated. The company said the first module represents an investment of more than €100 million ($113.57 million), while Thailand's Board of Investment put the overall project value at $1.4 billion.

The site sits on roughly 200,000 m² of land and starts with up to 30,000 m² of cleanroom space, expandable to 150,000 m². Built for growth, it can accommodate up to five modules, giving Bangkok the potential to become one of Infineon's largest backend locations. Infineon currently operates 13 manufacturing sites across the US, Europe, China and Southeast Asia.

Chief Operations Officer Alexander Gorski framed the move as both capacity and insurance: "If something is going wrong in the factory in Malaysia, we can support our customers through the factory in Thailand," he said, describing the site as part of a dual-sourcing strategy and a "strategic long-term investment" that benefits from proximity to markets such as China. He added that Infineon could potentially double its revenue using its existing cleanroom capacity.

Thailand, Southeast Asia's second-largest economy, is pushing hard to move up the semiconductor value chain. The Board of Investment said the country has drawn 910 billion baht ($27.12 billion) of semiconductor and advanced-electronics investment between 2023 and July 2026, and aims for $18 billion more by 2030, alongside plans to train nearly 85,000 skilled workers and more than 1,700 researchers. Global semiconductor sales are forecast to reach $1 trillion this year and $2 trillion by 2035, driven largely by AI data centres.

Sources