Infineon is putting about 1.1 billion euros into Villach. The German chipmaker announced on October 27 that it will build what it describes as the world’s first high volume manufacturing facility for gallium nitride power semiconductors on 300 millimetre wafers, inside cleanrooms it already operates at the Austrian site, with investment running through 2034 and production scheduled to start by the end of 2027. The European Commission has approved 319 million euros of Austrian state aid for the project under the European Chips Act; the formal funding commitment from Austria’s economy ministry is still to come.
The wafer size is the economics. Moving from the industry standard 200mm to 300mm yields roughly 2.3 times as many chips per wafer, which is the route to bringing GaN power switches toward cost parity with conventional silicon devices. Infineon processed the first 300mm GaN wafers on an integrated pilot line at Villach in 2024; the new project converts that pilot capability into volume production, ramping with demand rather than to a fixed capacity target. The company employs about 4,800 people at Villach and roughly 5,800 across Austria, and did not state how many jobs the expansion adds.
Chief executive Jochen Hanebeck framed the investment as a sovereignty play as much as a capacity one, saying high volume 300mm manufacturing will make Infineon the first company in the world to bring gallium nitride power electronics into volume production and calling it a commitment to European technological sovereignty. The Commission said the aid will strengthen the EU’s position and autonomy in the semiconductor value chain.
The timing is not incidental. GaN devices switch and convert power, and the demand pulling them is the AI data center’s electrical backbone: in the two weeks before this announcement Infineon had unveiled an 800 volt direct current power architecture project with Nvidia and a deal to supply Enphase Energy with GaN switches for solid state transformer modules used in AI facilities. Analysts cited in the coverage expect the GaN power semiconductor market to reach about 3.1 billion dollars by 2031, growing at roughly 35 percent a year. Infineon reports its fourth quarter and full year results on November 10, with the Villach programme now the centrepiece of its power semiconductor story.