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Dr. Reinhard Ploss, Infineon

»If you take a breather – you have already lost!«

14. November 2018, 10:05 Uhr | Heinz Arnold

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Fortsetzung des Artikels von Teil 3

»We need people who can think in superordinate contexts«

Are you satisfied with the developments in electromobility?

Very satisfied - in fact overwhelmed. Electrification of cars is no longer in question. But along with it we face a number of challenges, not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of production capacity. If the share of hybrid and electric vehicles in global production were to increase to 20 percent, at least one Fab the size of our 300 mm production facility in Dresden would be needed to cover the additional semiconductor demand. There is even an on-going discussion within the EU to increase the share of hybrid-electric vehicles to 35 percent by 2030 via CO2 targets. Of course, we do not have a market share of 100 percent, but it is quite obvious that we have to invest heavily because of our position. If we don’t, we wouldn’t be able to keep pace with rising demand. We have a very good position and we want to maintain it.

Did Infineon increase its targets in May due to strong growth in the automotive market?

First and foremost yes, but not exclusively. Developments in the IoT, Industry 4.0 and AI sectors are all contributing to Infineon’s success. Power supply for AI is also a very important issue for us across all markets. We have a very good position in all these markets. Quite apart from that, AI is an enormous energy guzzler at the moment. If energy consumption is to be reduced, hardware is again a key factor – and we are specialized in this area; therefore we plan to offer corresponding systems for this. All in all, these developments made a decisive contribution to our decision to raise our growth and investment targets.

As you mentioned, much of this is located in PMM, such as sensor development and power supplies. Can PMM overtake the automotive sector?

Automotive will probably remain the fastest growing segment. With PMM, we are focusing on sensors, and power supplies also play a key role across all industries and markets. The system concept plays a key role here too. PMM is quite agile and is now developing very dynamically, which naturally makes me very happy.

How do you evaluate Germany’s position in the field of 5G?

In this context we must in the first place discuss digitization. 5G is an important element in this area, but it should not be overestimated. Whether the coverage will be 100 per cent or 80 per cent does not, in my opinion, play a decisive role. In the USA, infrastructure is not always optimal - due to the size of the country, but the USA is at the forefront of digitization. That shows that it is very important for 5G to become industry relevant. In my opinion, this has been progressing quite well in Germany so far – and of course very good coverage is helpful.

How can Infineon take advantage of this market?

Again it comes back to power supplies for new base stations. The previously mentioned system approach is also essential here in order to implement new concepts. That is why we develop our components in very close cooperation with our customers to meet their requirements.

You consider yourself an engineer, and as CTO you are closely associated with technical developments. Which new technology fascinates you most at the moment?

I don’t really find individual technologies so fascinating anymore – although there are many amazing developments out there. For me it’s the interplay of various techniques that is really exciting: How new chip design interacts with algorithms to become part of the adaptive systems in IoT. Each of these areas evolves and influences the other. It remains fascinating to observe the combination of these complex processes in the overall system. Concrete examples would be the power architectures for autonomous cars. And autonomous driving itself through the use of predictive AI. It includes the exploratory character I’ve been talking about: The teams have to explore new terrain and see what applications emerge and how these can be realized by bringing together different disciplines.

I am delighted that our teams are making such great progress in this area. In addition to technology, it is also exciting to see that we now need new expertise: The fusion of all these aspects is becoming increasingly important. We need people who can think in superordinate contexts.