Munich - Qimonda, the troubled German manufacturer of mass-market semiconductors, said Monday it would cut 3,000 jobs by next summer from its payroll. The maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips currently employs 14,000 people round the world. Qimonda is majority-owned by Infineon, the German chipmaker, which has failed to find a new owner for the troubled unit.
The "global restructuring and cost reduction programme" announced Monday includes the sale of Qimonda's 35.6-per-cent stake in Inotera Memories Inc to Micron Technology Inc of the United States.
Inotera is a Taiwan-based chip joint venture with Nanya Technology Corp. The sale will raise 400 million dollars, Qimonda said.
Both Qimonda and Infineon shares rose on the announcement.
Qimonda is to largely stop supplying unprofitable memory chips for personal computers and concentrate on chips for servers and graphics boards.
About half the jobs are to be scrapped at two German factory sites, in Dresden and Munich, with most of the rest to go at a US "regional centre" near Raleigh, North Carolina.
