VEB Trace Metals Freiberg

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VEB Trace Metals Freiberg
legal form publicly-owned business
founding 1957
resolution 1990
Seat Freiberg , Germany
Number of employees 1768 (1989)
Branch Microelectronics , chemistry

The VEB trace metals Freiberg (1957-1990) was a structure directing companies in the silicon production for the GDR -Mikroelektronik. After the political change in the GDR, the company's business areas resulted in SolarWorld Freiberg, Siltronic Freiberg and FCM, among others .

history

founding

Due to the division of Germany after the Second World War , many flows of raw materials and goods in the former German Empire were gradually cut off. In order to alleviate the lack of rare but important elements for technical processes in the GDR economy, the “Research Institute for Non-Ferrous Metals” (FNE) was founded in Freiberg in 1949, from which the “VEB Trace Metals Freiberg” (SMF ), which was subordinated to the Association of Nationally Owned Enterprises for Non-Ferrous Metallurgy.

1957-1971

The company initially tried to develop storage facilities for rare elements and substances on GDR territory together with the Freiberg Mining Academy, but then increasingly turned to recycling processes to extract materials such as germanium , titanium, zirconium, gallium, arsenic, phosphorus and indium from waste products to win. The industry needed this for the steel alloy and the still young electronics construction. When Professor Werner Hartmann founded the " Workplace for Molecular Electronics Dresden " (AMD) in Dresden in 1961 , this marked the GDR's entry into microelectronics and silicon technologies, which was initially tentative. With this, the focus of VEB Trace Metals Freiberg shifted more and more to the East German monopoly manufacturer of wafer wafers based on silicon and germanium. The supplier for this was the Nünchritz chemical plant, 40 kilometers further north . Some of the crystal growing facilities were moved from West Germany, circumventing the embargo regulations. The company also gradually integrated the mechanical processes (sawing and polishing the discs). In the course of the reorientation towards electronic silicon, the number of employees almost increased tenfold (1957: 35 employees, 1964: 321 employees).

1971-1989

The change in power from Walter Ulbricht to Erich Honecker at the head of the SED in 1971 and the associated temporary departure from Ulbricht's technology and investment course did not have a lasting effect on VEB trace metals. Staffing levels, research expenditures and production output continued to increase significantly in the first half of the 1970s. In 1970, the management struck the operation of the Combine Semiconductor Plant Frankfurt (Oder) , but assigned it two years later to the Combine Microelectronics Erfurt . In the same year Freiberg also started the production of gallium arsenide wafers, this more expensive alternative semiconductor material was in particular demand from the military. In the course of the SED microelectronics resolutions in 1977, silicon production was also increased significantly in Freiberg, new production facilities went into operation in 1981 and - at a new location in the south of Freiberg - 1986. But even these expansions were not enough to satisfy the microelectronics industry's growing hunger for silicon in the GDR and in the entire Eastern Bloc. With 100 to 120 tons of polysilicon per year, the capacities in Freiberg reached their limits. Therefore, from 1986, following a central decision in Berlin, the construction of a new high-purity silicon plant in Dresden-Gittersee began. When it was completed in 1993, it was supposed to produce up to 7,500 tons of high-purity silicon. This project met with citizens' protests in Dresden because of the considerable environmental risks, but it was only discontinued when the GDR collapsed in 1989/90. In the meantime, the silicon operations in Freiberg have been expanded. In 1982 the workforce at VEB Trace Metals exceeded the 1000 limit, and by 1989 the workforce had grown to around 1,800.

Personnel strength VEB trace metals or FEW

year 1957 1968 1982 1989 1991 1995
Employee 35 504 1014 1768 586 290

Since 1990

At the time of the political change, VEB Trace Metals was technologically halfway up to date, including through illegal plant imports from the West, but it caused high production costs and did not achieve the yield and quality of its West German competitor Wacker Burghausen. In addition, almost all regular customers were lost when the GDR microelectronics industry was gradually shut down. On June 30, 1990, VEB Trace Metals was converted into the "Freiberg Elektronikwerkstoffe Produktions- und Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH" (FEW) and one day later it was subordinated to the Treuhandanstalt Berlin. Formally, it remained a subsidiary of "PTC Elektronik AG Erfurt", the successor to the Microelectronics Combine . In 1991, FEW took over the gallium arsenide plants from Wacker Burghausen under state mediation. In the following year the "Horst Plaschna Management GmbH" (HPMKG) bought the Freiberg company. Due to ongoing losses, the company was split up in the following years:

On August 1, 1994, Bayer took over the small solar division. "Bayer Solar Freiberg" was sold on to SolarWorld (Bonn) in 1999 . In the years that followed, SolarWorld invested around one billion euros in Freiberg and expanded the factory premises in the south of Freiberg into its central production location for solar cells, modules and other activities. In 2011 SolarWorld employed around 1,800 people in Freiberg.

In August 1995, the Israeli Federmann Group bought the gallium arsenide wafer production facility from FEW. Since then, this company has been trading as Freiberger Compound Materials GmbH (FCM). Since 2011, FCM has also been building a gallium nitride wafer production facility in Freiberg. By 2011 the workforce had grown to around 280 employees.

From January 1, 1996, Wacker Siltronic integrated FEW's core business, electronics silicon production. In the years that followed, Siltronic expanded the Freiberg factories into one of the largest wafer producers in Europe with around 1,100 employees (2011).

Importance of the company

Until 1989, VEB Trace Metalle Freiberg was by far the largest supplier of silicon and germanium wafers for GDR microelectronics and thus a structure-defining company in the East German economy. After the political turnaround, three structurally defining companies in the Dresden-Freiberg-Chemnitz technology triangle (“ Silicon Saxony ”) emerged from the operation, and in 2011 they employed a total of 3,100 people. An estimated additional 4,700 jobs at regional suppliers and customers depend on these lead companies.

Sources and literature

  • Heiko Weckbrodt: The Freiberg Story , accessed on November 12, 2011
  • Ulrich Prüger: From silver to silicon - 50 years of electronic materials from Freiberg . Freiberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-9808680-3-7 .
  • Manfred Richter and Gerhard Hagen: 50 years of silicon from Freiberg . In: Symposium of the “Silicon Saxony” association on September 7, 2011: “50 Years of Microelectronics” .
  • Silicon Saxony e. V. (Ed.): Silicon Saxony - The Story . Dresden 2006, ISBN 978-3-9808680-2-0 , pp. 47-51 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Ulrich Prüger: From Silver to Silicon - 50 Years of Electronic Materials from Freiberg , Freiberg 2007, (Prüger), p. 6ff
  2. Prüger, p. 7ff
  3. Heiko Weckbrodt: From pioneer to pariah - Werner Hartmann founded microelectronics in Dresden - and fell through a Stasi intrigue , last accessed on November 18, 2011
  4. Prüger, p. 10
  5. ^ Prüger, p. 8
  6. Silicon Saxony - The Story , Dresden 2006, p. 51
  7. Heiko Weckbrodt: Dresden 1989: Silicon plant becomes a test of strength between citizens and the state , last accessed on November 18, 2011
  8. ^ Prüger, p. 8 and 27
  9. ^ Manfred Richter and Gerhard Hagen: 50 years of silicon from Freiberg. In: Symposium of the "Silicon Saxony" association on September 7th, 2011: "50 Years of Microelectronics"
  10. Prüger, p. 19
  11. Silicon Saxony - the story , p. 176ff
  12. Heiko Weckbrodt: Solarworld has so far invested a billion in Freiberg , last accessed on November 18, 2011
  13. Heiko Weckbrodt: Center for Gallium Nitride Electronics planned in Saxony , last accessed on November 18, 2011
  14. Heiko Weckbrodt: Siltronic: The highest purity law in the Discworld , last accessed on November 18, 2011
  15. Heiko Weckbrodt: The Freiberg Story