WILLISTON, Vt. (AP) – Infineon Technologies North America Corp. plans to expand its microchip design center in Vermont and add staff.

The company has had 18 months of rapid growth but expects to a period of stabilization once its latest expansion at the Williston Memory Design Center is complete.

President Robert LeFort said 30 people would be added to the Williston payroll.

LeFort was at the Williston center Friday to formally announce a $9 million expansion planned for 2004.

With the expansion, the design center will take over an additional 10,000 square feet in its building and up the employee count to 100.

“Once we get up to 100 people it’s a matter of how the market develops,” LeFort said. “That’s where we see critical mass and that’s where we see the projects need to get done in the midterm.”

The design center opened in May 2001 with 15 employees and will stand at 70 employees at the end of this year.

The additional engineers at Williston will help broaden the company’s product offerings, LeFort said.

The design center develops computer chips for cell phones and personal digital assistants, such as Palm Pilots. With the expansion, Williston will be the main center for development of memory in cell phones, PDAs and digital cameras.

After two years and one quarter of continuous losses, Infineon posted its first profitable quarter at the end of September. The company still lost money for the year, but is poised for profitability in 2004, LeFort said. For fiscal year 2003, which ended Sept. 30, Infineon lost $504 million compared to losses of $1.2 billion a year earlier. Revenues in 2003 were $7.16 billion, up 26 percent over the prior year.

The company is well positioned to take advantage of the current upturn in the semiconductor industry, LeFort said. Infineon has been investing during the years the industry was depressed.

A number of economic development officials were on hand for the official expansion announcement in Williston, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Vermont Secretary of Commerce and Community Development Kevin Dorn.

Both emphasized Vermont’s potential to attract high-tech industry like Infineon. Speaking to a gathering of Infineon employees, Leahy stressed the importance for companies to spread their operations in a number of locations for security reasons.

“It’s important and vital that companies like yours be dispersed over the world,” Leahy said. “It’s very important to the security of the United States.”

AP-ES-12-14-03 1352EST