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• Founded Februar 22, 1973 in Heitersheim
• Employs 300 world-wide
• A leading manufacturer of discrete semiconductor devices
• Headquarters in Heitersheim, Germany

In February 1973, three young engineers came up with the idea of a company/partnership that would produce and distribute electronic components. Paul Bauer, Ulrich Geisler, and Bernd Kelpe laid the cornerstone for what was to become Diotec Semiconductor AG. The company’s first production facility was a former printing house in the little town of Heitersheim in the very South-West of Germany. Fifty years later, Diotec has expanded well beyond its humble roots, employing 300 world-wide, boasting branches in Slovenia, India, and China, and a global distribution network with sales offices in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Diotec began in the seventies by focusing on the production of bridge rectifiers for its primary client ITT, with whom it had a special relationship, since many Diotec employees got their start in the industry there. The company hit a milestone in 1989 with the introduction of passivated rectifier chips, a revolutionary method that made it possible to conduct measurements directly on the non-planar chip, and thus to determine the quality of a chip before assembly. By the end of 1996, Heitersheim’s ChipFab was already using plasma technology, an ecological method that has all but eliminated chemical waste. This quick adoption of plasma technology, which had only been developed months before, has afforded Diotec a preeminant position internationally. Board chair Brigitte Kelpe refers to ecological production and sustainable working as "core values that we adhere to everywhere we are present."

From 2009 to 2011 Diotec was the market leader in Europe with its axial Schottky bypass diodes for solar modules. "We were at the right place at the right time," according to Dr. Saverio Barboni, chief marketing and sales officer. "The Trend toward solar modules had its start in Germany. Research conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg played a crucial role here. The solar market required something most companies lacked: particular bypass diodes for the PV-modules. We responded by developing an optimized technology specifically for the solar market, and soon became the market leader in this area. The flexibility that allows us to respond to customer needs and changing market conditions, combined with rapid delivery times, defines us today and sets us apart from the competition."

Since 2003 the management board consisting of Brigitte Kelpe, Dr. Saverio Barboni, and Jürgen Lämmlin has been at the helm of the company. They cite three innovations that account for the Diotec's resilience: its development of a measurement electronics that is at work in more than 100 of its worldwide systems for testing semiconductor components, an ERP software that allows all Diotec branches to be logistically coordinated, and the equipment it produces on site.

Today Diotec's line of products includes discrete semiconductors in industry-standard packages suitable for a wide variety of circuits in industrial, energy, mobility, lighting, and consumer applications. Exciting new developments help customers save space, cost, and raw materials. The SM4000, for example, is a new 4000 volt rectifier diode in an SMD package that is ideally suited for the input rectification of devices directly connected to the utility grid. These might include intelligent smart meters, LED street lights, and 4G/5G base stations, all of which need to be designed for high surge immunity that exceeds the capacity of most available components today. "We developed the SM4000 precisely to close this gap", says Udo Steinebrunner, product manager at Diotec. "The SM4000 further illustrates how flexibly we can react to the market."

The 50-year-anniversary will be marked by celebrations throughout the year, the kick-off being a reception in April at the new production site in Heitersheim's Tiergarten Strasse 15. Festivities for employees in all four locations will follow in the summer, as well as a distributors' meeting in fall.