Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden (ZMD) was regarded as the heart of East Germany's microelectronics research in the 1980s as well as its most advanced integrated circuit manufacturer. Together with TU Dresden and VEB Spurenmetalle Freiberg, ZMD formed the foundation for Silicon Saxony, a cluster of microelectronics companies that came to include new fabs by Siemens (later Infineon Technologies) and AMD (later GlobalFoundries).
1961: Arbeitsstelle für Molekularelektronik (AME)
The company was founded in 1961 in Dresden under the leadership of Werner Hartmann as a research institute with the goal of developing technologies for manufacturing integrated circuits, following the seminal patents by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce two years earlier. Initially, it was named Arbeitsstelle für Molekularelektronik (Department of Molecular Electronics) and reported to the government's Office of Nuclear Research and Technology. In 1965 the institute was moved to the combine VVB Bauelemente und Vakuumtechnik which was responsible for manufacturing almost all electronic components