The annual research budget is totaling 1.25 billion Euros. Fraunhofer is organized in 58 research institutes in locations throughout Germany. The headquarter is based in Munich. The Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT) in Dresden is a research center of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in public-private partnership with Qimonda AG and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD).

The mission of the CNT is to develop innovative process solutions and new methods for analytics and metrology for a fast and efficient transfer directly into the manufacturing environment. The development is in cooperation with the 300mm wafer production fabs of AMD and Qimonda Dresden.  Given the short life cycles of products and fast decisions necessary within the semiconductor industry this platform gives the industrial partners the opportunity to provide cost-effective and innovative solutions for leading edge products.

CNT was established in May 2005, providing a clean-room space of approx.  800m�, as well as an infrastructure on industry standard. Focus areas are the development and research of innovative processing steps for the manufacturing of high-density memory components as well as high-performance transistors. In addition the CNT operates a PFA-lab (physical failure analysis) of about 60 m� in order to develop new analytical and metrology methods as well as to analyze and characterize the wafer processing.