As initially reported over the past week by outlets including Reuters and Bloomberg, Qimonda (QI), the Munich-based maker of DRAM that’s been on death watch for some time, announced yesterday that it has obtained a 605 million euro investment from a combination of investors–including parent Infineon Technologies (IFX), which holds a 77.5 percent stake in the company, and the Federal Republic of Germany. That amounts to roughly $845 million at current exchange rates. The company said the financing comes in the form of a 150 million euro loan from the German state of Saxony, a 100 million loan from “a leading financial institution in Portugal” and a 75 million euro loan from Infineon, plus 280 million euros from the German Republic, of which Qimonda is in “advanced negotiations” concerning a 150 million euro portion.

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It’s been a rough day for highly-leveraged semiconductor stocks.

In a research note this morning, Citigroup’s Glen Yeung provided a review of the credit liabilities of the chip companies Citi has under coverage. He notes that Advance Micro Devices (AMD), Spansion (SPSN), Infineon (IFX) and Qimonda (QI) all have debt coming due in the next 15 months. “In each instance, we point out that an already difficult financial position is compromised by the current credit market,” Yeung noted.

He also noted that AMD, MU and QI also rank among the chip companies with the worst interest coverage ratio.

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For the memory sector, it is a day to forget.

Last night, SanDisk (SNDK) reported an extremely nasty June quarter earnings report–the Street has responded with a host of downgrades. Meanwhile, this morning, Citigroup chip analyst Glen Yeung cut his ratings on Micron (MU), Qimonda (QI) and Spansion (SPSN) to Hold from Buy. The result is that all of the stocks in the beleaguered sector are getting pummeled. Again.

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You might want to take some money off the table in chip stocks. That’s the advice this morning from American Technology Research analyst Doug Freedman.

He notes that of the 19 companies he follows, 14 have posted gains of 5% to 25% since he upgraded the sector on April 4. (Just two of those stocks–Qimonda (QI) and Omnivision (OVTI)–have declined in the subsequent weeks.) And now, he says, they are due for a four- to six-week pause.

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