UMC Enters Mass Production for 14nm Customer ICs

Chips based on UMC’s high performance 14nm FinFET process shipping in volume to key customers

Hsinchu, Taiwan, February 23, 2017 – United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC;TWSE: 2303) ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that it has entered mass production for customer ICs based on the company’s self-developed 14nm FinFET technology. The foundry is shipping 14nm wafers to its lead customers and has achieved industry-competitive yields for the highly advanced process, which is being utilized for pioneering new consumer electronic applications.

Po-Wen Yen, CEO of UMC said, “This 14nm volume production milestone is the culmination of UMC’s close collaboration with its customers, demonstrating the success of our collaborative approach to bringing leading-edge technologies to market. We will continue to refine this process and are working with other customers to bring the full performance, power and gate density benefits of 14nm FinFET to enable next generation silicon in areas such as networking, AI and various consumer products."

UMC’s 14nm FinFET technology performance is competitive with the semiconductor industry’s leading standards, featuring 55% higher speed and twice the gate density over 28nm process technology. The leading-edge 14nm process also consumes approximately 50% less power than 28nm. UMC is producing the 14nm customer ICs at the company’s Fab 12A in Tainan, Taiwan and expects to steadily ramp its 14nm manufacturing capacity according to customer demand.

About UMC

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TWSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that provides advanced IC production for applications spanning every major sector of the electronics industry. UMC’s robust foundry solutions enable chip designers to leverage the company’s sophisticated technology and manufacturing, which include high volume production 28nm gate-last High-K/Metal Gate technology, ultra-low power platform processes specifically engineered for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and the automotive industry’s highest-rated AEC-Q100 Grade-0 manufacturing capabilities for production of ICs found in cars. UMC’s 11 wafer fabs are strategically located throughout Asia and are able to produce over 500,000 wafers per month. The company employs nearly 19,000 people worldwide, with offices in Taiwan, China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.