UMC Introduces Enhanced Prototyping Program for its Most Advanced Production Technologies

Shuttle ExpressTM will dramatically decrease overall cost and turnaround times for 0.13um and 90nm designs

HSINCHU, Taiwan, August 2, 2004 -- UMC (NYSE: UMC; TSE: 2303), a world leading semiconductor foundry, today introduced its Shuttle Express enhanced prototyping program, an extension of the foundry's Silicon ShuttleTM ¹ multi project test vehicle. Shuttle Express was created to help offset the inherent higher costs and longer turnaround times associated with silicon verification of system-on-chip (SOC) designs on advanced 0.13um and 90nm technology. This program offers UMC customers a new alternative for fast prototyping in addition to the normal Silicon Shuttle, enabling new 0.13um and 90nm designs that incorporate top 3 configurable metal layers to improve turnaround time by 60%~70% compared with conventional IC prototyping. UMC is the first foundry to offer this type of innovative service.

Ken Liou, director of the Design Support Division at UMC, said, "As part of UMC's overall foundry SOC solutions, UMC continues to introduce new programs that help today's SOC designers seamlessly bring their chips to production in the shortest time possible. We understand that cost and time-to-market issues are primary customer considerations when evaluating 90nm or 0.13um technologies for their new designs.

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¹ Silicon Shuttle is a program that enables customers the opportunity to verify their advanced designs and prototypes in silicon at a reduced cost. Via the Silicon Shuttle offering, the mask cost is split among multiple customers as they can purchases "seats" on the same mask.

Shuttle Express can significantly lower these barriers and therefore open doors to more customers that wish to realize the true advantages of state-of-the-art process technologies."

The Shuttle Express works with any 90nm or 0.13um customer product designed with configurable top 3 metal layers. While manufacturing the first silicon run, UMC also produces a number of base silicon wafers within the same wafer lot. After the first run, further logic and/or design changes can be performed utilizing just the top 3 configurable metal layers, avoiding the time and costs spent for the re-taping and mask tooling of the entire design. The processing time to achieve second cut silicon is therefore drastically reduced.

The first Shuttle Express will be provided in November 2004. Customers may contact their UMC sales representatives for inquiries and reservations.

About UMC

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced process ICs for applications spanning every major sector of the semiconductor industry. UMC delivers cutting-edge foundry technologies that enable sophisticated system-on-chip (SOC) designs, including 90nm copper, 0.13um copper, and mixed signal/RFCMOS. UMC is also a leader in 300mm manufacturing; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based UMCi are both in volume production for a variety of customer products. UMC employs over 10,500 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.

Shuttle Express and Silicon Shuttle are trademarks registered by UMC. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.