Micronas and UMC form long-term foundry relationship (0214)

Micronas to utilize UMC manufacturing and technologies

Hsinchu, Taiwan and Freiburg, Germany, June 11th, 2002-Micronas (SWX: MASN, Neuer Market Frankfurt: MNSN), a leading supplier of cutting-edge IC solutions for consumer and automotive electronics, and United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303), a world-leading semiconductor foundry, today announced a five-year agreement where UMC will be the principal supplier of mixed-mode ICs for Micronas. Under the terms of the agreement, Micronas will have access to UMC's advanced technologies and foundry capacity. Micronas' DPS 9450 first pass silicon has been successfully presented in April and is now in qualification at UMC, and first engineering lots of the MDE 9500, a single-chip hybrid analog/digital TV decoder, are to be processed soon. Both products use UMC's 180-nm (0.18 micron) mixed-mode CMOS technology.

"The foundry agreement will put the existing partnership between UMC and Micronas on a solid base," comments Dr. Wolfgang Kalsbach, CEO of Micronas. "Future system solutions on our roadmap will profit from an early access to most advanced technologies."

"We are pleased to deepen our relationship with Micronas," said John Hsuan, vice chairman and CEO of UMC. "Micronas will be able to rely on UMC's investments in advanced technology and manufacturing capacity under this long-term supply agreement. Our foundry resources are sure to further strengthen their market position as a leader in providing application solutions in promising, high-growth semiconductor sectors."

About UMC

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a world-leading semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced process ICs for applications spanning every major sector of the semiconductor industry. UMC delivers the cutting-edge foundry technologies that enable sophisticated system-on-chip (SOC) designs, including 0.13-micron copper/low k, embedded DRAM, and mixed signal/RFCMOS. In addition, UMC is a leader in 300mm manufacturing with three strategically located 300mm fabs to serve our global customer base: Fab 12A in Taiwan, UMCi in Singapore (completion in 2002), and AU Pte. Ltd., a joint venture facility with AMD also located in Singapore (production in 2005). UMC employs over 8,500 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at www.umc.com.