UMCi Continues Equipment Move-in at 300mm Fab

Total investment by the end of 2004 to reach $1.2 billion

Singapore, July 21, 2003 -- UMCi, the Singapore-based 300mm fab affiliate of world-leading semiconductor foundry UMC (NYSE: UMC), today announced the second phase of equipment move-in for its 300mm production facility. At its last board meeting, UMCi approved installation of front-end-of-line (FEOL) equipment to complement the existing back-end copper equipment. The existing equipment is already producing 300mm wafers with yields and defect densities that rival those of UMC's other 300mm facility, Fab 12A in Tainan, Taiwan. Cumulative investment in UMCi will reach $500 million by the end of 2003, with capacity reaching 10,000 300mm wafers per month and investment totaling $1.2 billion by the end of 2004.

UMCi, a state-of-the-art 90-nanometer 300mm facility, will feature an advanced automation scheme and single wafer processing approach for greatly enhanced manufacturing efficiency. It is UMC's second 300mm fab, after the company's Fab 12A, and has just entered volume production for customer products. Recently, UMCi reached a significant milestone with the production of its first several back-end copper processing lots. Significantly, the wafers demonstrated impressive good die yields, equivalent to those being achieved currently at UMC's other 300mm facility in Taiwan. Full installation of front-end-of-line (FEOL) equipment is expected by January of next year.

Jackson Hu, Chief Executive Officer for UMC, said, "The synergy created by advanced 300mm automated manufacturing coupled with 90-nanometer process technology will result in a tremendous leap of productivity and cost efficiency, more so than any previous such migration. In fact, some customers estimate that they will be able to achieve as many as five times as many die per wafer than was possible on 130-nanometer technology on 8-inch wafers. As a process technology and 300mm manufacturing leader, we look forward to bringing these benefits to our foundry customers as UMCi ramps to volume production. We are extremely proud of our role as the global pioneer of 90-nanometer production on 300mm wafers."

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, embedded DRAM, and mixed signal/RFCMOS. UMC is also a leader in 300mm manufacturing; Fab 12A in Taiwan is currently in volume production for a variety of customer products, while the Singapore-based UMCi joint venture with Infineon Technologies will begin pilot production later this year. 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 http://www.umc.com.

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