UMC Introduces Its Strained Silicon Process with Wafers Built on AmberWave Technology

UMC partners with AmberWave to bring the speed enhancement of strained-silicon technology to its high performance CMOS foundry process


Kyoto, Japan, 2003 Symposium on VLSI Technology, June 12^th -- United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC) today introduced its strained silicon technology using wafers built on AmberWave’s substrate technology. In UMC’s strained silicon paper, presented at the 2003 VLSI symposium that runs from June 10^th – June 12^th, UMC’s strained silicon process exhibited a significant CMOS performance enhancement with over 20% current driving capability successfully demonstrated on a 70 nm strained silicon transistor with a speed enhancement of over 10% on a test circuit.

S.W. Sun, Vice President of UMC’s Central Research and Development Division said, "UMC’s strained silicon process offers an alternative path to realize performance improvements without aggressive gate length shrinkage. We believe that many of our foundry partners will benefit from this enabling technology in the future. We are also working with AmberWave to enhance p-channel transistor performance, improve strained layer defect density, and decrease substrate-costs associated with this strained silicon technology. "

"AmberWave is seeing the interest in strained silicon accelerate significantly as companies look for ways to address the transistor performance challenges associated with deep submicron technology." said Mitch Tyson, AmberWave’s Chief Executive Officer. “With strong technical know-how and an extensive IP portfolio, AmberWave can help customers benefit from our strained silicon technology as it moves towards commercial adoption. UMC is our early technology partner and we are excited to have collaborated with them to bring the benefits of the strained silicon technology to their foundry partners."

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 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.

About AmberWave Systems
AmberWave Systems is the semiconductor industry’s leading supplier of strained silicon technology building on more than 10 years of advanced research and development at MIT and AT&T Bell Laboratories. AmberWave helps its customers accelerate their development, reduce R&D costs, and minimize their risk by offering licenses and engineering services to wafer and device manufacturers. AmberWave’s headquarters and state of the art research and development facility is located in Salem, N.H. The company has additional sales and support offices in Silicon Valley, France, Japan and Singapore. More information about AmberWave can be found on the web at http://www.amberwave.com

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