For Immediate Release

UMC Completes Consolidation of Joint Ventures

Company Strengthens Position as a World Leader in Foundry Services- New Corporate Structure Already in Place

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and TAIPEI, Taiwan, January 10, 2000—UMC announced today that the consolidation of its Taiwan-based joint venture companies is complete. United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), United Integrated Circuits Corporation (UICC), United Silicon Incorporated (USIC), United Semiconductor Corporation (USC) and UTEK Semiconductor Corporation (UTEK) [2337/TW] are now merged into one publicly-traded entity, United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) [2303/TW].  Sales operations will change their name to UMC from UMC GROUP signifying the consolidation. The UMC affiliated company in Japan, NFI (Nippon Foundry Inc.), will operate within the new organizational structure of UMC, but will not be financially consolidated.

Peter Chang, CEO of Foundry Operations, will be responsible for overseeing all day-to-day management and operations of the company. Peter Chang noted, "We have been preparing for this day for the last six months, and have essentially completed our organizational restructuring. Our customers have already started to enjoy the benefits of this merger. These benefits include a better service interface for customers with production at multiple UMC fabs, better synergies in our technology development efforts, faster process deployment between fabs, as well as across-the-board improvements in efficiency. We are sure that this consolidation will prove a winning strategy for our customers and shareholders."

Jim Kupec, now in charge of Worldwide Marketing and Sales and President of UMC (USA) said, "We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our customers around the world. Under the new corporate structure, we offer a single interface to customers in all of the UMC fabs. This will offer immediate benefits to critical services such as our internet-enabled customer support systems. The new UMC structure will allow us to further strengthen our market position, making us even more competitive in the key areas of technology leadership, service quality, capacity growth and cost-efficiency."

In 2000, the consolidated UMC is expected to have capacity to produce 2.4 million wafers and expects capital expenditures of $2.4 billion. Two new 8-inch fabs will be ramping production in the first quarter, solidifying UMC's position as the world's leading foundry supplier of 8-inch wafer capacity.

To signify the consolidation, the company has launched a new logo. In addition, all UMC fabs have been renamed to reflect the single corporate structure. Under the new naming system, each fab name begins with a number indicating the wafer size it produces (5,6,8, or 12-inch). A letter that indicates the order in which the fab was constructed follows this number; for example, Fab 8B is an 8-inch fab and is the second 8-inch fab built by UMC. 

Name of UMC Fabs: