HSINCHU, Taiwan and HYDERABAD, India --March 15, 2007 - UMC (NYSE: UMC; TSE: 2303), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced plans to open a customer support office in India's Hyderabad Technology Park. The new office will provide design support services for India-based customers as well as for UMC customers who operate design centers in the area. The proximity of UMC's new office to its customers in India will create working synergies that will help accelerate the design-in of their products into UMC's process technologies to shorten time-to-manufacturing.

Yeshwant Mehta, Vice President of Engineering, UMC India Design Support Center, said, "Over the last ten years, international IDMs and fabless design companies have established many design centers in India. Due to the cooperative nature of the foundry business, it is important for us to be close to our customers in order to provide immediate support during the important design-in phase. UMC's new office will offer our many customers operating in India easy access to our comprehensive design support resources to help streamline their SoC design process. India also represents a strategic geographic location for a new office due to its potential for becoming the next major market for the consumption of IC products."

India provides a rich-talent pool of highly-skilled engineers and solid infrastructure to support high-technology companies operating in the country. The India office enhances UMC's global customer design support network, which also includes offices in Japan, Taiwan, and Sunnyvale, California. The India office, expected to open in Q2 2007, will employ locally-hired engineers.

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced system-on-chip (SoC) designs for applications spanning every major sector of the IC industry. UMC's SoC Solution Foundry strategy is based on the strength of the company's advanced technologies, which include production proven 90nm, 65nm, mixed signal/RFCMOS, and a wide range of specialty technologies. Production is supported through 10 wafer manufacturing facilities that include two advanced 300mm fabs; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based Fab 12i are both in volume production for a variety of customer products. The company employs approximately 12,000 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.