First equipment for 40k per month capacity Fab 8F moves in ahead of schedule, in spite of recent earthquake in Taiwan HSINCHU, Taiwan, October 13, 1999 - UMC Group announced the move-in of the first pieces of production equipment at its new 8" fab, Fab 8F (formerly called UMC Fab 5). This is an important milestone that marks the completion of cleanroom construction at the fab located in the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park.

The equipment move-in is progressing ahead of schedule in anticipation of trial production in December. Fab 8F is the first of two new UMC Group fabs that will deliver volume production in the year 2000, making UMC Group the largest foundry supplier of 0.25-micron and 0.18-micron technology as it is shipping 1.2 million wafers with geometries of 0.25 micron and below. The second fab, Fab 8C (formerly called USC 2), will begin trial production at the end of Q1 2000. With the introduction of these two fabs, UMC Group will operate a total of seven modern 8" wafer fabs.

Chris Chi, senior vice president in charge of operations at Fab 8F, said, "We are moving equipment into Fab 8F two weeks ahead of our already accelerated schedule. This is a remarkable accomplishment considering the scale of the recent earthquake in Taiwan. The fact that none of the UMC Group fabs suffered any significant structural damage is a testimony to the quality of fab construction techniques in Taiwan. With this new fab, UMC Group will be better positioned to respond to the strong demand we are currently experiencing for our advanced process technologies."

Fab 8F is the newest of UMC Group's fleet of ultra-modern manufacturing facilities with total investment expected to reach US$1.5 billion. The fab has a design capacity of 40,000 wafers per month, and will exceed 20K monthly production by the end of 2000. Fab 8F will ramp production with UMC Group's state-of-the-art 0.18-micron logic process, and eventually support 0.15 and 0.13-micron process technology.

Jim Kupec, president of UMC Group (USA) said, "At UMC Group, we are committed to leading the foundry industry in capacity for leading-edge process technologies. Fab investment and technology development are the cornerstones of this strategy. Although UMC Group currently operates the largest fleet of leading-edge fabs in the semiconductor industry, we must continually invest in new facilities to enable the rapid growth of our customers. In particular, we are experiencing a strong demand for our 0.25-micron and 0.18-micron technologies. The introduction of volume production for these technologies at two new leading-edge fabs in 2000 is tremendous news for our foundry customers."