DesignCon, SANTA CLARA, Calif., February 1, 2000 - UMC today launched its ASICplus™ program that enables the leading semiconductor foundry to better serve systems companies that develop products for the communications and consumer space. UMC is offering enhanced ASIC services through the formation of partnership agreements with leading fabless ASIC partners that will manage the entire ASIC development process. Current ASICplus partners for UMC include: Faraday Technology, GlobalCAD, MacroTech Research, RealChip, and SSL.

"UMC understands that systems companies need a value-added alternative for ASIC development," stated Jim Kupec, president of UMC (USA) and head of worldwide marketing and sales. "To better serve these companies needs, we have formalized the strong relationships we've held with key fabless ASIC companies to provide full-service ASIC development capabilities. Systems companies can have access to the same advanced technologies and lower cost structure that until now have only been enjoyed by fabless semiconductor companies. We are providing systems companies with the cutting-edge technology they require, world class manufacturing, a vast portfolio of intellectual property (IP) and the design services they need to realize their SOC designs in silicon."

UMC's ASICplus program offers systems companies a flexible ASIC development solution that includes design handoff at either the specification, RTL, or netlist level, and the ability to embed customer specific IP along with IP kitted from the ASICplus partner. In the ASICplus program, UMC continues to focus on its core competencies of technology development and manufacturing efficiency, while the partners offer the full front-end and Backend services that many customers require to bring their designs into production. The program provides customers with the flexibility to choose support for any part of their chip development process, from design specification, determining which IP and libraries to utilize, through managing final test and packaging.

"The introduction of our ASICplus program is a ground-breaking event for the foundry industry," noted Edward Wan, vice president of worldwide field engineering for UMC. "Now, for the first time, a pure-play semiconductor foundry is teaming up with fabless ASIC companies to provide full ASIC service to multimillion dollar systems companies as well as small- and medium- sized fabless companies. With the launch of our program we have signed up top-caliber ASIC partners in order to offer ASIC development capabilities worldwide. When we started the ASICplus program, we sought out only those partners that will bring real value to our customers. Each partner specializes in a selected vertical market and provides system expertise and embedded software capabilities, as well as silicon-proven IP for the target market, and the ability to stitch them together in a SOC implementation."

"UMC is leading the fabless semiconductor industry by offering a whole new level of capability to satisfy the customer-specific, system-on-chip (SOC) needs of major systems companies," stated Craig Slayter, president and CEO of custom communications chip maker RealChip Inc. "In this effort, it is also providing RealChip's customers--leading networking systems companies, suppliers, and start-ups--with a radically new business model that provides lowest-risk, lowest-cost, and faster time-to-market solutions for developing network SoCs. By participating in UMC's ASICplus program, we can continue to provide our customers with the seamless SOC development solutions they require, via our end-to-end design and plug-and-play communication Reality Objects™, and now we can also give them access to UMC's advanced semiconductor process technologies. As a result, RealChip can deliver custom communications chips developed on UMC's 0.18 micron and 0.15um processes now, and smaller process geometries later this year."

Brian Long, CEO of SSL, said that SSL's Wireless Internet Device market is facing an integration challenge. "Delivering Bluetooth enabled PDAs and Smartphones requires access to high performance CMOS processes at very aggressive price-points," stated Long "The UMC ASICplus program puts SSL is in a position to integrate a roadmap of cost-effective system-level IP, from an RF-CMOS front-end through baseband and software protocols running on advanced RISC or DSP architectures."

Companies that are interested in UMC's ASICplus program should contact UMC's ASICplus Hotline at 408-523-7859 or see http://www.umc.com

ASICplus is a trademark of UMC. Reality Objects is a trademark of RealChip. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Faraday Technology, Faraday an ISO 9001 certified company, headquartered in Taiwan, with a full service ASIC engineering team in Santa Clara, Calif. is a leading ASIC vendor that provides ASIC Turnkey solutions with silicon proven IP, multi-million gate design experience and SOC methodology. To meet target market demands and offer customers global processing capabilities, Faraday is working closely with world leading semiconductor manufacturers and EDA vendors. Faraday also provides standard cores, I/Os, libraries and high-value IP targeted for analog, communication and microprocessors which includes the most advanced 0.25um and 0.18um processes. Faraday has successfully completed 700 designs over the last four years and has customers in mass production in the market of Multimedia, DSP, Image processing, GPSs, networking and embedded solutions. www.faraday-usa.com

GlobalCAD based in Santa Clara, CA, and Taiwan, delivers high performance and low cost SOC solutions for highly integrated embedded systems. It also provides proven synthesizable microprocessors, signal processors, peripheral and interface devices and standard cell libraries, as well as complete turnkey solutions to ASIC design companies. In addition, it develops solutions for standard multimedia and communications products. www.gcadinc.com

MacroTech Research, headquartered in Fremont, CA and with turnkey operations in Taiwan, offers comprehensive solutions that allow its customers to utilize its IC design expertise to co-develop products and IP for newly emerging and high-growth markets. The company, with years experience on 0.18um and 0.25um designs, also focus on multi-million gate SOC projects. The company's services include pure layout, ASIC development expertise, to foundry support at quasi COT pricing but Virtual ASIC?service quality. Target customers are in the consumer entertainment and programmable game console markets. www.macrotechnic.com

RealChip Inc. RealChip Inc. provides one-stop custom communications chips, specializing in network systems-on-chip (SOC). RealChip manages and takes responsibility for total chip design, production and delivery, using manufacturing, EDA, and intellectual property (IP) partnerships with leading suppliers. To rapidly and cost effectively deliver complex chips using advanced process technologies, RealChip has extensive expertise and methodology for integration of IP into SoCs and has specially "kitted" selected IP into communication "Reality Objects™ " for plug-and-play into customer's designs. RealChip is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. and has a design center in India. www.realchip.com

SSL, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and with its world sales headquarters in San Jose, CA, is a proven supplier of system-level intellectual property and SOCs for Internet Appliances in the wireless communications and consumer multimedia markets. The company provides a roadmap of mixed-signal and DSP IP, combined with tailored application software to enable complete system solutions www.sslinc.com