Hitachinaka City, Japan, December 4, 2000 - Trecenti Technologies, Inc. (Trecenti), the joint venture foundry established by IC technology leaders Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE : HIT) and United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC), set two major industry milestones with the successful production of its first ICs using 300-mm (12-inch) wafers. In addition to being the world's first 300-mm foundry wafers, they are also the world's first wafers fabricated in a 300-mm production facility. The functional 4M and 8M SRAM chips were produced on December 1,2000 using 0.18-um technology and demonstrated reasonable first-silicon yields. This milestone was achieved two months ahead of the original schedule.

"We have worked very hard to accomplish this milestone, and are extremely pleased to see the results of our efforts less than one year after Trecenti's establishment. This achievement clearly demonstrates the strength of our world class engineering team, as well as the commitment from Hitachi and UMC to make this joint venture successful, " said Toshio Nohara, president of Trecenti. "With the successful completion of this pilot run, we are positioned to offer volume production capacity well ahead of the original scheduled roadmap."

Trecenti was established on March 15 this year. The company was established as a dedicated wafer foundry with Hitachi owning a 60% equity stake and UMC holding 40%. The capacity will be shared equally between both companies."

We are glad to see that our many years of research and development to prepare for the transition to 300-mm wafers and single wafer processing are paying off with the success of Trecenti's pilot run. We are confident that Trecenti will set a new standard for competitiveness in the semiconductor industry by leveraging the benefits of 300-mm technology with the fast-cycle times and high yields associated with pure-play foundries like UMC, "said Tadashi Ishibashi, president and CEO of Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits for Hitachi.

300-mm wafers have over twice the usable area of industry-standard 200mm (8-inch) wafers, yielding roughly 2.5 times the die, significantly reducing manufacturing costs per chip. When the process becomes mature, 300mm manufacturing is expected to lower production costs by up to 30%.

"The strong combination of technology and manufacturing expertise from the Hitachi and UMC joint venture has helped us to establish a leadership position in the introduction of production for 300-mm wafers," said John Hsuan, chairman of UMC. "Being first in the industry to produce these larger diameter wafers in a production 300-mm facility will allow us to quickly bring the cost and efficiency benefits of this technology to our foundry customers from Japan and abroad."

Volume production at Trecenti is expected to begin in March 2001.