Leuven, Belgium, and Hsinchu, Taiwan, October 14, 2002 - IMEC, Europe's largest independent research center in the field of microelectronics, and UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303), a world-leading semiconductor foundry, today announced the signing of a foundry agreement between UMC and IMEC's Europractice IC Service. This agreement, which follows several years of close collaboration between UMC and Europractice, offers access to UMC's Silicon ShuttleR Multi Project Wafer (MPW) platform for prototyping and production services. This will be of particular interest to European-based organizations with low-volume manufacturing needs, such as universities, research centers, start-up companies, and companies with small niche markets.

Europractice IC Service, coordinated by IMEC, offers companies ASIC services to help them bring their products to market quickly and cost-effectively. Under the foundry agreement, Europractice's customers will have easy access to UMC's most advanced technologies for low-volume production, including 0.13 micron CMOS Logic and Mixed-Mode/RF, and low cost prototyping.

"Over the past years, Europractice has built up a tremendous expertise in place and route services, library, IP and Backend support. What's more, Europractice has become thoroughly familiar with UMC's most advanced technology processes and design rules. Its proven track record within UMC's technologies is impressive. Therefore, we strongly believe that Europractice, is ideally positioned to help European start-ups and small customers get first pass silicon," explained Felix Hu, General Manager of UMC Europe. "By minimizing the risk of error in the initial design and tape-out stages, and by offering guidance on how to reach stable production volumes, Europractice provides great benefits to start-ups and small companies in general."

Carl Das, Director of the Europractice IC Service, said, "We are extremely proud to be recognized as an official partner of UMC. The foundry agreement with UMC is the reward of a very fruitful cooperation begun over two years ago. In the past, smaller companies sometimes had difficulty getting continued access to foundries. But our successful collaboration with UMC, culminating in today's foundry agreement, shows that UMC provides a consistent solution for these smaller companies and is fully committed to help start-ups and fabless companies reach maturity."

The three-year agreement also leaves open the possibility for Europractice and UMC to extend their cooperation towards other advanced technologies in the future.

Europractice IC Service was set up in 1995 as part of a project by the European Commission to stimulate use by European industry and universities of advanced IC technologies. The Europractice service, run by a consortium headed by IMEC, offers industry and academia a fully supported, affordable route to IC design, prototyping, and small and medium volume production. Annually, about 500 designs are prototyped and 130 small volume projects are manufactured at leading IC manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.europractice.imec.be.

UMC IMEC is heading the consortium that runs the Europractice IC Service. IMEC was founded in 1984 and today is Europe's largest independent research center in the field of microelectronics, nanotechnology, enabling design methods and technologies for ICT systems. IMEC's activities concentrate on the design technology for integrated information and communication systems; silicon process technology; silicon technology and device integration; nanotechnology, microsystems, components and packaging; solar cells; and advanced training in microelectronics. IMEC is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has a staff of more than 1200 people including over 350 industrial residents and guest researchers. IMEC has a 0.13μm 200mm pilot line and is ISO9001 certified. Its revenue of more than €120M is derived from agreements and contracts with the Flemish government and companies, the EC, MEDEA+, the European Space Agency, equipment and material suppliers, and semiconductor and system-oriented companies worldwide. News from IMEC is located at www.imec.be.