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UMC SERVES SYSTEM DESIGN HOUSE REQUIREMENTS
VIA NEW ASICplus PROGRAM
Foundry Aligns with Key Fabless
ASIC Design Houses to Provide Turnkey ASIC Design through Production
Service
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 back-end 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.
ASIC Partner Overview Document
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 turn-key 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
Editorial Contacts:
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KJ Communications
Eileen Elam
(650) 917-1488
KjcomE@cs.com
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UMC
Alex Hinnawi
(886) 2-2700-6999 ext.
6958
Alex_Hinnawi@umc.com
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