Sunnyvale, Calif., October 10, 2001 - Flextronics Semiconductor, a business unit of Flextronics (NASDAQ: FLEX), a global provider of operational services focused on delivering design, engineering, manufacturing and logistic solutions to branded technology companies, today announced that it has reached an agreement to become a member of UMC's (NYSE: UMC) ASICplus?Program. As a member of the program, Flextronics Semiconductor will be able to offer start-up companies and established OEMs seamless access to UMC's most-advanced process technologies.

"Flextronics is leveraging UMC's fabs for the production of an ever expanding portfolio of silicon devices that include innovative intellectual property (IP) such as Forward Error Correction (FEC) at OC-48, OC-192 and OC768 speeds," stated Glen Wiley, vice president and general manager of Flextronics Semiconductor. "Access through the ASICplus program will also help us to deliver to market, in increasingly tight market windows, devices with high speed I/Os for emerging standards such as system packet interfaces, SPI-4, SPI-5, and those with proprietary interfaces for optimizating high speed networking applications."

The ASICplus program was established to enable UMC and its fabless ASIC partners to offer comprehensive, front-to-back ASIC development capabilities from design initiation, manufacturing and testing, to packaging. In particular, the ASICplus program provides its members with guaranteed access to UMC's leading-edge process technologies, including the 0.13 micron generation. Flextronics' commitment to join the program stems from a long-standing relationship between the two companies that began in 1997. Since that time, the two companies have collaborated to supply leading-edge technology to numerous customers worldwide.

Edward Wan, vice president of worldwide engineering at UMC said, "Flextronics Semiconductor continues to be an important partner for UMC. In the past, we worked together to provide silicon for telecom and datacom companies. The relationship expanded in early 2000 when Flextronics agreed to endorse UMC as its Preferred Foundry to its chip customers. This newest agreement more closely aligns Flextronics Semiconductor's advanced IC design services, UMC's leading edge process capability, and Flextronics' backend manufacturing flow, to provide small to large customers with the comprehensive SOC development services they are seeking."

Flextronics Semiconductor has become a leading-edge supplier of IC design services in addition to a System on a Chip (SOC) provider. Recent acquisitions such as the silicon library and IP business unit of Apsec Technology, Inc., and ASIC International, one of the largest backend IC design services providers in North America, have significantly expanded the group's services offering.

UMC's ASICplus program offers systems companies a complete ASIC development solution, through partnerships with premier fabless ASIC design companies, which 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, 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 through to determining which IP and libraries to utilize, and managing final testing and packaging.

Flextronics Semiconductor, a business unit of Flextronics, provides IC design services, System on Chip (SOC), application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design and manufacturing. Flextronics Semiconductor is the market leader in the conversion and retargeting of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and other ASICs through it Encore! And Encore!Plus program. Flextronics Semiconductor has design centers worldwide working with its customers to deliver system-level solutions in silicon that increase functionality and reliability while reducing cost. For more information, please visit the Flextronics Semiconductor Web site at www.flextronicsSemiconductor.com.