TOKYO, Japan April 2, 2003 - Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. (TSE 6703), Japan's leading electronics manufacturing company, and world leading semiconductor foundry UMC (NYSE UMC) today celebrated UMC's production of 50,000 wafers and reaching 10,000 wafers per month production for Oki. The announcement was made during a high level meeting held at Oki's worldwide headquarters. The two companies announced a strategic foundry partnership in September 2002 (http://www.umc.com/english/news/20020904.asp) and have since rapidly ramped to high volume production for Oki's LSI products.

UMCJ President H.J. Wu explained, "The positive synergy created by the close working relationship between Oki and UMC has resulted in our two companies achieving this significant production milestone within a very short time frame. We look forward to further success between UMC and Oki as our companies continue to partner closely together for their LSI product development and manufacturing."

Hironori Kitabayashi, President of Silicon Manufacturing Company at Oki Electric, noted, "UMC played an instrumental role in helping us meet our production goals so quickly. As we are now receiving 10,000 wafers a month, we are well prepared to deliver to our customers the high-quality LSI chips needed for wireless communication applications. We also plan to expand the product lines that we outsource to UMC to also include our new 0.15µm ASICs"