HSINCHU, TAIWAN – Oct. 9, 2003 - UMC (NYSE: UMC), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that it has expanded its availability of ARM® core offerings with the licensing of the ARM926EJ™ core. The popular IP core brings the total number of ARM core-based processors that UMC is able to make available to its customers to five. UMC already offers, silicon verified, the ARM7TDMI® core, the ARM922T™ core, the ARM946E™ core, and the ARM1022E™ core through its Gold IP program.

Ken Liou, director of the Design Support division for UMC, commented, "UMC is committed to providing the widest range of design and IP resources available. These efforts have helped our customers maximize the performance potential of their designs, and we are pleased that they can now access the ARM926EJ core through UMC. We look forward to bringing their designs that incorporate ARM IP cores into production."

The ARM926EJ core features high performance and low-power consumption characteristics, making it ideally suited to support designs in the wireless, broadband, networking, storage, automotive, and infotainment markets.

“We consider UMC a valuable foundry Partner, and have worked closely with them to make available a number of ARM cores to their customers,” said Kevin Smith, Foundry Program manager at ARM. “UMC’s world’s leading customer base now has a much wider access to the ARM926EJ core through this licensing agreement.”

he ARM Foundry Program is an innovative business model that enables fabless semiconductor companies in emerging markets to gain access to ARM processor technology, for use in the design and manufacture of advanced system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. The Foundry Program builds a three-way partnership between ARM, an approved silicon foundry, and a fabless semiconductor company that accelerates the time-to-market for ARM core-based designs and enables OEMs without access to fabrication facilities, to work directly with an approved ARM semiconductor foundry. There are currently 62 Partners in the Foundry Program. ARM now offers the ARM7TDMI® core, the ARM922T™ core, the ARM946E™ core, the ARM1022E™ core, and now the ARM926EJ core, through its Foundry Program

ARM and ARM7TDMI are registered trademarks of ARM Limited. ARM926EJ, ARM922T, ARM946E, and ARM1022E are trademarks of ARM Limited. “ARM” is used to represent ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM and Nasdaq: ARMHY); its operating company ARM Limited; and the regional subsidiaries ARM INC; ARM KK; ARM Korea Ltd; ARM Taiwan; ARM France SAS; ARM Consulting (Shanghai) Co.Ltd.; and ARM Belgium N.V.