TAIPEI, Taiwan- April 13, 2006 - SOCLE Technology Corp., a provider of SoC design services and platform solutions, and UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303), a leading global semiconductor company, today announced that SOCLE has validated in silicon its ARM926EJ-based SoC platform. The platform, which leverages UMC's L90SP standard cell libraries, I/O, cell libraries and PLL IP, has demonstrated it can operate at speeds as high as 400MHz.

"UMC has proven to be an excellent partner for SOCLE to realize in silicon our ARM926EJ-based SoC platform and implementation methodology in a 90nm process," said Eric Li, VP of the R&D division at SOCLE. "The readiness of the foundry's 90nm process technology, libraries and quality systems was a key factor in achieving this success. We are pleased to enter the 90nm generation with the delivery of this high performance SoC platform."

Ken Liou, director of the IP and Design Support division at UMC, said, "UMC's 90nm customer products encompass a broad range of applications including wired and wireless communications, advanced computing and high-end consumer products. As such, customers need a robust 90nm solution to help ease their path to silicon. Partnering with SOCLE for the successful validation of their platform on our 90nm process technology proves once again that UMC's design support resources in this area are effective for even the most sophisticated designs."

SOCLE's embedded Audio function (introduced on February 15, 2006), based on ARM's ARM926EJ CPU core and a built-in DSP function, provides an MP3/AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) audio playing format. When combined with SOCLE's MGEG4 SoC platform (SoC Multimedia Platform), it provides an optimal SoC platform for the portable media player. The solution can support MP3/WMA/OGG/DRM10 format and also the AAC audio compression format that can play high-quality DVD-Audio. The platform design supports the most popular SD/MMC/IDE interface and provides I2S interface and a comprehensive, flexible software/hardware platform environment, including all silicon-proven IPs from SOCLE, which help customers to develop competitive SoC custom-made products easily and quickly.

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced process ICs for applications spanning every major sector of the semiconductor industry. UMC delivers cutting-edge foundry technologies that enable sophisticated system-on-chip (SoC) designs, including volume production 90nm, industry-leading 65nm, and mixed signal/RFCMOS. UMC's 10 wafer manufacturing facilities include two advanced 300mm fabs; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based Fab 12i are both in volume production for a variety of customer products. The company employs approximately 12,000 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.

SOCLE Technology has dedicated itself to providing professional SoC design platform solutions and SoC design services. SOCLE's main R&D team is made up of employees from major high-tech companies around the globe and possesses broad experience in SoC design. SOCLE Technology's solid design teams, core technologies, and service scope not only covers major system providers and IC design companies in Taiwan, but also expands to those in the USA, Korea and China. SOCLE Technology offers world-leading design platform solutions and design services for IP and SoC. SOCLE Technology not only successfully breaks through the barrier for SoC design by adopting technologies of "SoC design implementation platform" and "SoC hardware design platform," but also significantly improves the integrating function of SoC. SOCLE Technology's mature design platform solutions and professional design services will substantially increase your silicon success and your competitiveness of SoC. SOCLE Technology can be found on the web at www.socle-tech.com

Note From UMC Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the statements in the foregoing announcement are forward looking within the meaning of the U.S. Federal Securities laws, including statements about future outsourcing, wafer capacity, technologies, business relationships and market conditions. Investors are cautioned that actual events and results could differ materially from these statements as a result of a variety of factors, including conditions in the overall semiconductor market and economy; acceptance and demand for products from UMC; and technological and development risks.