Faraday Expands Free Library Offerings for UMC's 130nm -0.13um- Logic Process.

Business Editors/Technology Writers

HSINCHU, Taiwan & MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 25, 2002

Long-term cooperative program will also develop a full portfolio of

comprehensive IP optimized for UMC's 90-nanometer process and beyond

Faraday Technology Corporation (5404.TW), a leader in silicon Intellectual Properties (IP), and UMC (NYSE: UMC), a world leading semiconductor foundry, today announced the introduction of free low power and "Fusion" cell libraries for UMC's 130-nanometer (0.13-micron) logic process. The low power cell libraries are available immediately while the Fusion libraries, which enable compatibility between high-performance cell libraries and low-power cell libraries, will be available in the coming months. The two companies have also formed a cooperative program to develop a comprehensive set of IP elements optimized for UMC's 90nm process to give customers a wide range of resources ready for integration into complex system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs.

Each of Faraday's new 130nm IP and cell libraries will fully comply with UMC's design rules that include models that support the industry's leading design tools, such as those from Synopsys, Cadence, and Avant!.

The availability of these resources help reduce design times, giving customers a competitive edge by minimizing time to tape-out. In addition to the IP and free library program, the long-term cooperative effort will focus on the development of a full range of IPs for both 130nm and 90nm generations.

"The cooperation with Faraday is designed to help customers reduce their time-to-market, allowing them to quickly adopt and design into the latest technology," said Dr. Fu Tai Liou, chief officer of worldwide sales and marketing for UMC. "We have a long working history with Faraday, and the introduction of Fusion libraries and IPs for our 130nm process demonstrates the productive relationship between our two companies. Now, SoC designers have a valuable design resource to maximize the performance potential and power consumption of their 130nm IC designs."

"Faraday's long-term relationship with UMC has distinguished our jointly developed process-dependent IPs as the industry's best choices," said H.P. Lin, president of Faraday. "We look forward to extending this relationship and to our continuing goal of providing an ever improving range of IPs and services to our growing base of clients."

For more information, please visit UMC's or Faraday's website, or directly contact Faraday's Roger Cheng (USA) at [phone].

About UMC

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a world-leading semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced process ICs for applications spanning every major sector of the semiconductor industry. UMC delivers the cutting-edge foundry technologies that enable sophisticated system-on-chip (SOC) designs, including 130nm (0.13um) copper/low k, embedded DRAM, and mixed signal/RFCMOS. In addition, UMC is a leader in 300mm manufacturing with three strategically located 300mm fabs to serve our global customer base: Fab 12A in Taiwan, UMCi in Singapore (completion in early 2002), and AU Pte. Ltd., a joint venture facility with AMD that is also located in Singapore (production in 2005). UMC employs over 8,500 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.

About Faraday Technology Corporation

Faraday Technology Corporation has been providing remarkable ASIC design services and valuable IPs (Intellectual Properties) for customers ranging from small start-ups to large multinational IC design houses and system houses. With more than 350 employees and annual revenue of 2.4 billion NT Dollars in 2001, Faraday is the largest organization of its type in the Asia-Pacific area. Headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Faraday has branch offices around the world, including the U.S.A., Japan and Europe. More information on Faraday is available at http://www.faraday.com.tw.