Artisan's Advantage Platform Selected by UMC for 90-Nanometer Technology; Companies Extend Relationship to Deliver Advanced IC Design Solution

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Apr 15, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Artisan Components, Inc., (Nasdaq:ARTI), a leading provider of physical intellectual property (IP), today announced that UMC (NYSE:UMC) has licensed Artisan's Advantage Platform for its 90-nanometer (nm) process technology. The agreement provides system on chip (SoC) designers with proven 90nm design platform targeted for UMC's latest process generation. The UMC-optimized Advantage Platform will be distributed, at no charge, to Artisan's large user community via Artisan's Access Library Program.

Artisan's Advantage Platform was developed specifically to address the performance, power and manufacturability challenges posed by nanometer process technologies and includes a comprehensive selection of IP. Incorporating new architectures and design techniques, Artisan's Advantage Platform dramatically increases speed and reduces power. The Artisan Advantage Memories offer a forty-percent speed increase with fifty-percent power reduction over previous architectures. Artisan's latest standard cell libraries offer an enhanced set of cells with features designed to increase performance, density and manufacturing yield. The Advantage Platform includes Artisan's extensive set of views and models providing integration with the industry's leading electronic design automation (EDA) tools.

"Artisan has made significant progress with their 90nm IP development as demonstrated by their new Advantage Platform," said Patrick T. Lin, chief SoC architect at UMC. "The availability of their IP for our 90nm process technology, manufactured on 200 and 300mm wafers, will provide our mutual customers with key design components to help them bring 90nm-based designs to market more quickly and with greater confidence: key factors in our commitment to design for manufacturability."

"Implementing our Advantage products on UMC's production-proven 90nm process brings our users a winning combination," said Neal Carney, vice president of marketing at Artisan. "Strengthening our relationship with one of the world's premier pure-play foundries will help drive solutions that meet high-volume, 90nm requirements."

The Advantage 90nm Platform includes memory generators for single-and dual-port SRAM, single and two-port register files, programmable diffusion ROM, as well as a complete set of general-purpose I/O cells in both in-line and staggered configurations. The library is architected and designed to meet design for manufacturability (DFM) criteria and is optimized and include an extensive set of EDA views and models to address 90nm design challenges. The offering also features the latest version of Artisan's Sage-X standard cell libraries, characterized for multiple transistor threshold voltages, enabling designers to achieve a range of performance and power requirements for their products in silicon.

Advantage Product Availability

Front-end views for Artisan's Advantage Memory Generators, Standard Cell and I/O Libraries are expected to be available for download by licensed customers at no charge from Artisan's website early in the third quarter of 2004. For more information about Artisan's UMC-based Advantage Platform, visit Artisan's website at www.artisan.com.

About UMC

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 90nm copper, 0.13um copper, embedded DRAM, and mixed signal/RFCMOS. UMC is also a leader in 300mm manufacturing; Fab 12A in Taiwan is currently in volume production for a variety of customer products, while Singapore-based UMCi has just entered volume production. 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 Artisan Components

Artisan Components, Inc. is a leading provider of physical intellectual property (IP) components for the design and manufacture of complex system-on-a-chip integrated circuits. Artisan's products include embedded memory, standard cell, input/output, analog and mixed-signal components, which are designed to achieve the best combination of performance, density, power and yield for a given manufacturing process. Artisan has licensed its IP components to over 1,200 companies involved in integrated circuit design. Artisan is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. More information about Artisan Components, including free library access, can be found at www.artisan.com.

Artisan Components and Artisan are registered trademarks and SAGE-X and Advantage are trademarks of Artisan Components, Inc.

All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE: Artisan Components, Inc.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the development and delivery of Advantage products by Artisan for UMC's 90nm process technology, the characteristics and performance of such products, the benefits to IC designers of using Artisan's Advantage products, the impact of the Artisan/UMC relationship on the market position of UMC and Artisan and the future of the Artisan/UMC relationship. Actual results may differ materially, and Artisan disclaims any obligation to update or correct this information. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including the technical and other difficulties and delays in the development, introduction, adoption and integration of Artisan's Advantage products for UMC's 90nm processes, the introduction of competitive products and solutions by Artisan's competitors, the demand for semiconductors and end user products that incorporate them, general economic conditions, competition, and other technical limitations. We refer you also to the documents that Artisan files from time-to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in particular the section entitled "Factors Affecting Future Operating Results" in Artisan's annual report on form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q. Artisan disclaims any obligation to update or correct the information contained in this press release as a result of financial, business or any other developments occurring after the date of the release.