Chartered Expands Design Services Alliance Program, Further Augments Total Product Solution Offering

Leading semiconductor foundry and global network of design service providers broaden access to turnkey design and manufacturing solutions for convergence-era SoC applications

MILPITAS, Calif. and SINGAPORE - March 26, 2003 - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq: CHRT and SGX-ST: Chartered), one of the world's top three silicon foundries, has expanded its design services alliance program, offering a broader range of chip design and manufacturing options to its worldwide customer base. Design services are an integral part of Chartered's total product solutions to facilitate the development of system-on-chip (SoC) devices manufactured with Chartered's leading-edge and mature semiconductor technologies.

Chartered and its program members share common goals that preserve the customer-owned tooling (COT) model for chip development and address both advanced and mainstream technology requirements for today's growing population of fabless, fab-lite and new start-up companies. Several design service providers have been inducted into Chartered's global network, including: Accent in Europe; QThink and Time To Market Inc. in the United States; and HOYA Corporation and Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. in Japan. Chartered is also engaged with Uleadtek, Inc. and other design firms based in Taiwan to service the high-growth Asia-Pacific region. These companies will showcase their design service offerings at Chartered's annual Technology Forums in Shanghai and Beijing on March 27th and 28th, respectively.

"Providing access to qualified design service options is an ongoing effort that supports our total product solutions strategy and our strong belief in freedom of choice," said Bruno Guilmart, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Chartered. "By offering foundry customers greater flexibility in both chip design and manufacturing outsourcing, we can help them deal with the complexity of today's demanding SoC applications, and also enable them to compete more effectively in their own markets, especially in challenging times from a resource perspective."

Turnkey Design Services
Chartered's expanded program is bolstered with new global alliances that complement the Company's existing network of design service providers. It also adds a formalized structure for technical certification of design expertise and turnkey solutions with Chartered's advanced and mature manufacturing processes.

Advanced design capabilities for individual blocks or entire SoCs are initially targeted for Chartered's 0.18-micron and 0.13-micron CMOS manufacturing platforms. Specific services include: design retargeting to replace proprietary intellectual property (IP) with open, portable third-party components, as well as services that take customer designs from netlist to GDSII. In combination with these services, Chartered's expanded network brings more focus on accelerating the time-to-market of ARM core-based chips targeted for manufacturing at Chartered. Many of Chartered's design services alliances are qualified members of the ARM Technology Access Program (ATAP), and they share a proven track record of successful integration work with ARM cores for major integrated device manufacturers and fabless semiconductor suppliers.

Services based on Chartered's mature 0.35 and 0.25-micron manufacturing platforms are also available as part of a turnkey solution. Seen as particularly important for cost-sensitive applications and emerging markets such as China, these leverage Chartered's "productized" off-the-shelf processes for optimizing product applications based on price/performance and reliability factors. For these proven platforms, Chartered's alliances build on the first-hand experience and success of design firms with chip designs already in silicon production, some as Chartered customers themselves.

Total Product Solutions
The design services alliance program supports ongoing productization efforts by Chartered to streamline the design-to-manufacturing process for high-performance, system-level designs. Chartered's "total product" solutions approach considers both the advanced and mature or specialized technology requirements of the multiple components that ultimately converge to form multi-function, multi-application, and highly connected electronics systems. In this way, Chartered's foundry customers have flexible access to proven design expertise, in addition to the third-party IP, electronic design automation (EDA) tools, and broad base of semiconductor manufacturing technologies needed for advanced integrated circuit (IC) and SoC design.

"We're excited to have such high-caliber design companies join our global network of EDA, IP and design service providers," said Richard Seet, deputy director of SOC marketing at Chartered. "Our joint certification efforts have been very successful, and ensure that we have a common understanding of the business objectives and technical qualifications for servicing foundry customers. As a result, we're very confident in our ability to deliver access to outsourced design solutions that have been pre-validated with Chartered's existing third-party library and IP offerings."

About Chartered
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, one of the world's top three silicon foundries, is forging a customized approach to outsourced semiconductor manufacturing by building lasting and collaborative partnerships with its customers. The Company provides flexible and cost-effective manufacturing solutions for customers, enabling the convergence of communications, computing and consumer markets. In Singapore, Chartered operates five fabrication facilities and has a sixth fab, which will be developed as a 300mm facility.

A company with both global presence and perspective, Chartered is traded on both the Nasdaq Stock Market (Nasdaq: CHRT) and on the Singapore Exchange (SGX-ST: CHARTERED). Chartered's 3,500 employees are based at 11 locations around the world. Information about Chartered can be found at www.charteredsemi.com.