Melexis Collaborates with UMC to Deliver Chips for Automobile Applications

--Melexis, a leading Belgium-based manufacturer of automotive semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs), and UMC, a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that their successful collaboration has resulted in the delivery of chips using UMC’s 0.18um eFlash process and eFlash macro. The ICs are aimed at diversified automobile applications, including automotive sensors. Melexis and UMC have been cooperating on this product for several years, and the chip is currently being shipped to auto-module producers for assembly.

Rudi De Winter, CEO of Melexis: “Delivery of products with an embedded 0.18u flash processor is an important step for Melexis. It allows Melexis to fulfill the market needs for flexibility on integrated automotive systems on a chip.”

Henry Liu, senior vice president and head of the New Business Development Group at UMC, said, “Shipment of chips to Melexis' customers is a major milestone for everyone involved on this project, and is extremely rewarding due to the highly demanding and rigorous-quality demands that characterize the automobile industry.”

About Melexis

Melexis N.V. is a supplier of smart mixed-signal semiconductors. Our core experience derived from more than ten years supplying ICs to the automotive electronics market sustains the expansion into Application Specific Standard Products for industrial and consumer product applications. Melexis’ products include sensor ICs (Hall-effect, optical, infrared and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems or MEMS), communication ICs (low power RF, RFID and Automotive BUS), actuator ICs (for electric motors, solenoids and LEDs) and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Further information about Melexis can be found at http://www.melexis.com.

About UMC

UMC 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 13,000 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.