UMC Surpasses 15 Million Shipments for Customer 55nm SDDI Chips

55nm display driver ICs for high resolution smartphones achieving excellent production yields

Hsinchu, Taiwan, January 7, 2014 – United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303) ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that it has surpassed 15 million shipments for customer small display driver ICs (SDDI) manufactured using the foundry’s 55nm embedded high voltage (eHV) technology. The 55nm eHV process, utilized by customers to enable high-end, high-resolution smartphones, is being produced with excellent manufacturing yields in the foundry’s 300mm fabs in Taiwan and Singapore.

Yau Kae Sheu, senior director of UMC’s 12-inch Specialty Technology Development division, said, “UMC first taped-out customer 55nm SDDI products in late 2012. Achieving 15 million accumulated shipments and mature production yields in just one year is a significant milestone and highlights our engineering and manufacturing strength as a worldwide foundry specialty technology leader. With our 300mm Fab 12A in Tainan, Taiwan and Singapore’s 300mm Fab 12i both providing ample capacity support and established economies of scale, we look forward to bringing additional 55nm products to volume production as many new products are scheduled for the design-in stage in early 2014.”

With current mobile communication devices moving towards narrow bezel or no bezel displays, UMC pushes the SRAM cell size limitation with its 55nm eHV process to help customers strengthen their SDDI competitiveness and capitalize on this trend. The ultra-small SRAM bit cell has been improved from UMC’s first generation 0.404um² size to 0.379um² to help facilitate SDDI designs for smartphone panel resolutions exceeding that of Full-HD or WQXGA.

About UMC

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TWSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that provides advanced technology and manufacturing for applications spanning every major sector of the IC industry. UMC’s customer-driven foundry solutions allow chip designers to leverage the company’s leading-edge processes, which include 28nm poly-SiON and gate-last High-K/Metal Gate technology, mixed signal/RFCMOS, and a wide range of specialty technologies. Production is supported through 10 wafer manufacturing facilities that include two advanced 300mm fabs; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based Fab 12i. Fab 12A consists of Phases 1-4 which are in production for customer products down to 28nm. Construction is underway for Phases 5&6, with future plans for Phases 7&8. The company employs over 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.