Winbond Electronics Corporation and Qimonda AG Announce New Agreement for Technology Transfer

Taipei News -- August 29, 2006 -- Winbond Electronics Corporation and Qimonda AG officially announced a joint agreement to transfer the 80nm DRAM process technology and the DRAM production capacity of 12-inch fab on August 29, 2006. According to this joint agreement, Winbond will adopt the 80nm DRAM process technology for its 12-fab at Central Taiwan Science Park and continuously provide DRAM production capacity to Qimonda in the future.

The 80nm process technology transfer agreement signed between Winbond and Qimonda is mainly for the needs of advanced technology of Memory Products, and this technology will play a crucial role for Winbond 12-inch fab. Winbond currently provides part of the production capacity for Qimonda, and the two companies share the profits as well. The mutually beneficial relationships of technology and production capacity cooperation agreement are a win-win situation for both sides.

By signing this agreement to transfer the 80nm process technology with Qimonda, Winbond expects to enter the volume production stage in the second quarter of 2007. For Winbond¥Œs Memory Business Group, this agreement does not only declare the deployment and ambition of its constant improvement for process technology, but also emphasize that the strategy guidelines of focusing on mobile Memory Product solutions have never been changed. Winbond will continuously use the current DRAM process technology as its core to develop Low Power DRAM, Pseudo SRAM, Flash, and other niche products to expand the Memory market share of mobile phone appliances field and other mobile memory electronic products.

The current production yield of Winbond¥Œs 12-inch fab is better than expectation, and the capacity is expected to reach 24,000 wafers per month by the end of this year. In addition, 90nm process technology is also used to produce products as originally planned.

Winbond collaboration with Qimonda for the 110nm and 90nm process technology transfer has reached a big success. After the recent 80nm process technology transfer, it is expected to consolidate the foundation for future high-level technology transfer cooperation between the two companies.