Faraday Becomes UMC's Sole Service Agent to Provide 0.25-Micron Pure Logic Silicon Shuttle(R)

Hsinchu, Taiwan, April 25, 2002– Faraday Technology (TW: 5404) today announced that UMC (NYSE: UMC) would transfer the 0.25-micron pure logic Silicon Shuttle service to Faraday as UMC's sole coordination agent. The shuttle program provides customers the opportunity to verify their designs and prototypes in the early design stage, helping to minimize risks and costs.
 

In today's marketplace, product innovation and fast time to market are key success factors. However, as technology evolves and mask costs grow substantially, IC prototyping has become a difficult challenge. Through Faraday and UMC's Silicon Shuttle program, the mask cost is shared among several users by allowing each of them to purchase "seats" on the same mask. The program makes 0.25-micron pure logic process available to a broader range of customers, including fabless IC design houses, as well as IP and library developers.
 

Besides the advantage of cost-sharing, The Silicon Shuttle program leverages UMC's leading manufacturing cycle times, addressing customers' time-to-market demands. Shuttle passengers can benefit from this economical prototyping method, at shared cost and quick turnaround time, to achieve their goals.

About Faraday
Faraday Technology Corporation has been providing remarkable ASIC design services and valuable IPs (Intellectual Properties) for customers ranging from small start-ups to large multinational IC design houses and system houses. With more than 350 employees and annual revenue of 2.4 billion NT Dollars in 2001, Faraday is the largest organization of its type in the Asia-Pacific area. Headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Faraday has branch offices around the world, including the U.S.A., Japan and Europe. More information on Faraday is available at http://www.faraday.com.tw