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Background

Founded in 1980, United Microelectronics Corporation is Taiwan’s first semiconductor company. It produces silicon wafers used in chips in every sector of the electronics industry as well as in telecom and energy.

Production is sold to integrated circuit (IC) companies as well as to hardware makers that outsource manufacturing.

Business Description

UMC has 11 manufacturing facilities and produces nearly 600,000 wafers per month (wpm) and has 9% of global market share. The company has plants and offices in Taiwan, US, Europe, Japan, China, Singapore, and Korea. The acquisition of Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Ltd, if approved by the regulator, should add capacity of 40,000 wpm in 12” wafers.

Customers are mainly fabless companies, which design, develop and outsource the manufacturing of hardware. UMC also sells to manufacturers who produce integrated circuits (IC), popularly known as chips.

Wafers are used across more or less all industries working with hardware and chips. They differ in quality and fit within the systems: 14nm for high performance and low power consumption; 28nm fits all major market applications; 40nm-65nm are mainly used in transistors; 90nm for density and power efficiency; and A+ technology (0.11-0.50um) used in flash card controllers, MP3, touch controllers, etc.

The 22nm wafers are to replace 28nm in many applications because of their efficiency and are expected to start volume production in 2H19.

Leadership

Stan Hung has been the Chairman of UMC since 2008. Moreover, he also holds the same position at Fortune Venture Capital Corporation, TLC Capital Co., Ltd., UMC New Business Investment Corporation and Faraday Technology Corporation (3035 TT). He earned a Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Tam Kang University, Taiwan.