United Microelectronics Corporation


United Microelectronics Corporation is a Taiwanese company based in Hsinchu, Taiwan. It was founded as Taiwan's first semiconductor company in 1980 as a spin-off of the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute.
UMC is best known for its semiconductor foundry business, manufacturing integrated circuits wafers for fabless semiconductor companies. In this role, UMC is ranked behind competitors TSMC and GlobalFoundries. It has three 300 mm fabs, one in Taiwan, one in Singapore, and one in China.
UMC is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange as . UMC has 11 manufacturing facilities worldwide, employing 18,500 people. In 2019, UMC bought Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor.

History

In the 1980s, UMC produced a popular clone of the Motorola 6845 CRT controller named the UM6845E.
In 1990s, UMC briefly marketed the U5 series microprocessors, an enhanced version of Intel 486, as well as chipset controllers for Socket 3 and Socket 5 microprocessors.
UMC was the first foundry to produce chips on 300 mm wafers, ship wafers using copper materials, to sell 65 nm ICs to customers, and to produce chips using 28 nm process technology. It was the first Taiwanese company to offer foundry services and the first semiconductor company to be listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1985. In 2000, UMC's Fab 12A became the first 300mm fab to enter production in Taiwan. In 2004, UMC's Fab 12i became the first 300mm fab in Singapore to enter production.
The United States Department of Justice indicted UMC over charges of economic espionage on September 27, 2018 and unsealed on November 1, 2018.

Fab list