United Microelectronics Corporation
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| United Microelectronics Corporation | |
|---|---|
| Type | Public (NYSE: UMC) |
| Founded | 1980 |
| Headquarters |  Hsinchu, Taiwan |
| Key people | Jackson Hu, Chairman and CEO |
| Industry | Semiconductor integrated circuitry |
| Revenue | ▲112.469 billion NT (2006) |
| Employees | 12,068 |
| Website | Main Corporate |
UMC (United Microelectronics Corporation) was founded as Taiwan's first semiconductor company in 1980 as a spin-off of the government-sponsored institute ITRI. Today, UMC is best known for its merchant foundry business, manufacturing integrated circuits wafers for fabless semiconductor companies. In this role, UMC is second only to competitor TSMC.
When Intel sued the UMC for patent infringement over technologies including microcode updates of processors and different parts of the processor working asynchronously, UMC could point to an awarded paper describing how these technologies had been used in the DataSAAB D23 already in 1972. Since Intel's patents were from 1978, that paper would prove prior art and imply that the patents never should had been granted at all. The case was later dropped.
[edit] Financials
UMC are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol of UMC, and on the Taiwan Stock Exchange as 2303. UMC has 10 manufacturing facilities world-wide, employing 10,500 people.
