UMC Forges Strategic Partnership with APM to Enhance MEMS Service Capabilities

United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC; TWSE: 2303) (“UMC”), a leading global semiconductor foundry, and dedicated MEMS foundry Asia Pacific Microsystems, Inc. (APM), today announced a collaboration to provide enhanced MEMS manufacturing services for mutual customers. UMC will leverage its 8” and 12” production capabilities with APM’s 6” fab and extensive MEMS know-how and prototyping experience to provide chip designers with a flexible and scalable end-to-end MEMS manufacturing solution.

“UMC has been highly successful in producing MEMS products for microphone, accelerometer and environmental sensor applications,” said S.C. Chien, senior vice president of Corporate Marketing division at UMC. “Partnering with APM allows us to broaden our MEMS addressable market to serve a wider range of customers targeting the growing Internet-of-Things (IoT) sector, such as system companies, module providers and designers of new MEMS chips. This alliance will also provide customers with greater working model flexibility, as APM can provide full turnkey service, MEMS prototyping and small volume manufacturing, while UMC delivers process porting capability for mainstream, volume production MEMS products that are ready to migrate to more productive and cost effective 8” manufacturing. Moreover, customers can combine their MEMS modules with UMC’s advanced 12” CMOS fab processes to introduce state-of-the-art MEMS features within an ASIC design.”

The emerging IoT era is driving the rapid growth of MEMS sensors and actuators within today’s smart devices. Different from logic IC chips, MEMS devices focus on using mechanical, electrical, and optical microstructures within microchips to facilitate a non-electrical interaction or response with the environment. MEMS used in today’s automotive, consumer electronics, data communication and biomedical industry face a common issue, in that design development and implementation is unexpectedly complicated and highly time-consuming. The joint effort of UMC and APM’s engineering teams will help shorten the initial MEMS development cycle and provide ample, scalable production capacity with competitive manufacturing efficiency to successfully and rapidly commercialize MEMS chips for foundry customers.

K.H. Jao, president of APM said, “APM brings over 15 years of MEMS experience in design, manufacturing and packaging to our partnership with UMC. Our flexible process capability and process module blocks address different customized chip requirements including sensor, actuator and microstructure, which enable customers to streamline their unique MEMS IC designs to market. We are excited to cooperate with UMC, and believe the synergies created not only by our two companies’ complementary services, but also by our close proximity in Hsinchu to UMC and numerous semiconductor suppliers, MEMS packaging & testing providers, will provide unmatched speed and supply chain advantages to MEMS customers worldwide.”

About APM
Founded in 2001, APM is one of the world’s leading pure-play MEMS foundry service providers. It is currently running 6-inch MEMS wafer fab composed of a broad range of MEMS fabrication capabilities at Hsinchu Science Park of Taiwan. APM serves many global customers who are designing state-of-art MEMS sensors and actuators, such as pressure and environmental sensors, inertia sensors, microphones, bio-sensors, light sensors and IR sensors. APM is also ISO 9001, ISO14001 and TS16949 certified. For more information: www.apmsinc.com