UMC Joins The IPL Alliance

MOUNTAN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Interoperable PDK Libraries (IPL) Alliance announced today that United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), a leading global semiconductor foundry in Taiwan, has joined the IPL Alliance, a standards organization whose charter is to establish an interoperable custom design ecosystem. The addition of UMC to the IPL Alliance member roster demonstrates the increasing semiconductor foundry support for interoperable process design kits (iPDKs).

The IPL Alliance, which includes major electronic design automation (EDA), semiconductor and foundry companies, released the industry's first open standard for iPDKs in 2010. The iPDK standard is based on the OpenAccess database and uses standard languages and a unified architecture to enable interoperability among all EDA vendor tools. Engineering teams need to develop only a single PDK for each process node which reduces development costs, shortens design cycles and provides designers with earlier access to advanced process technologies across multiple tools.

"UMC is pleased to join the IPL Alliance," said Shih Chin Lin, director of the IP development and Design Support division at UMC. "We serve a broad spectrum of customer design needs, and find that interoperability is consistently a top item among customers' PDK requests. By joining the IPL Alliance and adopting the iPDK standard, we are able to develop high quality, high-performance iPDKs with modern architectures. We will comprehensively support iPDK to cover all our process nodes, and are confident in its interoperability and performance to effectively serve our customers."

"The addition of UMC to our growing IPL Alliance member list demonstrates the momentum of the IPL Alliance and acceptance of the iPDK standard by the semiconductor foundries," said Jingwen Yuan, president of the IPL Alliance and strategic alliance manager at Synopsys. "We welcome the addition of UMC iPDKs to meet the increasing demand from customers." 

About UMCUMC (NYSE: UMC, TWSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that provides advanced technology and manufacturing for applications spanning every major sector of the IC industry. UMC's customer-driven foundry solutions allow chip designers to leverage the company's leading-edge processes, which include 28nm poly-SiON and gate-last High-K/Metal Gate technology, mixed signal/RFCMOS, and a wide range of specialty technologies. Production is supported through 10 wafer manufacturing facilities that include two advanced 300mm fabs; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based Fab 12i. Fab 12A consists of Phases 1-4 which are in production for customer products down to 28 nm. Construction is underway for Phases 5&6, with future plans for Phases 7&8. The company employs over 13,000 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com

About the IPL AllianceThe IPL Alliance is an industry standards organization established to develop an interoperable ecosystem for custom design by creating and promoting interoperable PDK standards. There are currently more than 30 semiconductor and EDA company members. For more information, please visit the IPL Alliance web site at http://www.IPLnow.com  or contact [e-mail]

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