UMC First Foundry in Taiwan to Receive ISO 15408-EAL6 Certification

Hsinchu, Taiwan, January 12, 2015 -- United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TSE: 2303) ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that its Fab 12A has obtained ISO 15408-EAL6 certification issued by the German Government’s Federal Office for IT Security (BSI), making UMC the first foundry in Taiwan to provide IC manufacturing services that comply with the ISO 15408 Common Criteria. UMC’s achievement of this significant milestone allows its customers applying for certification of their security products to save costly time and resources originally needed to satisfy the application requirements for the wafer manufacturing phase.

Common Criteria includes seven levels, ranging from EAL 1 to EAL 7, which are respectively classified based on the strictness of their requirements. UMC joins an elite group with its EAL6 certification, as less than 1% of all companies and products worldwide are certified EAL6 or above. UMC’s qualification of EAL6 Common Criteria level signifies its ability to provide rigorous security protection during the manufacturing process, which is required by most security products deployed in sensitive applications including sovereign documents, ePassports, eID cards, eBanking, and ePayment.

J H Shyu, senior vice president of Production and Operation Integration at UMC said, “We are pleased to become the first foundry in Taiwan to receive ISO 15408 security certification, which is an acknowledgement of our success in implementing rigorous protocols for the foundry manufacturing of security products. EAL6 certification will strengthen UMC’s business development in security products and allow our customers to accelerate time-to-market by shortening the time required for product security verification steps. In addition, in Q1 2015 we expect our Fab 12i in Singapore to follow Fab 12A’s site certification, further demonstrating UMC’s commitment on continuous customer service enhancement.”

About the ISO 15408 Common Criteria

ISO 15408 can be categorized into “Product Certification” and “Site Certification”. For Product Certification, every security product line has to pass verification to be certified. For Site Certification, the certification belongs to the company who owns that site. Passing Site Certification means that the site has attained a certain level of security standard so that all security products manufactured from that site during the effective period can be waived from product certification.

Common Criteria (CC) is a security evaluation standard for IT security products or systems that consolidates Europe and U.S. IT security standards into an international standard, led by German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and mutually recognized by member countries. It is the latest and most stringent security system evaluation standard in the world and is gradually replacing other regional standards. There are 14 product categories for Common Criteria Product Certification that must pass verification before their sales are allowed in Europe and the U.S.

About UMC

UMC (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 robust 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 28nm. Construction has been completed for Phases 5&6, with future plans for Phases 7&8. The company employs over 15,000 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, mainland China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.