Taipei, July 23, 2008 (CENS)--United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) recently put its 0.13-micron NOR Flash process into volume production, putting it closer to No.1 foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) in this field.

UMC is developing 65-nanometer and 90-nanometer embedded flash processes in accordance with customers` needs and plans to put 90-nm process into volume production some time in first quarter next year.

TSMC announced in August last year its 0.13-micron embedded flash process had passed verifications and entered into volume production. TSMC said early this year it would scale down investments in embedded flash memory technologies although it announced that it had left DRAM foundry market.

Industry watchers estimate UMC is only around two quarters behind TSMC in development of flash-memory process.

UMC`s 2007 annual report showed the company had completed development and verification of silicon intellectual property for making high-density, low-cost embedded memories compatible with logic process. The process shrinks integrated area of embedded flash memory to only one-half to one-third the size of embedded DRAM`s.

(by Ken Liu)