Taiwan is the manufacturing hub for most of the world’s biggest electronics and IT companies. Apart from providing land for manufacturing and labor for work, Taiwan has also given some big-name companies that are leaders of their respective fields. UMC, aka United Microelectronics Corporation, is one such Taiwanese company that has made its mark on the international level. In fact, it is the first semiconductor company in Taiwan.
UMC was founded in 1980, and its headquarter is based in Hsinchu Science Park Hsinchu, Taiwan. The founding of the company is a result of the spinning off of the government-sponsored organization, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).
About United Microelectronics Corporation
As said earlier UMC is a spin-off company of a state-owned institution. The company is the first semiconductor company in Taiwan, and it is known to manufacture integrated circuit wafers for other companies which produce fabless semiconductor. Though the company is based in Taiwan, it does most of its business outside the country, TSMC and GlobalFoundries being its major competitors and the automotive industry being its major area of service. The company operates through its four different fabs (300 mm), based in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and China, to provide better service to its customers.
UMC incorporates the latest technologies and innovative techniques to manufacture and process IC manufacturing. Logic/Mixed-Signal, embedded High-Voltage, embedded Non-Volatile-Memory, RFSOI, and BCD, etc., are some of the techniques used by the company. The company has over 12 fab productions and produces about 800,000 wafers every month.
UMC trades as a public company and has listed on New York Stock Exchange as well as Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company employs over 19,500 people worldwide, and as per 2019 records, the company made annual revenues worth US$5 billion.
The Founding and Growth
UMC became the first Taiwanese semiconductor company when it got spun off from the state-owned ITRI. It became the pioneer of the commercial semiconductor industry for Taiwan. In 1985, UMC listed on Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company ran on the IDM model for about fifteen years from its inception, and then in 1995, the company switched to the pure-play foundry model and started to manufacture its own products.
The next year, UMC spun off multiple design units, resulting in the formation of AMIC Technology, MediaTek, ITE Technology, Novatek, Faraday Technology, and Davicom. In 1999, the company established its first 12A, Taiwan’s first 12-inch wafer fab in Tainan Science Park. The next year, UMC became Taiwan’s first-ever semiconductor company to list on the New York Stock Exchange. The same year, the company started to manufacture the chips using copper process technology. It also brought the first 0.13-micron ICs to the industry.
In 2024, the Singapore-based wafer fab of the UMC started mass production, and in 2008, UMC listed some of its stocks on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). The company also made some acquisitions like Hejian Technology Wafer Fab of China in 2013 and Japan-based Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor in 2019. In 2015, UMC entered China by establishing a 12-inch wafer fab in Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, where the company started the 28 nm mass production in 2017.
Stan Hung: The Chairman at UMC
Stan Hung is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Strategy Officer in United Microelectronics Corporation. He joined the company in 1991 and became the chairman in 2008. Hung is a native of Taiwan. He completed his school education from a local high school and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Tamkang University, Taiwan.
Other than being the chairman of UMC, Hung also holds a prime position in some prominent companies. He has been appointed as the chairman of the board in Fortune Venture Capital Corp., TLC Capital Co., Ltd., and Faraday Technology Corporation. Hung also serves Triknight Capital Corporation and UnitedDS Semiconductor (Shandong) Co., Ltd. as the director.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.