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UMC Spins Off Three Fabless Design Houses
By Mark LaPedus
Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) has formally spun off its consumer, memory, and multimedia IC divisions into separate fabless IC design houses - all of which will use UMC as a sole wafer foundry. Ming-Kai Tsai, executive vice president of UMC, will serve as chairman of the companies. Novatek Inc., Hsinchu, Taiwan, the former consumer IC division, will develop 4-bit and 8-bit controllers, telephone-dialer ICs, and other products. Amic Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., the former memory IC division, will develop and sell DRAMs, SRAMs, ROM chips, and other memory products. Mediatek Inc., Hsinchu, the former multimedia IC operation, will develop and sell CD-ROM chips, DVD controllers, and other products. |
