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Technology Stocks : PRI Automation (PRIA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (1212)	5/9/2002 9:53:02 AM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1214

UMC Selects PRI'S Fab Planning System for New Generation Fabs 09:49 GMT-04:00 Thursday, May 09, 2002 BILLERICA, Mass., May 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- PRI Automation, Inc., (Nasdaq: PRIA, Toronto: PRJ), a global leader in semiconductor factory automation systems, software and services, announced today that UMC, a world leading semiconductor foundry, has adopted PRI's Leverage(R) for Operational Planning. The product was selected after extensive evaluation as having the features required for running UMC's new generation fabs. UMC and PRI are currently implementing the planner in UMC's most advanced 200mm fab. Leverage for Operational Planning uses a comprehensive model of fab products, flows, manufacturing capability and current and forecasted demand along with proprietary optimization technology to determine the proper plan of wafer starts, wafer outs and fab activity for periods ranging from eight hours to many years. By optimizing the use of bottleneck equipment and forcing line WIP balance, Leverage for Operational Planning can support reduced cycle times while improving equipment utilization and optimizing on-time delivery to customers. The system accounts for mid-inventories, product-specific processing and lot-specific machine selection, and produces a full range of reports. "In the foundry business, in order to remain highly competitive, it is imperative that we respond to customers quickly and keep our equipment utilization as high as possible, but with the best cycle time," stated Mr. Bell Chang, EOP Director for UMC. "PRI's Leverage for Operational Planning will help us achieve this. The high-speed optimization technology allows us to improve both our on-time delivery and cycle time." Leverage for Operational Planning is part of PRI's Leverage Suite of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) tools. It provides semiconductor fabs with the ability to respond rapidly to changes in customer demand or factory conditions. It is part of a suite of products that include the groundbreaking, real-time, full-fab scheduling product Leverage for Scheduling. Each product in the suite represent a breakthrough in technology and functionality designed to give today's fab a competitive advantage through quicker reaction to customer requests and changes in demand. Changes in required output at the order-entry level can be reflected in changed dispatching instructions on the fab floor in under 30 minutes. "Leverage for Operational Planning was built from the ground up to address the specific needs of semiconductor manufacturing," said Henry Watts, vice president of APS software for PRI Automation. "Using a combination of linear programming optimization and Repair-Based(R) technology we rapidly produce an optimized plan for starts and activity, tailored to the way in which the customer currently wants to run the fab. The combination of PRI's semiconductor focus and state-of-the-art optimization technology has resulted in a product that can substantially improve the performance of the fab."