Mar. 30, 2007 — Dongbu Electronics and Dongbu Hannong Chemicals, of Seoul, South Korea, announced the approval of their merger at a special shareholders’ meeting. The resultant bio-semiconductor enterprise, named Dongbu HiTek Co., Ltd., will formally launch May 1, 2007 to provide wafer foundry services and advanced chemicals and materials for agriculture, bioengineering, nanotechnology, and semiconductor processing.

Dongbu HiTek aims to achieve profitable growth while aggressively pursuing strategic growth initiatives. These initiatives call for rapidly establishing a stable base of operations for what the company calls “the synergistic fusion of cutting-edge technologies for bio and semiconductor fields.”

Dongbu HiTek has adopted a specialized management structure to maintain a strong customer focus and global competitiveness across three major business sectors: agricultural, material, and semiconductor.

The material sector will focus on new, high-tech materials such as those based on nanotechnology. By expanding its staff of nanotechnology experts and using advanced semiconductor processing techniques, the company expects soon to characterize new high-tech electronic materials in concert with its mid- to long-term roadmaps.

Through the semiconductor sector, Dongbu HiTek is committed to expanding its foundry business, especially in providing advanced wafer processing to implement specialty functions such as those required for CMOS image sensors.

The company says the Dongbu brand represents a longstanding commitment to improve quality of life through the use of cutting-edge technologies. The name’s lineage dates to 1953 and the founding of Dongbu Hannong Chemicals, which is considered by some to be Korea’s leading agrochemical company. Dongbu Electronics was founded in 1997 as “Korea’s first world class foundry to extend domestic and international semiconductor manufacturing.”