The global semiconductor foundry United Microelectronics Corporation announced the opening of its UMC Korea office. UMC intends for this office to help expand regional business and provide local support to customers. In its official release, UMC said the proximity of its new office to its Korean customers will create working synergies that will help expedite engagement and support, thus shortening time-to-market for Korea-based customers designing and manufacturing on UMC process technologies.

Steve Wang, vice president in charge of Asia sales division at UMC said, "Korean companies have been deeply involved in the global IC supply chain as high-tech applications become increasingly mobile with more demands on power saving, portability, and performance. We see this as a great opportunity to partner with Korea based IC companies as they can take advantage of UMC’s expertise in power management, display driver, touch panel IC, and leading-edge process technologies as well as our flexible, collaborative foundry working model. We look forward to creating new opportunities with Korea-based customers with the opening of UMC’s new Korea office."

In addition to opening its Korea office, UMC was the first independent foundry to introduce a Korean language website.