February 21, 2001–Taipei, Taiwan–Winbond Electronics Corp. recently announced that its annual revenue for 2000 was NT $49.158 billion, an increase of approximately 52% compared with NT $32.347 billion in 1999. Overall, the financial results for 2000 are the most profitable to-date in the company’s 14-year history.
Pretax profit was NT $9.492 billion, an increase of approximately 154% over NT $3.744 billion in 1999. After tax net profit is reported at NT $10.096 billion, compared with NT $4.446 billion in 1999. This reflects a substantial increase of approximately 127%, with the company also reporting NT $2.83 per share net profit.
The Board adopted a proposal recommending the distribution of an earning dividend of NT$2.05 per common share, of which NT$1.95 is stock dividend and NT$0.1 is cash dividend.
Winbond noted that the General IC Business Group attained a continuous and steady increase in profit due to successful launches of new products throughout 2000. The General IC Business Group experienced the most substantial increase in profits in its logic IC or non-flash memory IC product lines. In 2000, the Group also launched the world’s first USB TA single chip, featuring connectivity to the Internet via ISDN. In the coming year, Winbond plans to launch additional products and focus on new business opportunities for growing markets such as TFT-LCD driver ICs, DVD ICs, high-grade flash memory, information home appliances and Internet network application ICs.
The DRAM Business Group also reported excellent revenues and profit last year due to the company’s rapid and successful transition to a new level of production technology, enhanced yield improvement, and production capacity expansion. Overall, Winbond made substantial progress in new product development, production, and quality improvement. In May of last year, Winbond signed a joint technology development agreement with Toshiba and Fujitsu of Japan for the co-development of 0.13-micron DRAM technology. In November 2000, the company also announced the successful development of new capacitor technology. The milestone was of particular importance as it will be required for the successful implementation of future generations of sub-0.1-micron DRAM products. For the first time in the company’s short history, Winbond’s DRAM production technology was on par with the world’s leading global chip companies.
Looking forward, in the first quarter of 2001, Winbond plans to migrate all of its DRAM production technology to 0.175-micron for both Fabs 4 and 5. This will result in a large increase in the number of gross die per wafer. Additionally, due to successful deployment of new technology and new product launches, the total production capacity of Fab 4 and 5 will increase from current levels of 33,000 wafers a month to 36,000 wafers per month.
Winbond acknowledges there exist a great many uncertainties in semiconductor market at this time. It is particularly during this time of economic uncertainly that Winbond will continue to use both offensive and defensive strategies for successful business development, research, and the continued development of various new technologies and product lines. Winbond remains dedicated to maintaining superior results during both up and downturns in the semiconductor business.