Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), the leader in global electronic-design innovation, today announced that global semiconductor foundry UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) has joined the Power Forward Initiative (PFI). The Initiative, made up of more than 20 industry-leading electronics companies, was formed in May 2006 to advance the adoption of the Common Power Format (CPF) which captures essential design intent for power and links the design, implementation and verification domains.

"UMC has developed one of the industry's most comprehensive low-power solution packages to help our customers effectively design for low-power and power- management applications targeting the consumer, wireless and communication segments," said Patrick Lin, SoC chief architect at UMC. "In order to extend our expertise to support broader, industry-wide low-power efforts, we have joined the Power Forward Initiative and expect that the Common Power Format will streamline the entire low-power design process to help customers accelerate the migration to advanced process nodes."

"It is important for foundries and design software and IP providers to work closely together to address the issue of low-power design," said Jan Willis, senior vice president of Industry Alliances at Cadence. "We applaud UMC's leadership and commitment to invest their resources to support the work of the Power Forward Initiative. The continued momentum of the Initiative speaks to the importance of making low-power design easier at advanced technology nodes."

About Cadence
Cadence enables global electronic-design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today's integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence® software and hardware, methodologies, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. Cadence reported 2006 revenues of approximately $1.5 billion, and has approximately 5,200 employees. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.

About UMC
UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced system-on-chip (SoC) designs for applications spanning every major sector of the IC industry. UMC's SoC Solution Foundry strategy is based on the strength of the company's advanced technologies, which include production proven 90nm, 65nm, mixed signal/RFCMOS, and a wide range of specialty technologies. Production is supported through 10 wafer manufacturing facilities that include two advanced 300mm fabs; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based Fab 12i are both in volume production for a variety of customer products. The company employs approximately 12,000 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.