UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

FORM 20-F

 

(Mark One)

o		Registration statement pursuant to Section 12(b) or 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

þ		Annual report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

o		Transition report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

o		Shell company report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

		Date of event requiring this shell company report

Commission file number 001-15128

 

United Microelectronics Corporation

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

Taiwan, Republic of China
(Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization)

No. 3 Li-Hsin Road II, Hsinchu Science Park,
Hsinchu City, Taiwan, Republic of China
(Address of Principal Executive Offices)

Peter Courture, +1 (650) 968-8855, peter@courture.com,
978 Highlands Circle, Los Altos, CA 94024, USA
(Name, Telephone, E-mail and/or Facsimile number and Address of Company Contact Person)

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Title of Each Class		Name of Each Exchange on which Registered
American Depositary Shares, as evidenced by American		New York Stock Exchange
Depositary Receipts, each representing 5 Common Shares

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
None
Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act:
None

Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the Issuer’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the annual report.

12,987,912,315 Common Shares of Registrant issued as of December 31, 2010 (including 457,934,400 treasury shares)

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes þ No o

If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Yes o No þ

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes þ No o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes o No o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, or a non-accelerated filer. See definition of “accelerated filer and large accelerated filer” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

Large accelerated filer þ		Accelerated filer o		Non-accelerated filer o

Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepare the financial statements included in this filing: U.S. GAAP o

International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board o Other þ

Indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow. Item 17 o Item 18 þ

If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934). Yes o No þ

 

 

UNITED MICROELECTRONICS CORPORATION
FORM 20-F ANNUAL REPORT
FISCAL YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2010

Table of Contents

		Page
SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION			1
PART I			3
ITEM 1. IDENTITY OF DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISERS			3
ITEM 2. OFFER STATISTICS AND EXPECTED TIMETABLE			3
ITEM 3. KEY INFORMATION			3
ITEM 4. INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY			24
ITEM 5. OPERATING AND FINANCIAL REVIEW AND PROSPECTS			44
ITEM 6. DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES			60
ITEM 7. MAJOR STOCKHOLDERS AND RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS			63
ITEM 8. FINANCIAL INFORMATION			64
ITEM 9. THE OFFER AND LISTING			65
ITEM 10. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION			67
ITEM 11. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK			85
ITEM 12. DESCRIPTION OF SECURITIES OTHER THAN EQUITY SECURITIES			88
PART II			89
ITEM 13. DEFAULTS, DIVIDEND ARREARAGES AND DELINQUENCIES			89
ITEM 14. MATERIAL MODIFICATIONS TO THE RIGHTS OF SECURITY HOLDERS AND USE OF PROCEEDS			89
ITEM 15. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES			89
ITEM 16A. AUDIT COMMITTEE FINANCIAL EXPERT			92
ITEM 16B. CODE OF ETHICS			92
ITEM 16C. PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES			92
ITEM 16D. EXEMPTIONS FROM THE LISTING STANDARDS FOR AUDIT COMMITTEES			92
ITEM 16E. PURCHASE OF EQUITY SECURITIES BY THE ISSUER AND AFFILIATED PURCHASERS			93
ITEM 16F. CHANGE IN REGISTRANT’S CERTIFYING ACCOUNTANT			93
ITEM 16G. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE			93
PART III			94
ITEM 17. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS			94
ITEM 18. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS			94
ITEM 19. EXHIBITS			95

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

The references to “United Microelectronics”, “we”, “us”, “our”, “our company” and “the Company” in this annual report refer to United Microelectronics Corporation and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless the context suggests otherwise. The references to “United Semiconductor”, “United Silicon”, “UTEK Semiconductor” and “United Integrated Circuits” are to United Semiconductor Corporation, United Silicon Incorporated, UTEK Semiconductor Corporation and United Integrated Circuits Corporation, respectively. The references to “Taiwan” and “R.O.C.” refer to Taiwan, Republic of China. The references to “shares” and “common shares” refer to our common shares, par value NT$10 per share, and “ADSs” refers to our American depositary shares, each representing five common shares. The ADSs are issued under the Deposit Agreement, dated as of October 21, 2009, as amended, supplemented or modified from time to time, among United Microelectronics, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and the holders and beneficial owners from time to time of American Depositary Receipts issued thereunder. “R.O.C. GAAP” means the generally accepted accounting principles in the Republic of China and “U.S. GAAP” means the generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. Any discrepancies in any table between totals and sums of the amounts listed are due to rounding.

We publish our financial statements in New Taiwan dollars, the lawful currency of the R.O.C. In this annual report, “NT$” and “NT dollars” mean New Taiwan dollars, “$”, “US$” and “U.S. dollars” mean United States dollars and “¥” means Japanese Yen.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS IN THIS ANNUAL REPORT MAY NOT BE REALIZED

Our disclosure and analysis in this annual report contain or incorporate by reference some forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements contain information regarding, among other things, our financial condition, future expansion plans and business strategy. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and projections about future events. You can identify these statements by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Although we believe that these expectations and projections are reasonable, such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions about us, including, among other things:

•

our dependence on frequent introduction of new product services and technologies based on the latest developments;

•

the intensely competitive semiconductor, communications, consumer electronics and PC industries and markets;

•

risks associated with our international business activities;

•

our dependence on key personnel;

•

general economic and political conditions, including those related to the semiconductor, communications, consumer electronics and PC industries;

•

natural disasters, such as earthquakes and droughts, which are beyond our control;

•

possible disruptions in commercial activities caused by natural and human-induced disasters and outbreaks of contagious diseases;

•

fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates;

•

additional disclosures we make in our previous and future Form 20-F annual reports and Form 6-K periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; and

•

those other risks identified in the “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors” section of this annual report.

The words “may”, “will”, “is/are likely to”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “intend”, “plan” and similar expressions are intended to identify a number of these forward-looking statements. We do not and will not undertake the obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this annual report whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events discussed in this annual report might not occur and our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements.

GLOSSARY

ASIC		Application Specific Integrated Circuit. A custom-designed integrated circuit that performs specific functions which would otherwise require a number of off-the-shelf integrated circuits to perform.
Cell		Semiconductor structure in an electrical state which can store a bit of information, mainly used as the building block of memory array.
Die		A piece of a semiconductor wafer containing the circuitry of an unpackaged single chip.
DRAM		Dynamic Random Access Memory. A type of volatile memory product that is used in electronic systems to store data and program instructions. It is the most common type of RAM and must be refreshed with electricity hundreds of times per second or else it will fade away.
FPGA		Field Programmable Gate Array. A programmable integrated circuit.
Integrated circuit		Entire electronic circuit built on a single piece of solid substrate and enclosed in a small package. The package is equipped with leads needed to electrically integrate the integrated circuit with a larger electronic system. Monolithic and hybrid integrated circuits are distinguished by the type of substrate used.
Interconnect		The conductive path made from copper or aluminum that is required to achieve connection from one circuit element to the other circuit elements within a circuit.
Mask		Photomask. A piece of glass on which an integrated circuit circuitry design is laid out.
Memory		A group of integrated circuits that a computer uses to store data and programs, such as ROM, RAM, DRAM and SRAM.
Micron		A unit of spatial measurement that is one-millionth of a meter.
Nanometer		A unit of spatial measurement that is one-billionth of a meter.
PC		Personal computer.
RAM		Random Access Memory. A type of volatile memory forming the main memory of a computer where applications and files are run.
ROM		Read-Only Memory. Memory that is programmed by the manufacturer and cannot be changed. Typically, ROM is used to provide start-up data when a computer is first turned on.
Scanner		A photolithography tool used in the production of semiconductor devices. This camera-like step-and-scan tool projects the image of a circuit from a master image onto a photosensitized silicon wafer.

Semiconductor		A material with electrical conducting properties in between those of metals and insulators. Essentially, semiconductors transmit electricity only under certain circumstances, such as when given a positive or negative electric charge. Therefore, a semiconductor’s ability to conduct can be turned on or off by manipulating those charges and this allows the semiconductor to act as an electric switch. The most common semiconductor material is silicon, used as the base of most semiconductor chips today because it is relatively inexpensive and easy to create.
SoC		System-on-Chip. A chip that incorporates functions currently performed by several chips on a cost-effective basis.
SOI		Silicon-On-Insulator. Silicon wafer consisting of a thin layer of oxide, on top of which semiconductor devices are built.
SRAM		Static Random Access Memory. A type of volatile memory product that is used in electronic systems to store data and program instructions. Unlike the more common DRAM, it does not need to be refreshed.
Transistor		Tri-terminal semiconductor device in which input signal (voltage or current depending on the type of transistor) controls output current. An individual circuit that can amplify or switch electric current. This is the building block of all integrated circuits.
Volatile memory		Memory products which lose their data content when the power supply is switched off.
Wafer		Thin, round, flat piece of silicon that is the base of most integrated circuits.
8-inch wafer equivalents		Standard unit describing the equivalent amount of 8-inch wafers produced after conversion, used to quantify levels of wafer production for purposes of comparison. Figures of 8-inch wafer equivalents are derived by converting the number of wafers of all dimensions (e.g., 6-inch, 8-inch and 12-inch) into their equivalent figures for 8-inch wafers. 100 6-inch wafers are equivalent to 56.25 8-inch wafers. 100 12-inch wafers are equivalent to 225 8-inch wafers.

PART I

ITEM 1.		IDENTITY OF DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISERS

Not applicable.

ITEM 2.		OFFER STATISTICS AND EXPECTED TIMETABLE

Not applicable.

ITEM 3.		KEY INFORMATION

A. Selected Financial Data

The selected balance sheet data as of December 31, 2009 and 2010 and the selected statements of income and cash flow data for the years ended December 31, 2008, 2009 and 2010 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this annual report. The selected balance sheet data as of December 31, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and the selected statements of income and cash flow data for the years ended December 31, 2006 and 2007 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements not included in this annual report.

Our financial statements have been prepared and presented in accordance with R.O.C. GAAP, which differs in many material respects from U.S. GAAP. For the discussion of these differences, see Note 34 to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this annual report. Some of the items in the statements of income, cash flow and balance sheets have been reconciled to U.S. GAAP and are set forth below. The summary financial data set forth below should be read in conjunction with “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects” and our financial statements and the notes to those statements included elsewhere in this annual report.

		Year Ended December 31,
		2006				2007				2008				2009				2010
		NT$				NT$				NT$				NT$				NT$				US$
		(in millions, except per share and per ADS data)
Consolidated Statement of Income Data:
R.O.C. GAAP
Net operating revenues			112,004				113,311				96,814				91,390				126,442				4,339
Cost of goods sold			(91,690	)			(90,072	)			(84,102	)			(75,975	)			(89,518	)			(3,072	)
Gross profit			20,314				23,239				12,712				15,415				36,924				1,267
Operating expenses:
Sales and marketing			(3,366	)			(4,069	)			(3,483	)			(2,800	)			(2,566	)			(88	)
General and administrative			(3,422	)			(3,724	)			(3,055	)			(2,724	)			(3,598	)			(123	)
Research and development			(9,419	)			(9,631	)			(8,274	)			(8,044	)			(8,740	)			(300	)
Total operating expenses			(16,207	)			(17,424	)			(14,812	)			(13,568	)			(14,904	)			(511	)
Operating income (loss)			4,107				5,815				(2,100	)			1,847				22,020				756
Net non-operating income (loss)			32,480				13,855				(19,886	)			(174	)			3,364				115
Income (Loss) before income tax and minority interests			36,587				19,670				(21,986	)			1,673				25,384				871
Income tax expense			(3,261	)			(2,809	)			(997	)			(651	)			(1,606	)			(55	)
Cumulative effect of changes in accounting principles (the net amount after deducted tax expense $0) (1)			(1,189	)			—				—				—				—				—
Extraordinary gain			—				—				—				649				68				2
Net income (loss)			32,137				16,861				(22,983	)			1,671				23,846				818
Attributable to:
the Company			32,619				16,962				(22,320	)			3,874				23,899				820
minority interests			(482	)			(101	)			(663	)			(2,203	)			(53	)			(2	)
Earnings (Losses) per share: (2)(3)
Basic			1.71				1.03				(1.70	)			0.31				1.91				0.07
Diluted (5)			1.66				1.00				(1.70	)			0.30				1.87				0.06
Shares used in earnings (losses) per share calculation: (3)
Basic			19,029				16,464				13,111				12,699				12,496				12,496
Diluted (5)			19,687				16,943				13,170				12,786				12,768				12,768
Earnings (Losses) per ADS: (3)
Basic			8.55				5.15				(8.50	)			1.55				9.55				0.35
Diluted (5)			8.30				5.00				(8.50	)			1.50				9.35				0.30
U.S. GAAP
Net operating revenues			112,004				113,311				96,814				91,390				126,442				4,339
Cost of goods sold			(93,288	)			(92,012	)			(85,923	)			(76,209	)			(89,929	)			(3,086	)
Operating income (loss)			2,200				(19,992	)			(22,431	)			(2,323	)			21,394				734
Net income (loss)			21,271				(9,398	)			(29,632	)			364				23,544				808
Attributable to:
the Company			21,797				(9,264	)			(28,955	)			2,572				23,616				810
noncontrolling interests			(526	)			(134	)			(677	)			(2,208	)			(72	)			(2	)
Other comprehensive income (loss) attributable to the Company			(8,194	)			(4,863	)			(25,239	)			24,540				(8,629	)			(296	)
Comprehensive income (loss) attributable to the Company			13,602				(14,127	)			(54,194	)			27,112				14,987				514
Earnings (Losses) per share: (2)(4)
Basic			1.42				(0.63	)			(2.25	)			0.21				1.91				0.07
Diluted (5)			1.37				(0.63	)			(2.25	)			0.20				1.90				0.07
Shares used in earnings (losses) per share calculation: (4)
Basic			15,350				14,599				12,870				12,538				12,335				12,335
Diluted (5)			15,891				14,599				12,870				12,560				12,399				12,399
Earnings (Losses) per ADS: (4)
Basic			7.10				(3.17	)			(11.25	)			1.03				9.57				0.33
Diluted (5)			6.87				(3.17	)			(11.25	)			1.02				9.52				0.33

		Year Ended December 31,
		2006				2007				2008				2009				2010
		NT$				NT$				NT$				NT$				NT$				US$
		(in millions, except per share and per ADS data)
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data:
R.O.C. GAAP
Current assets			132,344				81,111				68,888				102,363				93,769				3,218
Long-term investment			71,964				69,813				32,441				55,227				47,179				1,619
Property, plant and equipment			151,828				137,219				108,410				89,596				132,762				4,556
Total assets			367,653				299,558				216,399				253,638				280,887				9,639
Current liabilities			35,851				45,357				13,033				35,246				45,445				1,560
Long-term debt (excluding current portion)			30,383				7,495				8,130				767				6,799				233
Total liabilities			70,251				56,561				24,740				39,542				55,751				1,913
Stockholders’ equity			297,402				242,997				191,659				214,096				225,136				7,726
U.S. GAAP
Cash and cash equivalents			61,649				47,678				40,017				54,413				51,034				1,751
Working capital (6)			95,779				35,111				55,525				67,162				48,322				1,658
Total assets			401,628				310,614				214,990				252,705				281,387				9,657
Total liabilities			71,226				56,795				24,099				39,465				56,264				1,931
Stockholders’ equity			330,402				253,819				190,891				213,240				225,123				7,726

		Year Ended December 31,
		2006				2007				2008				2009				2010
		NT$				NT$				NT$				NT$				NT$				US$
		(in millions, except per share and per ADS data)
Other Consolidated Data:
R.O.C. GAAP
Cash flow:
Capital expenditure			33,240				28,299				11,515				17,618				61,290				2,103
Cash provided by operating activities			47,124				48,124				45,251				32,427				53,560				1,838
Cash used in investing activities			(16,595	)			(21,844	)			(11,423	)			(19,234	)			(57,843	)			(1,985	)
Cash provided by (used in) financing activities			(45,056	)			(72,694	)			(34,380	)			4,944				(10,174	)			(349	)
Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents			(14,774	)			(46,175	)			889				17,586				(14,882	)			(511	)
Gross profit margin			18.1	%			20.5	%			13.1	%			16.9	%			29.2	%			29.2	%
Operating profit (loss) margin			3.7	%			5.1	%			(2.2	)%			2.0	%			17.4	%			17.4	%
Net profit (loss) margin			29.1	%			15.0	%			(23.0	)%			4.2	%			18.9	%			18.9	%
Capacity utilization rate (on an actual basis)			79.5	%			81.9	%			70.7	%			69.4	%			93.7	%			93.7	%
Dividends declared per share (7)			0.5				0.7				1.2				—				0.5				0.02
U.S. GAAP
Cash flow:
Capital expenditure			33,240				28,299				11,515				17,618				61,290				2,103
Cash provided by operating activities			46,385				45,785				44,953				32,427				53,560				1,838
Cash provided by (used in) investing activities			(9,775	)			10,360				(19,973	)			(22,424	)			(46,341	)			(1,590	)
Cash provided by (used in) financing activities			(38,222	)			(70,354	)			(34,081	)			4,944				(10,174	)			(349	)
Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents			(1,859	)			(13,971	)			(7,661	)			14,396				(3,379	)			(116	)
Gross profit margin			16.7	%			18.8	%			11.3	%			16.6	%			28.9	%			28.9	%
Operating profit (loss) margin			2.0	%			(17.6	)%			(23.2	)%			(2.5	)%			16.9	%			16.9	%
Net profit (loss) margin			19.5	%			(8.2	)%			(29.9	)%			2.8	%			18.7	%			18.7	%

Currency Translations and Exchange Rates

In portions of this annual report, we have translated New Taiwan dollar amounts into U.S. dollars for the convenience of readers. The rate we used for the translations was NT$29.14 = US$1.00, which was the noon buying rate as certified for customs purposes by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on December 30, 2010. The translation does not mean that New Taiwan dollars could actually be converted into U.S. dollars at that rate. The following table shows the noon buying rates for New Taiwan dollars expressed in New Taiwan dollar per US$1.00. On April 22, 2011, the noon buying rate was NT$28.88 to US$1.00.

														At
		Average(1)				High				Low				Period-End
2006			32.51				33.31				31.28				32.59
2007			32.85				33.41				32.26				32.43
2008			31.52				33.58				29.99				32.76
2009			33.02				35.21				31.95				31.95
2010			31.50				32.43				29.14				29.14
October			30.81				31.30				30.42				30.60
November			30.32				30.52				30.12				30.47
December			29.90				30.37				29.14				29.14
2011 (through April 22)			29.25				29.76				28.78				28.88
January			29.11				29.36				28.98				29.03
February			29.28				29.76				28.78				29.74
March			29.49				29.63				29.35				29.40
April (through April 22)			29.04				29.31				28.85				28.88

B. Capitalization and Indebtedness

Not applicable.

C. Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds

Not applicable.

D. Risk Factors

Our business and operations are subject to various risks, many of which are beyond our control. If any of the risks described below actually occurs, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be seriously harmed.

Risks Related to Our Business and Financial Condition

A global recession and credit crisis may cause significant disruptions to our major customers’ businesses as well as to their ability to access sources of liquidity. Demand for our products has been, and will continue to be, adversely affected by overall macroeconomic conditions.

Although the worldwide economic outlook began to improve in 2009, there has still been concern that many large economies, such as those in North America and Europe, may experience another recession in the near future. Should recession or disruption in these markets occur, the result may reverberate, triggering global recession and/or financial crisis. A global recession and credit crisis could have significant negative impact on our businesses. Our key markets and our targeted markets, including the United States and China, as well as other national economies, may enter a period of economic contraction or significantly slower economic growth in a global recession. In particular, a global economic crisis, weak consumer confidence, diminished consumer and business spending, and asset depreciation may contribute to a significant slowdown in the market demand for semiconductors and semiconductor-based end-products, which may lead to a decrease in demand for our services. The combined effects of a global recession may have a material adverse impact on our results of operations, cash flows and financial condition, which may cause the price of our ADSs to decline.

In addition, many of our customers may experience difficulty in obtaining credit in a deteriorating economic environment, and even if they are able to obtain credit, the cost of such financing may increase and/or the time necessary to arrange such financing may be substantially prolonged. This lack of and increase in the cost of financing could have a material adverse effect on the financial condition of our customers. A protracted disruption in the ability of our customers to access sources of liquidity could cause serious disruptions to or an overall deterioration in their businesses, which could lead to the inability or failure on their part to meet their payment obligations to us.

The seasonality and cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry and periodic overcapacity make us particularly vulnerable to significant and sometimes prolonged economic downturns.

The semiconductor industry has historically been highly cyclical and, at various times, has experienced significant downturns. Since most of our customers operate in semiconductor-related industries, variations in order levels from our customers can result in volatility in our revenues and earnings. Because our business is, and will continue to be, largely dependent on the requirements of semiconductor companies for our services, downturns in the semiconductor industry will lead to reduced demand for our services. For example, the semiconductor industry experienced a slowdown that had begun in late 2008. This slowdown had, and similar slowdowns in the future may have, a material adverse effect on our revenues and business.

Our net operating revenues are also typically affected by seasonal variations in market conditions that contribute to the fluctuation of the average selling prices of semiconductor services and products. The seasonal sales trends for semiconductor services and products closely mirror those for consumer electronics, communication and computer sales. We generally experience seasonal lows in the demand for semiconductor services and products during the first half of the year, primarily as a result of inventory correction by our customers. Any change in the general seasonal variations, which we cannot anticipate, may result in materially adverse effects on our revenues, operations and businesses.

Our operating results fluctuate from quarter to quarter, which makes it difficult to predict our future performance.

Our revenues, expenses and results of operations have varied significantly in the past and may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter in the future due to a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Our business and operations have at times in the past been negatively affected by, and are expected to continue to be subject to the risk of, the following factors:

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the seasonality and cyclical nature of both the semiconductor industry and the markets served by our customers;

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our customers’ adjustments in their inventory;

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the loss of a key customer or the postponement of orders from a key customer;

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the rescheduling and cancellation of large orders;

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our ability to obtain equipment, raw materials, electricity, water and other required utilities on a timely and economic basis;

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outbreaks of contagious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian flu and swine flu;

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environmental events, such as fires and earthquakes, or industrial accidents; and

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technological changes.

Due to the factors noted above and other risks discussed in this section, many of which are beyond our control, you should not rely on quarter-to-quarter comparisons to predict our future performance. Unfavorable changes in any of the above factors may seriously harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, our operating results may be below the expectations of public market analysts and investors in some future periods. In this event, the price of the shares or ADSs may underperform or fall.

A decrease in demand for or selling prices of communication devices, consumer electronics and computer goods may decrease the demand for our services and reduce our margins.

Our customers generally use the semiconductors produced in our fabs in a wide variety of applications. We derive a significant percentage of our operating revenues from customers who use our manufacturing services to make semiconductors for communication devices, consumer electronics, PCs and other computers. The communications and PC markets experienced a sudden and substantial market downturn and inventory correction in part of 2005 and again beginning in 2008 due to a global recession. These downturns resulted in a reduced demand for our services and hence decreased our revenues and earnings. Any significant decrease in the demand for communication devices, consumer electronics, PCs or other computers may further decrease the demand for our services. In addition, if the average selling prices of communication devices, consumer electronics, PCs or other computers decline significantly, we will be pressured to further reduce our selling prices, which may reduce our revenues and, therefore, reduce our margins significantly. As demonstrated by downturns in demand for high technology products in the past, market conditions can change rapidly, without apparent warning or advance notice. In such instances, our customers will experience inventory buildup and/or difficulties in selling their products and, in turn, will reduce or cancel orders for wafers from us. The timing, severity and recovery of these downturns cannot be predicted accurately or at all. When they occur, our business, profitability and price of the shares and ADSs are likely to suffer.

Overcapacity in the semiconductor industry may reduce our revenues, earnings and margins.

The prices that we can charge our customers for our services are significantly related to the overall worldwide supply of integrated circuits and semiconductor products. The overall supply of semiconductor products is based in part on the capacity of other companies, which is outside of our control. For example, in light of the current market conditions, some companies, including our largest competitors, have announced plans to increase capacity expenditures significantly. We believe such plans, if carried out as planned, will increase the industry-wide capacity and are likely to result in overcapacity in the future. In periods of overcapacity, if we are unable to offset the adverse effects of overcapacity through, among other things, our technology and product mix, we may have to lower the prices we charge our customers for our services and/or we may have to operate at significantly less than full capacity. Such actions could reduce our margin and weaken our financial condition and results of operations. We cannot give any assurance that an increase in the demand for foundry services in the future will not lead to overcapacity in the near future, which could materially adversely affect our revenues, earnings and margins.

Any problem in the semiconductor outsourcing infrastructure can adversely affect our net operating revenues and profitability.

Many of our customers depend on third parties to provide mask tooling, assembly and test services. If these customers cannot timely obtain these services on reasonable terms, they may not order any foundry services from us. This may significantly reduce our net operating revenues and negatively affect our profitability.

We may be unable to implement new technology as it becomes available, which may result in our loss of customers and market share.

The semiconductor industry is developing rapidly and the related technology is constantly evolving. If we do not anticipate the technology evolution and rapidly adopt new and innovative technology, we may not be able to produce sufficiently advanced services at competitive prices. There is a risk that our competitors may adopt new technology before we do, resulting in our loss of market share. If we are unable to begin offering advanced services and processes on a competitive and timely basis, we may lose customers to our competitors providing similar technologies, which may cause our net operating revenues to decline unless we can replace lost customers with new customers.

We may be unable to provide leading technology to our customers if we lose the support of our technology partners.

Enhancing our manufacturing process technologies is critical to our ability to provide services for our customers. We intend to continue to advance our process technologies through internal research and development and alliances with other companies. Although we have an internal research and development team focused on developing new and improved semiconductor manufacturing process technologies, we are also dependent on some of our technology partners to advance certain process technology portfolios. In addition, we currently have patent cross-licensing agreements with several companies, including LSI Logic Corporation, or LSI, together with LSI’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Agere Systems Inc., and International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM. Some mask and equipment vendors also supply our technology development teams with masks and equipment needed to develop more advanced processing technologies. If we are unable to continue any of our joint development arrangements, patent cross-licensing agreements and other agreements, on mutually beneficial economic terms, if we re-evaluate the technological and economic benefits of such relationships, if we are unable to enter into new technology alliances and arrangements with other leading and specialty semiconductor companies, or if we fail to secure masks and equipment from our vendors in a timely manner sufficient to support our ongoing technology development, we may be unable to continue providing our customers with leading edge mass-producible process technologies and may, as a result, lose important customers, which would have a materially adverse effect on our businesses, results of operations and financial condition.

In addition, some of our customers rely upon third party vendors, or IP Vendors, for the intellectual property they embed into their designs. Although we work and collaborate with IP Vendors with respect to such matters, there can be no guarantee that we will be successful or that the vendors will deliver according to our requirements or the needs of our customers. Failures to meet the targets or to deliver on a timely basis could cause customers to cancel orders and/or shift capacity to other suppliers.

Our business may suffer if we cannot compete successfully in our industry.

The worldwide semiconductor foundry industry is highly competitive. We compete with dedicated foundry service providers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Shanghai) Corporation and Globalfoundries Inc., as well as the foundry operation services of some integrated device manufacturers, such as IBM, Intel, Samsung Electronics, or Samsung, and Toshiba Corporation, or Toshiba. Integrated device manufacturers principally manufacture and sell their own proprietary semiconductor products, but may also offer foundry services. Other competitors such as DongbuAnam Semiconductor, Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., X-FAB Semiconductors Foundries AG and Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. have initiated efforts to expand and develop substantial additional foundry capacity. New entrants and consolidations in the foundry business, such as the acquisition of Chartered Semiconductor by Globalfoundries in 2009, are likely to initiate a trend of competitive pricing and create potential overcapacity in legacy technology. Some of our competitors have greater access to capital and substantially greater production, research and development, marketing and other resources than we do. As a result, these companies may be able to compete more aggressively over a longer period of time than we can.

The principal elements of competition in the wafer foundry market include:

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technical competence;

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time-to-volume production and cycle time;

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time-to-market;

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research and development quality;

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available capacity;

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manufacturing yields;

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customer service;

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price;

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management expertise; and

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strategic alliances.

Our ability to compete successfully also depends on factors partially outside of our control, including product availability and industry and general economic trends. If we cannot compete successfully in our industry, our business may suffer.

We may not succeed in our efforts to acquire operations in China and Japan.

R.O.C. law prohibits Taiwan entities from investment in mainland China-based semiconductor manufacturers without government approval. In March 2005, the Chairman of Infoshine Technology Limited, or Infoshine, the holding company which owned 100% of Hejian Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., or Hejian, a semiconductor manufacturer owning an 8-inch fab in Suzhou, China, offered us 15% interest in Infoshine. Immediately after we received the offer, we filed an application with the Investment Commission of the R.O.C. MOEA for its executive guidance and disclosed our receipt of this offer to the investors and the public.

On April 29, 2009, our Board of Directors approved a proposed acquisition at their 19th session of the board meeting. Pursuant to the merger agreement, we proposed to pay the foreign owner of Infoshine stocks at the purchase price through a combination of issuance of securities in our company or in cash. In June 2009, our stockholders approved our proposed acquisition of Infoshine at our stockholders’ meeting. Upon consummation of the acquisition: (i) our company would be the surviving corporation; (ii) Infoshine would cease its corporate existence; (iii) all the assets and liabilities of Infoshine, along with its rights and obligations, would be assumed by our company in accordance with applicable laws; and (iv) with the previous acquisition of 15% interest in Infoshine, our company would obtain full ownership of Hejian. Consummation of the acquisition and the realization of the 15% interest are subject to the approval of the governmental authorities. In the past, the Taiwan government has not approved large-scale mergers with, or acquisitions of, semiconductor operations in China. Although the Taiwan government recently announced a more favorable view toward such transactions, there can be no guarantee that the government will approve our acquisition of Infoshine. Subsequent to our proposal, an investment regulation governing foreigners’ holdings of Taiwanese securities, along with restrictions from the amended Operating Rules of the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation for issuing new shares to acquire foreign unlisted companies, precluded the issuance of common shares or ADR as exclusive payment options. Furthermore, Hejian’s stockholders did not agree to accept cash-only payments. After considering contractual timeliness and changes of the overall environment after signing of the contract, the Board of Directors resolved at a meeting on November 18, 2010 to terminate the acquisition agreement and issued a termination notice in accordance with that agreement.

To continue searching for further integration, on March 16, 2011, our Board of Directors proposed an offer to the stockholders of Best Elite International Limited, a British Virgin Islands corporation, or Best Elite, which owns 100% of the shares of Infoshine, thereby to obtain additional 30% ownership of Hejian Technology by purchasing their shares. Based on 0.65x of latest book value, Series A-1 holders would be offered around US$0.261931 per share, and Series B and B-1 stockholders would be offered around US$0.576248 per share. The acquisition amount would total approximately US$87 million, assuming that an equal amount of stockholders from each series accepts this offer. However, there can be no assurance our efforts in this regard will succeed.

In October 2009, our board of directors decided to obtain the common stock, preemptive rights and stock acquisition rights in UMC Japan, or UMCJ, through a tender offer to be made by our 100% owned subsidiary, Alpha Wisdom Limited, or AWL. After the tender offer which was held from October 29, 2009 to December 14, 2009, 403,368 shares of UMCJ were purchased, and we and AWL together held 94.79% of UMCJ shares. UMCJ then delisted from the Jasdaq Securities Exchange in accordance with its listing rules on March 19, 2010.

Since not all of the outstanding equity securities of UMCJ were acquired in the tender offer, we initiated certain squeeze-out procedures as provided in the Japanese Companies Act. Pursuant to such procedures, as of the end of 2010, we, together with AWL, owned 100% of UMCJ. On June 7, 2010, we acquired 63,000 shares of UMCJ from AWL and other minority stockholders for approximately JPY782 million. In accordance with R.O.C. SFAS 25, the excess fair value of UMCJ’s identifiable net assets over the purchase price was allocated proportionately to UMCJ’s noncurrent assets. When the book value of those noncurrent assets acquired is reduced to zero, the remaining excess was recognized as an extraordinary gain. Accordingly, we recognized an extraordinary gain of NT$82 million from the UMCJ transaction. The acquisition of UMCJ from AWL was accounted for as an organization restructuring in accordance with ARDF Interpretation No. 95-081. The purchase price of JPY12,500 per share of the above transaction was determined based on AWL’s purchase price of UMCJ’s shares during the period from October 29 to December 14, 2009, at which time AWL considered the shares’ current trading value and future industry competition and operating strategies and obtained a fairness opinion from a security expert and a Certified Public Accountant to evaluate the reasonableness of the purchase price. We acquired 4,000 shares of UMCJ from AWL, our equity investee, for approximately JPY48 million. Furthermore, AWL intends to file for liquidation through a decision of its board of directors. One of the former stockholders of UMCJ has challenged the purchase or acquisition price and has filed an action under Japanese law. Such action does not “unwind” or disable the acquisition, but merely seeks additional compensation for the former stockholder’s shares. We intend to defend this claim and resist any additional payment. However, the only issue in the proceeding is the value to be paid; there is no material challenge to our ability to proceed with closing.

We compete for business on a global basis, and we believe it is necessary to establish and develop operations in multiple strategic geographic regions. We cannot assure you that the mergers and acquisitions we have undertaken will be closed successfully or that they will be closed on the terms we proposed. The failure to close these transactions or the failure to close them on terms as favorable as we have entered into and announced may impair our ability to realize the benefits we intend to achieve and have a material and adverse effect on our operations and business.

We may not be able to successfully integrate the operations to be acquired in Japan with our global activities.

Even after we successfully close the acquisition of UMCJ, we may not be able to integrate their operations with our current operations in accordance with the manners or the schedule or under the economic conditions we plan or target. In order to realize the benefits we expect from these transactions, we need to integrate the operations of the acquired facilities with our current facilities. Our ability to integrate the operations and facilities of UMCJ is dependent upon a number of factors, including:

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technical competence of UMCJ;

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management and engineering abilities of UMCJ;

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our ability to adapt UMCJ to our processes, practices and management approaches;

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our ability to optimize the process, equipment, capacity, customer and technology mix in our global operations;

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communication and coordination between different locations; and

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cultural compatibility.

Failure to successfully integrate the operations of UMCJ in the time frame we plan, or at all, will adversely affect the benefits we expect to enjoy and may have material adverse effects on our business and operations.

Our profit margin may substantially decline if we are unable to continuously improve our manufacturing yields, maintain high capacity utilization and optimize the technology mix of our silicon wafer production.

Our ability to maintain our profitability depends, in part, on our ability to:

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maintain our capacity utilization, that is, the wafer-out quantity of 8-inch wafer equivalents divided by estimated total 8- inch equivalent capacity in a specified period. The estimated capacity numbers may differ depending upon equipment delivery schedules, pace of migration to more advanced process technologies and other factors affecting production ramp-ups;

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maintain or improve our manufacturing yield, that is, the percentage of usable manufactured devices on a wafer; and

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optimize the technology mix of our production, that is, the relative number of wafers manufactured utilizing different process technologies.

Our manufacturing yields directly affect our ability to attract and retain customers, as well as the price of our services. Our capacity utilization affects our operating results because a large percentage of our operating costs are fixed. Our technology mix affects utilization of our equipment and process technologies, as well as the prices we can charge, either of which can affect our margins. If we are unable to continuously improve our manufacturing yields, maintain high capacity utilization or optimize the technology mix of our wafer production, our profit margin may substantially decline.

We may not be able to implement our planned growth if we are unable to obtain the financing necessary to fund the substantial capital expenditures we expect to incur.

Our business and the nature of our industry require us to make substantial capital expenditures leading to a high level of fixed costs. We expect to incur significant capital expenditures in connection with our growth plans. These capital expenditures will be made in advance of any additional sales to be generated by new or upgraded fabs as a result of these expenditures. Given the fixed-cost nature of our business, we have in the past incurred, and may in the future incur, operating losses if our revenues do not adequately offset our capital expenditures. Additionally, our actual expenditures may exceed our planned expenditures for a variety of reasons, including changes in:

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our growth plan;

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our process technology;

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market conditions;

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interest rates;

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exchange rate fluctuations; and

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prices of equipment.

We cannot assure you that additional financing will be available on satisfactory terms, if at all. If adequate funds are not available on satisfactory terms, we may be forced to curtail our expansion plans or delay the deployment of our services, which could result in a loss of customers and limit the growth of our business.

We depend on a small number of customers for a significant portion of our net operating revenues and a loss of some of these customers would result in the loss of a significant portion of our net operating revenues.

We have been largely dependent on a small number of customers for a substantial portion of our business. In 2010, our top ten customers accounted for 63.2% of our net operating revenues. We expect that we will continue to be dependent upon a relatively limited number of customers for a significant portion of our net operating revenues. We cannot assure you that our net operating revenues generated from these customers, individually or in the aggregate, will reach or exceed historical levels in any future period. Loss or cancellation of business from significant changes in scheduled deliveries to, or decreases in the prices of services sold to, any of these customers could significantly reduce our net operating revenues.

Our customers generally do not place purchase orders far in advance, which makes it difficult for us to predict our future revenues, adjust production costs and allocate capacity efficiently on a timely basis.

Our customers generally do not place purchase orders far in advance (usually two months before shipment). In addition, due to the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry, our customers’ purchase orders have varied significantly from period to period. As a result, we do not typically operate with any significant backlog, except in periods of extreme capacity shortage such as that experienced in late 2009 and early 2010. The lack of significant backlog and the unpredictable length and timing of semiconductor cycles make it difficult for us to forecast our revenues in future periods. Moreover, our expense levels are based in part on our expectations of future revenues and we may be unable to adjust costs in a timely manner to compensate for revenue shortfalls. We expect that in the future our net operating revenues in any quarter will continue to be substantially dependent upon purchase orders received in that quarter.

Our inability to obtain, preserve and defend intellectual property rights could harm our competitive position.

Our ability to compete successfully and achieve future growth will depend, in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary technology and to secure critical processing technology that we do not own at commercially reasonable terms. We cannot assure you that in the future we will be able to independently develop, or secure from any third party, the technology required for upgrading our production facilities or for meeting our customer needs. Our failure to successfully obtain such technology may seriously harm our competitive position.

Our ability to compete successfully also depends on our ability to operate without infringing on the proprietary rights of others. We have no means of knowing what patent applications have been filed in the United States or in certain other countries until months after they are filed. The semiconductor industry, because of the complexity of the technology used and the multitude of patents, copyrights and other overlapping intellectual property rights, is characterized by frequent litigation regarding patent, trade secret and other intellectual property rights. It is common for patent owners to assert their patents against semiconductor manufacturers. We have received from time to time communications from third parties asserting patents that cover certain of our technologies and alleging infringement of intellectual property rights of others, and we expect to continue to receive such communications in the future. See “Item 4. Information on the Company — B. Business Overview — Litigation” for more details of our ongoing litigation. In the event any third party was to make a valid claim against us or against our customers, we could be required to:

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seek to acquire licenses to the infringed technology which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all;

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discontinue using certain process technologies, which could cause us to stop manufacturing certain semiconductors;

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pay substantial monetary damages; and/or

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seek to develop non-infringing technologies, which may not be feasible.

Any one of these developments could place substantial financial and administrative burdens on us and hinder our business. Litigation, which could result in substantial costs to us and diversion of our resources, may also be necessary to enforce our patents or other intellectual property rights or to defend us or our customers against claimed infringement of the rights of others. If we fail to obtain necessary licenses or if litigation relating to patent infringement or other intellectual property matters occurs, it could hurt our reputation as a technology leader in our industry and prevent us from manufacturing particular products or applying particular technologies, which could reduce opportunities to generate revenues.

Two of our former executives were charged with criminal offenses and our company was fined for violations of the Act Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area in connection with our alleged involvement in the operation of Hejian.

Hejian, a semiconductor manufacturer in Suzhou, China, was set up in December 2001. Soon after the establishment of Hejian, various rumors circulated that Hejian was set up by us. We immediately denied these rumors and clarified that we did not provide any capital nor did we transfer any technology to Hejian.

Nevertheless, in early 2006, the Hsinchu District Prosecutor’s Office brought criminal charges in the Hsinchu District Court against our former Chairman, Robert H. C. Tsao and our former Vice Chairman, John Hsuan in connection with their alleged breach of fiduciary duties and certain alleged violations of the R.O.C. Commercial Accounting Act. Prior to such charges, both our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman resigned from their respective positions with our company. In October 2007, the Hsinchu District Court found our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman not guilty, but the Prosecutor’s office filed an appeal with the Taiwan High Court in November 2007. On December 31, 2008, the Taiwan High Court rejected the prosecutor’s appeal and sustained the Hsinchu District Court’s decision. On January 20, 2009, Taiwan High Prosecutor’s office filed a further appeal with the Supreme Court. On December 3, 2009, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of, and remanded the case to, the Taiwan High Court for a new trial on the prosecutor’s appeal filed in November 2007. On September 14, 2010, the Taiwan High Court again ruled in our favor, finding our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman not guilty. The Prosecutor’s Office did not file for an appeal within the time allowed and, therefore, this case is now closed in our favor.

The R.O.C. Financial Supervisory Commission, or the R.O.C. FSC, a regulatory authority that supervises securities, banking, futures, and insurance activities in Taiwan, also began their investigation into whether there had been any violation of R.O.C. securities laws by us relating to Hejian. In April 2005, our former Chairman was fined (1) NT$2.4 million by the R.O.C. FSC for our delay in making timely public disclosure (within two days) regarding the information relating to Hejian, which had been resolved in our board meeting on March 4, 2005, or the March 4 Resolution, and (2) NT$0.6 million for our failure to disclose the information regarding the assistance we had provided to Hejian. Our former Chairman’s appeal in relation to such fines was overruled in early 2006, and our former Chairman filed a lawsuit in the Taipei Administrative High Court to challenge the R.O.C. FSC fines. In December 2007, the Taipei Administrative High Court revoked the R.O.C. FSC’s decision and ruled in favor of our former Chairman. In January 2008, the R.O.C. FSC filed an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court. On November 5, 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court denied the R.O.C. FSC’s appeal. This case is now closed in favor of our former Chairman.

In connection with the March 4 Resolution, our company was also fined in the amount of NT$30,000 by the Taiwan Stock Exchange for an alleged delay in making public disclosure. After our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman were indicted by the prosecutor, our company was found by the R.O.C. Ministry of Economic Affairs, or the R.O.C. MOEA, to be in violation of the Act Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area and fined in the amount of NT$5 million for an alleged illegal investment in Hejian. Our appeal to the R.O.C. MOEA in relation to such fines was denied in late 2006. We filed an administrative lawsuit in December 2006 with the Taipei Administrative High Court to challenge the R.O.C. MOEA fine. In July 2007, the Taipei Administrative High Court revoked the R.O.C. MOEA’s decision and ruled in our favor. In August 2007, the R.O.C. MOEA filed an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court. On December 10, 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court reversed the decision of, and remanded the case to, the Taipei High Administrative Court for a new trial on our administrative lawsuit. On July 21, 2010, the Taipei High Court ruled against us and we appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court on August 23, 2010. This matter remains open, with the case now pending in the Supreme Administrative Court.

Our operations and business will suffer if we lose one or more of our key personnel without adequate replacements.

Our future success to a large extent depends on the continued service of our Chairman and key executive officers. We do not carry key person insurance on any of our personnel. If we lose the services of any of our Chairman or key executive officers, it could be difficult to find and integrate replacement personnel in a short period of time, which could harm our operations and the growth of our business.

We may have difficulty attracting and retaining skilled employees, who are critical to our future success.

The success of our business depends upon attracting and retaining experienced executives, engineers and other employees to implement our strategy. The competition for skilled employees is intense. We expect demand for personnel in Taiwan to increase in the future as new wafer fabrication facilities and other businesses are established in Taiwan. We also expect demand for experienced personnel in other locations to increase significantly as our competitors establish and expand their operations. Some of our competitors are willing to offer better compensation than that we do to our executives, engineers and other employees. We do not have long-term employment contracts with any of our employees. If we were unable to retain our existing personnel or attract, assimilate and recruit new experienced personnel in the future, it could seriously disrupt our operations and delay or restrict the growth of our business.

Our transactions with affiliates and stockholders may hurt our profitability and competitive position.

We have provided foundry services to several of our affiliates and stockholders. These transactions were conducted on an arm’s-length basis. We currently do not provide any preferential treatment to any of these affiliates and stockholders. However, we may in the future reserve or allocate our production capacity to these companies if there is a shortage of foundry services in the market to enable these companies to maintain their operations and/or to protect our investments in them. This reservation or allocation may reduce our capacity available for our other customers, which may damage our relationships with other customers and discourage them from using our services. This may hurt our profitability and competitive position.

The differences between R.O.C. and U.S. accounting standards affect the amount of our net income.

Our financial statements are prepared under R.O.C. GAAP, which differ in certain significant respects from U.S. GAAP. For a discussion of these differences, see Note 34 to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this annual report. As a result, our net income (loss) attributable to the Company in 2008, 2009 and 2010 under U.S. GAAP was NT$(28,955) million, NT$2,572 million and NT$23,616 million (US$810 million), respectively, as compared to net income (loss) attributable to the Company under R.O.C. GAAP of NT$(22,320) million, NT$3,874 million and NT$23,899 million (US$820 million) in 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively.

The trend of adopting protectionist measures in certain countries, including the United States, could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations and financial condition.

Governments in the United States, China and certain other countries have implemented fiscal and monetary programs to stimulate economic growth as a result of the recent economic downturn, and many of these programs include protectionist measures that encourage the use of domestic products and labor. Recent policy developments by the governments in China and elsewhere also suggest an increased unwillingness to allow international companies to invest in or acquire local businesses. Since many of our direct customers and other downstream customers in the supply chain are located in or have operations in the countries where protectionist measures were adopted, such protectionist measures may have a material adverse effect on demand for our manufacturing services.

Any future outbreak of contagious diseases may materially and adversely affect our business and operations, as well as our financial condition and results of operations.

Any future outbreak of contagious diseases, such as avian or swine influenza or severe acute respiratory syndrome, may disrupt our ability to adequately staff our business and may generally disrupt our operations. If any of our employees is suspected of having contracted any contagious disease, we may under certain circumstances be required to quarantine such employees and the affected areas of our premises. Therefore, we may have to temporarily suspend part of or all of our operations. Furthermore, any future outbreak may restrict the level of economic activity in affected regions, including Taiwan, and affect the willingness and ability of our employees and customers to travel, which may also adversely affect our business and prospects. As a result, we cannot assure you that any future outbreak of contagious diseases would not have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Relating to Manufacturing

Our manufacturing processes are highly complex, costly and potentially vulnerable to impurities and other disruptions that can significantly increase our costs and delay product shipments to our customers.

Our manufacturing processes are highly complex, require advanced and costly equipment and are continuously being modified to improve manufacturing yields and product performance. Impurities or other difficulties in the manufacturing process or defects with respect to equipment or supporting facilities can lower manufacturing yields, interrupt production or result in losses of products in process. As system complexity has increased and process technology has become more advanced, manufacturing tolerances have been reduced and requirements for precision have become even more demanding. Although we have been enhancing our manufacturing capabilities and efficiency, from time to time we have experienced production difficulties that have caused delivery delays and quality control problems, as is common in the semiconductor industry. In the past we have encountered the following problems:

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capacity constraints due to changes in product mix or the delayed delivery of equipment critical to our production, including scanners, steppers and chemical stations;

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construction delays during expansions of our clean rooms and other facilities;

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difficulties in upgrading or expanding existing facilities;

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manufacturing execution system or automatic transportation system failure;

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unexpected breakdowns in our manufacturing equipment and/or related facilities;

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changing or upgrading our process technologies;

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raw materials shortages and impurities; and

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delays in delivery and shortages of spare parts and in maintenance for our equipment and tools

Should these problems repeat, we may suffer delays in delivery and/or loss of business and revenues. In addition, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to increase our manufacturing capacity and efficiency in the future to the same extent as in the past.

We may have difficulty in ramping up production in accordance with our schedule, which could cause delays in product deliveries and decreases in manufacturing yields.

As is common in the semiconductor industry, we have from time to time experienced difficulties in ramping up production at new or existing facilities or effecting transitions to new manufacturing processes. As a result, we have suffered delays in product deliveries or reduced manufacturing yields. We may encounter similar difficulties in connection with:

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the migration to more advanced process technologies, such as 45/40- and 28 nanometer process technology;

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the joint development with vendors for more powerful tools (both in production and inspection) needed in the future to meet advanced process technology requirements; and

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the adoption of new materials in our manufacturing processes.

We may face construction delays, interruptions, infrastructure failure and delays in upgrading or expanding existing facilities, or changing our process technologies, any of which might adversely affect our production schedule. Our failure to follow our production schedule could delay the time required to recover our investments and seriously affect our profitability.

Our production schedules could be delayed and we may lose customers if we are unable to obtain raw materials and equipment in a timely manner.

We depend on our suppliers for raw materials. To maintain competitive manufacturing operations, we must obtain from our suppliers, in a timely manner, sufficient quantities of quality materials at acceptable prices. Although we source our raw materials from several suppliers, a small number of these suppliers account for a substantial amount of our supply of raw materials because of the consistent quality of these suppliers’ wafers. For example, in 2010, we purchased a majority of our silicon wafers from four makers, Shin-Etsu Handotai Corporation, or Shin-Etsu, Siltronic AG, MEMC Corporation and Sumco Group (including Sumco Corporation and Formosa Sumco Technology Corporation). We may have long-term contracts with most of our suppliers if necessary. From time to time, our suppliers have extended lead time or limited the supply of required materials to us because of capacity constraints. Consequently, from time to time, we have experienced difficulty in obtaining the quantities of raw materials we need on a timely basis.

In addition, from time to time we may reject materials that do not meet our specifications, resulting in declines in output or manufacturing yields. We cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain sufficient quantities of raw materials and other supplies in a timely manner. If the supply of materials is substantially diminished or if there are significant increases in the costs of raw materials, we may be forced to incur additional costs to acquire sufficient quantities of raw materials to sustain our operations, which may increase our marginal costs and reduce profitability.

We also depend on a limited number of manufacturers and vendors that make and maintain the complex equipment we use in our manufacturing processes. We also rely on these manufacturers and vendors to improve our technology to meet our customers’ demands as technology improves. In periods of unpredictable and highly diversified market demand, the lead time from order to delivery of this equipment can be as long as six to twelve months. If there are delays in the delivery of equipment or in the availability or performance of necessary maintenance, or if there are increases in the cost of equipment, it could cause us to delay our introduction of new manufacturing capacity or technologies and delay product deliveries, which may result in the loss of customers and revenues.

We may be subject to the risk of loss due to fire because the materials we use in our manufacturing processes are highly flammable.

We use highly flammable materials such as silane and hydrogen in our manufacturing processes and may therefore be subject to the risk of loss arising from fires. The risk of fire associated with these materials cannot be completely eliminated. We maintain insurance policies to reduce losses caused by fire, including business interruption insurance. While we believe that our insurance coverage for damage to our property and business interruption due to fire is consistent with semiconductor industry practice, our insurance coverage is subject to deductibles and self-insured retention and may not be sufficient to cover all of our potential losses. If any of our fabs were to be damaged or cease operations as a result of a fire, it would temporarily reduce manufacturing capacity and reduce revenues.

We and many of our customers and suppliers are vulnerable to natural disasters and other events outside of our control, which may seriously disrupt our operations.

Most of our assets and many of our customers and suppliers are located in certain parts of Taiwan. Our operations and the operations of our customers and suppliers are vulnerable to earthquakes, floods, droughts, power losses and similar events that affect the locations of our operations. The occurrence of any of these events could interrupt our services and cause severe damages to wafers in process, or cause significant business interruptions. Although we maintain property damage and business interruption insurance for such risks, there is no guarantee that future damages or business loss from earthquakes will be covered by such insurance, that we will be able to collect from our insurance carriers, should we choose to claim under our insurance policies, or that such coverage will be sufficient. In addition, our manufacturing facilities have occasionally experienced insufficient power supplies, and our operations have been disrupted.

Our operations may be delayed or interrupted and our business could suffer if we violate environmental, safety and health, or ESH, regulations.

The semiconductor manufacturing process requires the use of various gases, chemicals, hazardous materials and other substances such as solvents and sulfuric acid which may have an impact on the environment. We are always subject to ESH regulations, and a failure to manage the use, storage, transportation, emission, discharge, recycling or disposal of raw materials or to comply with these ESH regulations could result in (i) regulatory penalties, fines and other legal liabilities, (ii) suspension of production or delays in operation and capacity expansion, (iii) a decrease in our sales, (iv) an increase in pollution cleaning fees and other operation costs, or (v) damage to our public image, any of which could harm our business. In addition, as ESH regulations are becoming more comprehensive and stringent, we may incur a greater amount of capital expenditures in technology innovation and materials substitution in order to comply with such regulations, which may adversely affect our results of operations.

Climate change may negatively affect our business.

There is increasing concern that climate change is occurring and may have dramatic effects on human activity without aggressive remediation steps. A modest change in temperature would result in increased coastal flooding, changing precipitation patterns and increasing risk of extinction for the world’s species. Public expectations for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could result in increased energy, transportation and raw material costs.

Scientific examination of, political attention to and rules and regulations on issues surrounding the existence and extent of climate change may result in an increase in the cost of production due to increase in the prices of energy and introduction of energy or carbon tax. A variety of regulatory developments have been introduced that focus on restricting or managing emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Enterprises may need to purchase at higher costs new equipment or raw materials with lower carbon footprints. These developments and further legislation that is likely to be enacted could affect our operations negatively. Changes in environmental regulations, such those on the use of perfluorinated compounds, could increase our production costs, which could adversely affect our results of operation and financial condition.

In addition, more frequent droughts and floods, extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels could occur due to climate change. The impact of such changes could be significant as most of our factories are located in islands including Taiwan and Singapore. For example, transportation suspension caused by extreme weather conditions could harm the distribution of our products. We cannot predict the economic impact, if any, of disasters or climate change.

Disruptions in the international trading environment may seriously decrease our international sales.

A substantial portion of our net operating revenues is derived from sales to customers located in countries other than Taiwan, Singapore and Japan where our fabs are located. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, sales to our overseas customers accounted for 70.2%, 61.8% and 62.5%, respectively, of our net operating revenues. We expect sales to customers outside of Taiwan, Singapore and Japan to continue to represent a significant portion of our net operating revenues. The success and profitability of our international activities depend on certain factors beyond our control, such as general economic conditions, labor conditions, political stability, tax laws, import duties and foreign exchange controls of the countries in which we sell our products, and the political and economic relationships between Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and these countries. As a result, our manufacturing services will continue to be vulnerable to disruptions in the international trading environment, including adverse changes in foreign government regulations, political unrest and international economic downturns.

These disruptions in the international trading environment affect the demand for our manufacturing services and change the terms upon which we provide our manufacturing services overseas, which could seriously decrease our international sales.

Political, Economic and Regulatory Risks

We face substantial political risks associated with doing business in Taiwan, particularly due to the tense relationship between the R.O.C. and the People’s Republic of China, or the PRC, that could negatively affect the value of your investment.

Our principal executive offices and most of our assets and operations are located in Taiwan. Accordingly, our business, financial condition and results of operations and the market price of our shares and the ADSs may be affected by changes in R.O.C. governmental policies, taxation, inflation or interest rates and by social instability and diplomatic and social developments in or affecting Taiwan which are outside of our control. Taiwan has a unique international political status. Since 1949, Taiwan and the Chinese mainland have been separately governed. The PRC claims that it is the sole government in China and that Taiwan is part of China. Although significant economic and cultural relations have been established during recent years between the R.O.C. and the PRC, relations have often been strained. The PRC government has refused to renounce the use of military force to gain control over Taiwan and, in March 2005, further passed an Anti-Secession Law that authorizes non-peaceful means and other necessary measures should Taiwan move to gain independence from the PRC. Past developments in relations between the R.O.C. and the PRC have on occasions depressed the market prices of the securities of companies in the R.O.C.. Such initiatives and actions are commonly viewed as having a detrimental effect to reunification efforts between the R.O.C. and the PRC. Relations between the R.O.C. and the PRC and other factors affecting military, political or economic conditions in Taiwan could materially and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations, as well as the market price and the liquidity of our securities.

Our business depends on the support of the R.O.C. government, and a decrease in this support may increase our labor costs and decrease our net income after tax.

The R.O.C. government has been very supportive of technology companies such as us. For instance, the R.O.C.’s labor laws and regulations do not require employees of semiconductor companies, including our company, to be unionized, and permit these employees to work shifts of 10 hours each day on a two-days-on, two-days-off basis. We cannot assure you, however, that these labor laws and regulations will not be changed in the future. In the event that the R.O.C. government requires our employees to be unionized or decreases the number of hours our employees may work in a given day, our labor costs may increase significantly which could result in lower margins.

We, like many R.O.C. technology companies, have benefited from substantial tax incentives provided by the R.O.C. government. In 2010, such incentives resulted in a tax credit in the amount of NT$731 million (US$25 million). Among the incentives broadly enjoyed by R.O.C. technology companies, various tax benefits granted under Chapter 2 and Article 70-1 of the Statute for Upgrading Industries expired on December 31, 2009. Despite the fact that we can still enjoy the five-year tax holidays for the relevant investment plans approved by R.O.C. tax authority before the expiration of the Statute for Upgrading Industries, if more incentives are curtailed or eliminated, our net income after tax attributable to us may decrease.

Our future tax obligations may adversely affect our profitability.

The R.O.C. government enacted the R.O.C. Income Basic Tax Act, also known as the “Minimum Income Tax Statute”, or the Statute, which became effective on January 1, 2006. This Statute imposes an alternative minimum tax, or AMT. The AMT is designed to remedy the current excessive tax incentives for individuals and businesses. The AMT imposed under the Statute is a supplemental tax which is payable if the income tax payable pursuant to the R.O.C. Income Tax Act is below the minimum amount prescribed under the Statute. For the purpose of calculating the AMT, the taxable income defined under the Statute includes most income that is exempted from income tax under various legislations, such as those providing tax holidays and investment tax credits. For businesses, the incomes which previously enjoyed tax-exemption privileges under relevant tax regulations, such as the Act for the Establishment and Administration of the Science Parks and the Statute for Upgrading Industries, will be subject to the new AMT system for the calculation of business taxpayers’ aggregate incomes. The AMT rate for business entities is 10%. Under the Statute, a company will be subject to a 10% AMT if its annual taxable income under the Statute exceeds NT$2 million. However, the Statute grandfathered certain tax exemptions granted prior to the enactment of the AMT. For example, businesses already qualified for five-year tax holidays and having obtained the applicable permission issued by the competent authority before December 31, 2005 may continue to enjoy tax incentives, and the income exempted thereunder will not to be added to the taxable income for the purpose of calculating the AMT, so long as the construction of their investment projects breaks ground within one year from January 1, 2006 and is completed within three years commencing from the day immediately following their receipts of the applicable permission issued by the competent authority. As the tax exemption periods expire or in the event of an increase in other taxable income subject to the Statute, such 10% AMT may adversely impact our net income after tax.

The trading price of the shares and ADSs may be adversely affected by the general activities of the Taiwan Stock Exchange and U.S. stock exchanges, the trading price of our shares, increases in interest rates and the economic performance of Taiwan.

Our shares are listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The trading price of our ADSs may be affected by the trading price of our shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the economic performance of Taiwan. The Taiwan Stock Exchange is smaller and, as a market, more volatile than the securities markets in the United States and a number of European countries. The Taiwan Stock Exchange has experienced substantial fluctuations in the prices and volumes of sales of listed securities, and there are currently limits on the range of daily price movements on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The Taiwan Stock Exchange is particularly volatile during times of political instability, such as when relations between Taiwan and the PRC are strained. Moreover, the Taiwan Stock Exchange has experienced problems such as market manipulation, insider trading and payment defaults, and the government of Taiwan has from time to time intervened in the stock market by purchasing stocks listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The recurrence of these or similar problems could decrease the market price and liquidity of the shares and ADSs.

From September 19, 2000, the commencement date of the listing of our ADSs on the New York Stock Exchange, or the NYSE, to December 31, 2010, the daily reported closing prices of our ADSs ranged from US$14.88 per ADS to US$1.51 per ADS. The market price of the ADSs may also be affected by general trading activities on the U.S. stock exchanges, which recently have experienced significant price volatility with respect to shares of technology companies. Fluctuation in interest rates and other general economic conditions may also have an effect on the market price of the ADSs.

Currency fluctuations could increase our costs relative to our revenues, which could adversely affect our profitability.

More than half of our net operating revenues are denominated in currencies other than New Taiwan dollars, primarily U.S. dollars and Japanese Yen. On the other hand, more than half of our costs of direct labor, raw materials and overhead are incurred in New Taiwan dollars. Although we hedge a portion of the resulting net foreign exchange position through the use of foreign currency forward contracts, we are still affected by fluctuations in exchange rates among the U.S. dollar, the Japanese Yen, the New Taiwan dollar and other currencies. For example, during the period from August 31, 2010 to February 15, 2011, the U.S. dollar depreciated 8.06% against the NT dollar. Any significant fluctuation in exchange rates may be harmful to our financial condition. In addition, fluctuations in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the New Taiwan dollar will affect the U.S. dollar value of the ADSs and the U.S. dollar value of any cash dividends we pay, which could have a corresponding effect on the market price of the ADSs.

Compliance with the US Conflict Minerals Law may affect our ability or the ability of our suppliers to purchase raw materials at an effective cost.

Many industries rely on materials which are subject to regulation concerning certain minerals sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo or adjoining countries, which include: Sudan; Uganda; Rwanda; Burundi; United Republic of Tanzania; Zambia; Angola; Congo; and Central African Republic. These minerals are commonly referred to as conflict minerals. Conflict minerals which may be used in our industry or by our suppliers include Columbite-tantalite (derivative of tantalum [Ta]), Cassiterite (derivative of tin [Sn]), gold [Au], Wolframite (derivative of tungsten [W]), and Cobalt [Co]. Under present regulations, we and our customers are required to survey and disclose whether our processes or products use or rely on conflict minerals. The SEC has proposed draft regulations that would require companies to disclose the use of conflict materials. Although we expect that we and our vendors will be able to comply with the requirements, there can be no guarantee that we will be able to gather all the information required. In addition, there is increasing public sentiment that companies should avoid using conflict materials from the DRC and adjoining countries. Although we believe our suppliers do not rely on such conflict materials, there can be no guarantee that we will continue to be able to obtain adequate supplies of materials needed in our production from supply chains outside the DRC and adjoining countries. A failure to obtain necessary information or to maintain adequate supplies of materials from supply chains outside the DRC and adjoining countries may delay our production, increasing the risk of losing customers and business.

Risks Related to the Shares and ADSs and Our Trading Markets

Restrictions on the ability to deposit shares into our ADS program may adversely affect the liquidity and price of the ADSs.

The ability to deposit shares into our ADS program is restricted by R.O.C. law. Under current R.O.C. law, no person or entity, including you and us, may deposit shares into our ADS program without specific approval of the R.O.C. FSC except for the deposit of the shares into our ADS program and for the issuance of additional ADSs in connection with:

(1)

distribution of share dividends or free distribution of our shares;

(2)

exercise of the preemptive rights of ADS holders applicable to the shares evidenced by ADSs in the event of capital increases for cash; or

(3)

delivery of our shares which are purchased in the domestic market in Taiwan directly by the investor or through the depositary or are already in the possession of the investor to the custodian for deposit into our ADS program, subject to the following conditions: (a) the re-issuance is permitted under the deposit agreement and custody agreement, (b) the depositary may accept deposit of those shares and issue the corresponding number of ADSs with regard to such deposit only if the total number of ADSs outstanding after the issuance does not exceed the number of ADSs previously approved by the R.O.C. FSC, plus any ADSs issued pursuant to the events described in (1) and (2) above and (c) this deposit may only be made to the extent previously issued ADSs have been withdrawn.

As a result of the limited ability to deposit shares into our ADS program, the prevailing market price of our ADSs on the NYSE may differ from the prevailing market price of the equivalent number of our shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Holders of our ADSs will not have the same proposal or voting rights as the holders of our shares, which may affect the value of your investment.

Except for treasury shares and shares held by our subsidiaries which meet certain criteria provided under the R.O.C. Company Act, each common share is generally entitled to one vote and no voting discount will be applied. However, except as described in this annual report and in the deposit agreement, holders of our ADSs will not be able to exercise voting rights attached to the shares evidenced by our ADSs on an individual basis. Holders of our ADSs will appoint the depositary or its nominee as their representative to exercise the voting rights attached to the shares represented by the ADSs. The voting rights attached to the shares evidenced by our ADSs must be exercised as to all matters brought to a vote of stockholders collectively in the same manner.

Moreover, holders of the ADSs do not have individual rights to propose any matter for stockholders’ votes at our stockholders’ meetings. However, holders of at least 51% of the ADS outstanding at the relevant record date may request the depositary to submit to us one proposal per year for consideration at our annual ordinary stockholders’ meeting, provided that such proposal meets certain submission criteria and limitations, including the language and the length of the proposal, the time of submission, the required certification or undertakings, and the attendance at the annual ordinary stockholders’ meeting. A qualified proposal so submitted by the depositary will still be subject to review by our board of directors and there is no assurance that the proposal will be accepted by our board of directors for inclusion in the agenda of our annual ordinary stockholders’ meeting. Furthermore, if we determine, at our discretion, that the proposal submitted by the depositary does not qualify, we have no obligation to notify the depositary or to allow the depositary to modify such proposal.

Furthermore, if holders of at least 51% of the ADSs outstanding at the relevant record date instruct the depositary to vote in the same manner regarding a resolution, including election of directors and/or supervisors, the depositary will appoint our Chairman, or his designee, to represent the ADS holders at the stockholders’ meetings and to vote the shares represented by the ADSs outstanding in the manner so instructed. If by the relevant record date the depositary has not received instructions from holders of ADSs holding at least 51% of the ADSs to vote in the same manner for any resolution, then the holders will be deemed to have instructed the depositary to authorize and appoint our Chairman, or his designee, to vote all the shares represented by ADSs at his sole discretion, which may not be in your interest.

The rights of holders of our ADSs to participate in our rights offerings may be limited, which may cause dilution to their holdings.

We may from time to time distribute rights to our stockholders, including rights to acquire our securities. Under the deposit agreement, the depositary will not offer those rights to ADS holders unless both the rights and the underlying securities to be distributed to ADS holders are either registered under the Securities Act or exempt from registration under the Securities Act. We are under no obligation to file a registration statement with respect to any such rights or underlying securities or to endeavor to cause such a registration statement to be declared effective. Accordingly, holders of our ADSs may be unable to participate in our rights offerings and may experience dilution in their holdings.

Changes in exchange controls that restrict your ability to convert proceeds received from your ownership of ADSs may have an adverse effect on the value of your investment.

Your ability to convert proceeds received from your ownership of ADSs depends on existing and future exchange control regulations of the Republic of China. Under the current laws of the Republic of China, an ADS holder or the depositary, without obtaining further approvals from the R.O.C. Central Bank of China, or the CBC, or any other governmental authority or agency of the Republic of China, may convert NT dollars into other currencies, including U.S. dollars, in respect of:

•

the proceeds of the sale of shares represented by ADSs or received as share dividends with respect to the shares and deposited into the depositary receipt facility; and

•

any cash dividends or distributions received from the shares represented by ADSs.

In addition, the depositary may also convert into NT dollars incoming payments for purchases of shares for deposit in the depositary receipt facility against the creation of additional ADSs. If you withdraw the shares underlying your ADSs and become a holder of our shares, you may convert into NT dollars subscription payments for rights offerings. The depositary may be required to obtain foreign exchange approval from the CBC on a payment-by-payment basis for conversion from NT dollars into foreign currencies of the proceeds from the sale of subscription rights of new shares. Although it is expected that the CBC will grant approval as a routine matter, required approvals may not be obtained in a timely manner, or at all.

Under the Republic of China Foreign Exchange Control Law, the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China may, without prior notice but subject to subsequent legislative approval, impose foreign exchange controls or other restrictions in the event of, among other things, a material change in international economic conditions.

Our public stockholders may have more difficulty protecting their interests than they would as stockholders of a U.S. corporation.

Our corporate affairs are governed by our articles of incorporation and by laws governing R.O.C. corporations. The rights of our stockholders to bring stockholders’ suits against us or our board of directors under R.O.C. law are much more limited than those of the stockholders of U.S. corporations. Therefore, our public stockholders may have more difficulty protecting their interests in connection with actions taken by our management, members of our board of directors or controlling stockholders than they would as stockholders of a U.S. corporation. Please refer to “Item 10. Additional Information—B. Memorandum and Articles of Association—Rights to Bring Stockholders’ Suits” included elsewhere in this annual report for a detailed discussion of the rights of our stockholders to bring legal actions against us or our directors under R.O.C. law.

Holders of our ADSs will be required to appoint several local agents in Taiwan if they withdraw shares from our ADS program and become our stockholders, which may make ownership burdensome.

Non-R.O.C. persons wishing to withdraw shares represented by their ADSs from our ADS program and hold our shares represented by those ADSs are required to, among other things, appoint a local agent or representative with qualifications set forth by the R.O.C. FSC to open a securities trading account with a local brokerage firm, pay R.O.C. taxes, remit funds and exercise stockholders’ rights. In addition, the withdrawing holders are also required to appoint a custodian bank with qualifications set forth by the R.O.C. FSC to hold the securities in safekeeping, make confirmations, settle trades and report all relevant information. Without making this appointment and opening of the accounts, the withdrawing holders would not be able to subsequently sell our shares withdrawn from a depositary receipt facility on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Under R.O.C. law and regulations, except under limited circumstances, PRC persons are not permitted to withdraw the shares underlying the ADSs or to register as a stockholder of our company. Under the Regulations Governing Securities Investment and Futures Trading in Taiwan by Mainland Area Investors promulgated by the R.O.C. Executive Yuan on April 30, 2009, as amended, only qualified domestic institutional investors, or QDIIs, are permitted to withdraw the shares underlying the ADSs, subject to compliance with the withdrawal relevant requirements, and only qualified domestic institutional investors, or QDIIs, and limited entities or individuals who meet the qualification requirements set forth therein are permitted to own shares of an R.O.C. company listed for trading on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, provided that among other restrictions generally applicable to investments made by PRC persons, their shareholdings are subject to certain restrictions as set forth in the abovementioned regulations and that such mainland area investors shall apply for a separate approval if their investment, individually or in aggregate, amounts to or exceeds 10 percent of the shares of any R.O.C. company.

You may not be able to enforce a judgment of a foreign court in the R.O.C..

We are a company limited by shares incorporated under the R.O.C. Company Act. Most of our assets and most of our directors, supervisors and executive officers and experts named in the registration statement are located in Taiwan. As a result, it may be difficult for you to enforce judgments obtained outside Taiwan upon us or such persons in Taiwan. We have been advised by our R.O.C. counsel that any judgment obtained against us in any court outside the R.O.C. arising out of or relating to the ADSs will not be enforced by R.O.C. courts if any of the following situations shall apply to such final judgment:

•

the court rendering the judgment does not have jurisdiction over the subject matter according to R.O.C. law;

•

the judgment or the court procedure resulting in the judgment is contrary to the public order or good morals of the R.O.C.;

•

the judgment was rendered by default, except where the summons or order necessary for the commencement of the action was legally served on us within the jurisdiction of the court rendering the judgment within a reasonable period of time or with judicial assistance of the R.O.C.; or

•

judgments of R.O.C. courts are not recognized in the jurisdiction of the court rendering the judgment on a reciprocal basis.

We may be considered a passive foreign investment company, which could result in adverse U.S. tax consequences for U.S. investors.

We do not believe that we were a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for 2010 and we do not expect to become one in the future, although there can be no assurance in this regard. Based upon the nature of our business activities, we may be classified as a passive foreign investment company for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Such characterization could result in adverse U.S. tax consequences to you if you are a U.S. investor.

For example, if we are a PFIC, our U.S. investors may become subject to increased tax liabilities under U.S. tax laws and regulations and will become subject to burdensome reporting requirements. The determination of whether or not we are a PFIC is made on an annual basis and will depend on the composition of our income and assets from time to time. Specifically, for any taxable year we will be classified as a PFIC for U.S. tax purposes if either (i) 75% or more of our gross income in a taxable year is passive income or (ii) the average percentage of our assets (which includes cash) by value in a taxable year which produce or are held for the production of passive income is at least 50%. The calculation of the value of our assets will be based, in part, on the quarterly market value of shares and ADSs, which is subject to change. In addition, the composition of our income and assets will be affected by how, and how quickly, we spend the cash we have raised in prior offerings. See “Taxation—U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations For U.S. Persons—Passive foreign investment company.”

ITEM 4.		INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY

A. History and Development of the Company

Our legal and commercial name is United Microelectronics Corporation, commonly known as “UMC”. We were incorporated under the R.O.C. Company Law as a company limited by shares in May 1980 and our shares were listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1985. Our principal executive office is located at No. 3 Li-Hsin Road II, Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China, and our telephone number is 886-3-578-2258. Our Internet website address is www.umc.com. The information on our website does not form part of this annual report. Our ADSs have been listed on the NYSE under the symbol “UMC” since September 19, 2000.

We are one of the world’s largest independent semiconductor foundries and a leader in semiconductor manufacturing process technologies. Our primary business is the manufacture, or “fabrication”, of semiconductors, sometimes called “chips” or “integrated circuits”, for others. Using our own proprietary processes and techniques, we make chips to the design specifications of our many customers. Our company maintains a diversified customer base across industries, including communication, consumer electronics, computer, memory and others, while continuing to focus on manufacturing for high growth, large volume applications, including networking, telecommunications, internet, multimedia, PCs and graphics. We sell and market mainly wafers which in turn are used in a number of different applications by our customers. Percentages of our net wafer sales derived from our products used in communication devices, consumer electronics, PCs, memory and other applications were 54.3%, 30.7%, 12.2%, 1.0% and 1.8%, respectively, in 2010.

We focus on the development of leading mass-producible manufacturing process technologies. We were among the first in the foundry industry to go into commercial operation with such advanced capabilities as producing integrated circuits with line widths of 0.25, 0.18, 0.15, 0.13 micron and 90, 65 and 45/40 nanometer. Advanced technologies have enabled electronic products, especially in relation to computer, communication and consumer products, to integrate their functions in new and innovative methods. Networking capabilities have allowed electronic products such as computers, tablets, cell phones, televisions, PDAs, CD-ROMs and digital cameras to communicate with each other to exchange information. More powerful semiconductors are required to drive multimedia functions (e.g. processing visual data) and to resolve network bandwidth issues. At the same time, the trend toward personal electronic devices has resulted in products that are becoming physically smaller and consume less power. Process technology must also shrink the volumes of products aggressively to cater to this trend of integrating multiple functions, reducing the size of components needed for operation and lowering IC power consumption. Dedicated semiconductor foundries need to achieve this process improvement and at the same time develop multiple process technologies to satisfy the varying needs of computer, communication and consumer products. We believe our superior process technologies will enable us to continue to offer our customers significant performance benefits for their products, faster time-to-market production, cost savings and other competitive advantages.

We provide high quality service based on our performance. In today’s marketplace, we believe it is important to make available not only the most manufacturable processes, but also the best solutions to enable customers to design integrated circuits that include entire systems on a chip. Through these efforts, we intend to be the foundry solution for SoC customer needs. To achieve this goal, we believe it is necessary to timely develop and offer the intellectual property and design support that customers need to ensure their specific design blocks work with the other design blocks of the integrated circuit system in the manner intended. Accordingly, we have a dedicated intellectual property and design support team which focuses on timely development of the intellectual property and process specific design blocks our customers need in order to develop products that operate and perform as intended. Our design service team actively cooperates with our customers and vendors of cell libraries and intellectual property offerings to identify, early in the product/market cycle, the offerings needed to ensure that these coordinated offerings are available to our customers in silicon verified form in a streamlined and easy-to-use manner. As a result, we are able to ensure the timely delivery of service offerings from the earliest time in the customer design cycle, resulting in a shorter time-to-volume production. We also provide our customers with real-time online access to their confidential production data, resulting in superior communication and efficiency. We further address our customers’ needs using our advanced technology and proven methodology to achieve fast cycle time, high yield, production flexibility and close customer communication. For example, we select and configure our clean rooms and equipment and develop our processes to maximize the flexibility in meeting and adapting to rapidly changing customer and industry needs. As a result, our cycle time, or the period from customer order to wafer delivery, and our responsiveness to customer request changes are among the fastest in the dedicated foundry industry. We also provide high quality service and engineering infrastructure.

Our production capacity is comparable to that of certain largest companies in the semiconductor industry, and we believe our leading edge and high volume capability is a major competitive advantage.

Our technology and service have attracted two principal types of foundry industry customers: fabless design companies and integrated device manufacturers. Fabless design companies design, develop and distribute proprietary semiconductor products but do not maintain internal manufacturing capacity. Instead, these companies depend on outside manufacturing sources. Integrated device manufacturers, in contrast, traditionally have integrated internally all functions — manufacturing as well as design, development, sales and distribution.

Our primary customers, in terms of our sales revenues, include premier integrated device manufacturers, such as Texas Instruments, Infineon and STMicroelectronics, and leading fabless design companies, such as Xilinx, Broadcom, MediaTek, Realtek and Novatek. In 2010, our company’s top ten customers accounted for 63.2% of our net operating revenues. We believe our success in attracting these customers is a direct result of our commitment to high quality service and our intense focus on customer needs and performance.

For the disclosure related to our acquisition of Hejian, the contents of the Form 6-K we furnished to the Commission on April 29, 2009 (File No. 001-15128) are hereby incorporated by reference. At our annual stockholders’ meeting in 2009, the stockholders approved our proposed acquisition of Infoshine, the holding company of Hejian, with the acquisition subject to our ability to obtain the approvals from the necessary authorities pursuant to relevant laws and regulations. Hejian is engaged in the semiconductor foundry business and owns an 8-inch fab in Suzhou, China. Investment by an R.O.C. company in the PRC to engage in semiconductor foundry business is strictly regulated by the R.O.C. government. Traditionally, only manufacturing of semiconductor wafers of 8 inches or smaller sizes is permitted, and the number of total investment projects in the semiconductor foundry business undertaken by R.O.C. companies, taken as a whole, is subject to a quota. When our stockholders approved the acquisition, however, there was no quota available. In February 2010, the relevant restrictions were partially lifted, and the quota and the restriction on the size of semiconductor wafers produced are not applicable if (i) an investment is made through merger or acquisition; (ii) the rest of the applicable requirements, such as the processing technology gap between the R.O.C. company and its investment target, shall be satisfied; and (iii) the investment application is approved by the R.O.C. government, which approval is at the government’s discretion. We plan to pursue approval of our acquisition of the holding company of Hejian, but there can be no guarantee that we will successfully obtain such approval. Moreover, an investment regulation governing foreigners’ holdings of Taiwanese securities, along with restrictions from the amended Operating Rules of the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation for issuing new shares to acquire foreign unlisted companies, presently precludes the issuance of common shares or ADR’s as exclusive payment options for such an acquisition. Furthermore, Hejian’s stockholders have not agreed to accept cash-only payments. To continue searching for further integration, on March 16, 2011, our Board of Directors proposed an offer to the stockholders of Best Elite, which owns 100% of the shares of Infoshine, to purchase their shares and thereby obtain additional 30% ownership of Hejian. However, we cannot assure you that our efforts in this regard will succeed.

For the disclosure related to our tender offer of UMCJ, the contents of the Forms 6-K we furnished to the Commission on October 28, 2009 (File No. 001-15128) and December 21, 2009 (File No. 001-15128) are hereby incorporated by reference. After the tender offer which was held from October 29, 2009 to December 14, 2009, 403,368 shares of UMCJ were purchased, and we and AWL together held 94.79% of UMCJ shares. UMCJ then delisted from the Jasdaq Securities Exchange in accordance with its listing rules on March 19, 2010. Since not all of the outstanding equity securities of UMCJ were acquired, we initiated certain squeeze-out procedures as provided in the Japanese Companies Act. Pursuant to such procedures, as of the end of 2010, we, together with AWL, owned 100% of UMCJ. On June 7, 2010, we acquired 63,000 shares of UMCJ from AWL and other minority stockholders for approximately JPY782 million. In accordance with R.O.C. SFAS 25, the excess fair value of UMCJ’s identifiable net assets over the purchase price was allocated proportionately to UMCJ’s noncurrent assets. When the book value of those noncurrent assets acquired are reduced to zero, the remaining excess was recognized as an extraordinary gain. Accordingly, we recognized an extraordinary gain of NT$82 million from the UMCJ transaction. The acquisition of UMCJ from AWL was accounted for as an organization restructuring in accordance with ARDF Interpretation No. 95-081. The purchase price of JPY12,500 per share of the above transaction was determined based on AWL’s purchase price of UMCJ’s shares during the period from October 29 to December 14, 2009, at which time AWL considered the shares’ current trading value and future industry competition and operating strategies and obtained a fair opinion from a security expert and a Certified Public Accountant to evaluate the reasonableness of the purchase price. We acquired 4,000 shares of UMCJ from AWL, our equity investee, for approximately JPY48 million. Furthermore, AWL intends to file for liquidation through a decision of its board of directors. One of the former stockholders of UMCJ has challenged the purchase or acquisition price, filing an action under Japanese law. Such action does not “unwind” or disable the acquisition, but merely seeks additional compensation for the former stockholder’s shares. We intend to defend this claim, and to resist any additional payment. However, the only issue in the proceeding is the value to be paid; there is no material challenge to our ability to proceed with closing.

By owning 100% of UMCJ and proceeding with integration, we expect UMCJ to reap the benefits of economies of scale and efficiency of operations through developing business on a global basis with our company. The reorganization and restructuring of UMCJ are also expected to increase the efficiency of our operation and to increase our overall corporate value. We also believe the integration will be beneficial to UMCJ’s customers, as it is expected to enable UMCJ to offer more competitive globally-based services along with our company’s broader range of technology and more competitive production capabilities.

Please refer to “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—B. Liquidity and Capital Resources” for a discussion of our capital expenditures in the past three years and the plan for the current year.

Our Strategy

To maintain and enhance our position as a market leader, we have adopted a business strategy with a focus on a partnership business model designed to accommodate our customers’ business needs and objectives and to promote their interests as our partners. We believe that our success and profitability are inseparable from the success of our customers. The goal in this business model is to create a network of partnerships or alliances among integrated device manufacturers, intellectual property and design houses, as well as foundry companies. We believe that we and our partners will benefit from the synergy generated through such long-term partnerships or alliances and the added value to be shared among the partners. The key elements of our strategy are:

Operate as a Customer-Driven Foundry. We plan to operate as a customer-driven foundry. The increasing complexity of 45-nanometer and more advanced technologies has impacted the entire chip industry, as ICs can now be designed with greater gate density and higher performance while incorporating the functions of an entire system. These advanced designs have created a new proliferating market of advanced mobile digital devices such as smart phones, which have decreased in size but greatly increased in functionality. We collaborate closely with our customers as well as partners throughout the entire supply chain, including equipment, electronic design automation tool and intellectual property, or IP, vendors to work synergistically toward each customer’s SoC silicon solution. We also possess experience and know-how in system design and architecture to integrate customer designs with advanced process technologies and IP. We believe the result is a higher rate of first-pass silicon success for our SoC solutions. Our customer-driven foundry solutions begin with a common logic-based platform, where designers can choose the process technologies and transistor options that best fit their specific application. From there, technologies such as radio frequency complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor, or RF CMOS, and embedded Flash memories can be used to further fine-tune the process for customers’ individual needs. Furthermore, as IP has become critical resources for SoCs, our portfolio includes basic design building blocks as well as more complex IP of optimized portability and cost, developed both internally and by third-party partners. With advanced technology, a broad IP portfolio, system knowledge and advanced 300-millimicron manufacturing, we offer comprehensive solutions that help customers deliver successful results in a timely fashion.

Build up Customer-focused Partnership Business Model. We have focused on building partnership relationships with our customers, and we strive to help our customers achieve their objectives through close cooperation. Unlike the traditional buy-and-sell relationship between a foundry and its customers, we believe our partnership business model will help us understand our customers’ requirements and, accordingly, better accommodate our customers’ needs in a number of ways, such as customized processes and services that optimize the entire value chain (not just the foundry portion) and intellectual property-related support. We believe that this business model will enable us to deliver our products to our customers at the earliest time our customers require for their design cycle, resulting in shorter time-to-market and time-to-volume production. Furthermore, we believe we will render more cost-effective services by focusing our research and development expenditures on the specific requirements of our customers. We believe our partnership business model will help us not only survive a market downturn, but also achieve a better competitive position.

Continue to Focus on High Growth Applications and Customers. We believe one measure of a successful foundry company is the quality of its customers. We focus our sales and marketing on customers who are established or emerging leaders in industries with high growth potential. Our customers include industry leaders such as AMD (ATI), Broadcom, Marvell, Infineon, MediaTek, Novatek, Realtek, SanDisk, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Freescale and Xilinx. We seek to maintain and expand our relationships with these companies. We strive to demonstrate to these customers the superiority and flexibility of our manufacturing, technology and service capabilities and to provide them with production and design assistance. We are also making efforts to further diversify our customer portfolio in order to maintain a balanced exposure to different applications and different customers. We believe these efforts strengthen our relationships with our customers and enhance our reputation in the semiconductor industry as a leading foundry service provider.

Maintain Our Leading Position in Mass-Producible Semiconductor Technology and Selectively Pursue Strategic Investments in New Technologies. We believe that maintaining and enhancing our leadership in mass-producible semiconductor manufacturing technology is critical to attract and retain customers. Our reputation for technological excellence has attracted both established and emerging leaders in the semiconductor industries who work closely with us on technology development. In addition, we believe our superior processing expertise has enabled us to provide flexible production schedules to meet our customers’ particular needs. We plan to continue building internal research and development expertise, to focus on process development and to establish alliances with leading and specialty semiconductor companies to accelerate access to next-generation and specialized technologies. For example, we expect to deliver our 28-nanometer technology to our customers in 2011 to significantly increase the competitive advantages of our customers by providing better device performance in a smaller die size. We believe our progress in developing more advanced process technologies has benefited our customers in the fields of computers, communications, consumer electronics and others with special preferences in certain aspects of the products, such as the ultimate performance, density and power consumption.

We also recognize that every company has limited resources and that the foundry industry is ever-evolving. Accordingly, we believe we should invest in new research and development technology intelligently and in a cost-effective manner to achieve the ultimate output of the resulting technology. In doing so, we balance the rate of return of our research and development with the importance of developing a technology at the right time to enhance our competitive edge without unduly diluting our profitability. We intend to avoid investments in technologies that do not present a commercial potential for volume production. We believe that to develop the earliest and most advanced semiconductor technology without regard to its potential for near term volume production may prove costly to our operations and would not strengthen our competitive position. We perceive a benefit to defer investment in the premature equipment needed to claim the earliest advanced technology and instead to purchase a more advanced and less expensive version of equipment from vendors who design such equipment based on pre-production lessons learned from the earliest technology.

Maintain Scale and Capacity Capabilities to Meet Customer Requirements, with a Focus on 12-inch Wafer Facilities for Future Expansion. We believe that maintaining our foundry capacity with advanced technology and facilities is critical to the maintenance of our industry leadership. Our production capacity is currently among the largest of all semiconductor foundries in the world. We intend to increase our 12-inch wafer production capacity to meet the needs of our customers and to fully capitalize on the expected growth of our industry. Our future capacity expansion plans will focus on 12-inch wafer facilities in order to maintain our technology leadership. 12-inch wafers offer manufacturing advantages over 8-inch wafers due to, among other reasons, the greater number of chips on each wafer and the advantages only offered on newer 12-inch capable equipment. In addition, 12-inch wafer facilities present a more cost-effective solution in achieving an economic scale of production. We intend to carefully monitor current market conditions in order to optimize the timing of our capital spending.

B. Business Overview

Manufacturing Facilities

To maintain a leading position in the foundry business, we have placed great emphasis on achieving and maintaining a high standard of manufacturing quality. As a result, we seek to design and implement manufacturing processes that produce consistent, high manufacturing yields to enable our customers to estimate, with reasonable certainty, how many wafers they need to order from us. In addition, we continuously seek to enhance our production capacity and process technology, two important factors that characterize a foundry’s manufacturing capability. Our large production capacity and advanced process technologies enable us to provide our customers with volume production and flexible and quick-to-market manufacturing services. All of our fabs operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Substantially all maintenance at each of the fabs is performed concurrently with production.

As a step in our continuing expansion of our manufacturing complex in the Tainan Science Park in southern Taiwan, we completed the construction of our second 300mm fab in Taiwan in May 2009, and moved the equipment into this fab in July 2010. Total investment for this fab will be around US$4.5~5 billion, with a maximum designed monthly production capacity of approximately 40,000 (300mm) wafers.

The following table sets forth operational data of each of our manufacturing facilities as of December 31, 2010.

Fab 6A

Fab 8A

Fab 8C

Fab 8D

Fab 8E

Fab 8F

Fab 8S

Fab 12A

Fab 12i

UMCJ

Commencement of volume production

1989

1995

1998

2000

1998

2000

2000

2002

2004

1996

Estimated full capacity(1)(2)

49,300 wafers per months

68,000 wafers per months

30,000 wafers per months

28,000 wafers per months

35,100 wafers per months

32,500 wafers per months

25,500 wafers per months

32,170 wafers per months

43,807 wafers per months

20,000 wafers per Months

Wafer size

6-inch (150mm)

8-inch (200mm)

8-inch (200mm)

8-inch (200mm)

8-inch (200mm)

8-inch (200mm)

8-inch (200mm)

12-inch (300mm)

12-inch (300mm)

8-inch (200mm)

The following table sets forth the size and primary use of our facilities and whether such facilities, including land and buildings, are owned or leased. Our land in the Hsinchu and Tainan Science Parks is leased from the R.O.C. government.

								Building
		Size				Land		(Owned or
Location		(Land/Building)		Primary Use		(Owned or Leased)		Leased)
		(in square meters)
Fab 6A, 10 Innovation 1st Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30076, R.O.C.		27,898/34,609 6-inch wafer production		6-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in December 2026)		Owned
Fab 8A, 3 Li-Hsin 2nd Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30078, R.O.C.		43,468/83,699 8-inch wafer production		8-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in March 2014)		Owned
Fab 8C, 6 Li-Hsin 3rd Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30078, R.O.C.		24,678/71,427 8-inch wafer production		8-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in March 2016)		Owned
Fab 8D, 8 Li-Hsin 3rd Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30078, R.O.C.		8,036/29,181 8-inch wafer production		8-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in March 2016)		Owned
Fab 8E, 17 Li-Hsin Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30078, R.O.C.		35,000/76,315 8-inch wafer production		8-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in February 2016)		Owned
Fab 8F, 3 Li-Hsin 6th Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30078, R.O.C.		24,180/65,736 8-inch wafer production		8-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in February 2018)		Owned
Fab 8S, 16 Creation 1st Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30077, R.O.C.		20,404/65,614 8-inch wafer production		8-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in December 2023)		Owned
Fab 12A, 18, 20 Nan-Ke 2nd Rd., Tainan Science Park, Sinshih, Tainan, Taiwan 74147, R.O.C.		113,661/316,456 12-inch wafer production		12-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in November 2030)		Owned
Fab 12i, 3 Pasir Ris Drive 12 Singapore 519528		85,737/142,169 12-inch wafer production		12-inch wafer production		Leased (expires in March 2031)		Owned
UMCJ, 1580, Yamamoto, Tateyama-City, Chiba, Japan		387,551/61,111 8-inch wafer production		8-inch wafer production		83% owned, 17% leased (expires in June 2049)		96% Owned, 4% Leased
United Tower, 3 Li-Hsin 2nd Rd., Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30078, R.O.C.		8,818/85,224 Administration office		Administration office		Leased (expires in March 2014)		Owned
Neihu Rd. office, 8F,68.Sec. 1,Neihu Rd., Taipei Taiwan 11493, R.O.C.		626/4,817 Administration office		Administration office		Owned		Owned
Testing Building, 1, Chin-Shan, St. 7, Hsinchu, Taiwan 30080, R.O.C.		10,762/41,318 Leased to several companies		Leased to several companies		Owned		Owned
R&D Building, 18 Nan-Ke 2nd Rd., Tainan Science Park, Sinshih, Tainan, Taiwan 74147, R.O.C.		42,000/47,501 Research and development		Research and development		Leased (expires in December 2023)		Owned

								Building
		Size				Land		(Owned or
Location		(Land/Building)		Primary Use		(Owned or Leased)		Leased)
		(in square meters)
Nexpower, No.2, Houke S.Rd., Houli Township, Taichung, Taiwan 42152, R.O.C.		90,634/78,212 Sun power production		Sun power production		Leased (expires in December 2026)		Owned
Topcell, No. 1560, Sec. 1, Zhongshan Rd., Guanyin Township, Taoyuan, Taiwan 32852, R.O.C.		16,873/29,124 6-inch cell production		6-inch cell production		Leased (expires in March 2018)		Leased (expires in March 2018)

Process Technology

Process technology is a set of specifications and parameters that we implement for manufacturing the critical dimensions of the patterned features of the circuitry of semiconductors. Our process technologies are currently among the most advanced in the foundry industry. These advanced technologies have enabled us to provide flexible production schedules to meet our customers’ particular needs.

The continued enhancement of our process technologies has enabled us to manufacture semiconductor devices with smaller geometries, allowing us to produce more dice on a given wafer. We pioneered the production of semiconductor products with 0.25 and 0.18 micron process technology in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and used copper interconnect metallurgic to allow better reliability and higher conductibility than traditional aluminum interconnects. We began volume production using 0.13-micron process technology in 2002. Our extensive experience in the 0.13-micron process technology has helped smooth our transition to 90- nanometer pilot production. Our 90-nanometer process marks further advance in our technology achievements, incorporating up to nine copper metal layers, triple gate oxide and other advanced features and using chrome-less phase-shift masks. This technology has been in volume production since the second quarter of 2004 after passing several product certifications. In 2005, our research and development teams continued to work closely with the manufacturing staff to finalize our 90-nanometer technology portfolio. These collaborative efforts, performed in our best-in-class 300mm facilities, contributed to the improvement of high density 6T-SRAM yield to the maturity level of more than 90%. Our accomplishments led to multiple design awards followed by first silicon success, including a PC graphic IC and the world’s first 90-nanometer Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) RF chip featuring a unique and specially developed inductor scheme. In addition, we were able to develop, within 6 months, several customized 90-nanometer processes tailored to our customers’ device specifications, and demonstrated product success by delivering record high yield for the first product lots. Our first fully-functional 65-nanometer wireless digital baseband customer IC was produced in July of 2005, after only a year since this research and development project began at this facility.

Since the third quarter of 2006, we have begun the mass production of a next-generation 65-nanometer FPGA product, which features a 65% logic capacity increase over previous generation of FPGAs with triple gate oxide and 11 copper metal layers. Our 65- nanometer development team is not only independently developing our technologies in-house but is also bringing up customized process technologies to match customer specific needs. Furthermore, our 45/40-nanometer process technologies, which are jointly developed by us and our strategic partners have been in production since the first half of 2009, significantly increasing the competitive advantages of our customers by providing better device performance in a smaller die size.

The table below sets forth our actual process technology range, categorized by line widths, or the minimum physical dimensions of the transistor gate of integrated circuits in production by each fab, in 2010, and the estimated annual full capacity of each fab, actual total annual output and capacity utilization rates in 2008, 2009 and 2010:

						Year ended
						December 31,
						2010
						Range of				Year Ended December 31,
		Year of				Process)				2008				2009				2010
		Commencement				Technologies				(in thousands of 8-inch wafer
		of Operation				(in microns)				equivalents, except percentages)
Fab
Fab 6A			1989				0.5				328				328				332
Fab 8A			1995				0.5 to 0.25				816				816				816
Fab 8C			1998				0.35 to 0.13				400				402				366
Fab 8D			2000				0.18 to 0.09				260				270				314
Fab 8E			1998				0.5 to 0.15				408				408				410
Fab 8F			2000				0.25 to 0.13				374				381				387
Fab 8S			2000				0.25 to 0.13				294				300				303
Fab 12A			2002				0.18 to 0.028				884				888				842
Fab 12i			2004				0.13 to 0.065				743				815				1,022
UMCJ			1996				0.35 to 0.15				240				240				240
Total estimated capacity			—				—				4,747				4,848				5,031
Total output (actual)			—				—				3,355				3,362				4,713
Average capacity utilization			—				—				70.7	%			69.4	%			93.7	%

The table below sets forth a breakdown of number and percentage of wafer output by process technologies in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

		Year Ended December 31,
		2008								2009								2010
		(in thousands of 8-inch wafer equivalents, except percentages)
Technology
65 nanometers and under			147				4.3	%			270				8.0	%			761				16.1	%
90 nanometers			701				21.0				605				18.0				584				12.4
0.13 micron			555				16.5				602				17.9				997				21.2
0.15 micron			258				7.7				269				8.0				367				7.8
0.18 micron			587				17.5				587				17.4				611				13.0
0.25 micron			110				3.3				76				2.3				144				3.0
0.35 micron			728				21.7				655				19.5				766				16.3
0.50 micron or higher			269				8.0				298				8.9				483				10.2
Total			3,355				100.0	%			3,362				100.0	%			4,713				100.0	%

Capacity and Utilization

The fabs in Taiwan that we own directly are named Fab 6A, Fab 8A, Fab 8C, Fab 8D, Fab 8E, Fab 8F and Fab 8S, all of which are located in the Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan, and Fab 12A, which is located in the Tainan Science Park in Taiwan. The fab in Singapore is named Fab 12i. The fab in Japan is named UMCJ.

Our average capacity utilization rate was, 70.7% in 2008, 69.4% in 2009 and 93.7% in 2010.

Equipment

Considering the performance and productivity of our manufacturing capability highly rely on the quality of our capital equipment, we generally purchase equipment that cannot only meet the demand of our existing process technology, but also has the capability to be upgraded to match our future needs. The principal equipment we use to manufacture semiconductor devices are scanners/steppers, cleaners and track equipment, inspection equipment, etchers, furnaces, wet stations, strippers, implanters, sputters, CVD equipment, probers, testers and so on. We own all of the production equipment except for a few demonstration tools.

Our policy is to purchase high-quality equipment that demonstrates stable performance from vendors with dominate market share to ensure our continued competitiveness in the semiconductor field.

Some of the equipment is available from a limited number of qualified vendors and/or is manufactured in relatively limited quantities, and some equipment has only recently been developed. We believe that our relationships with equipment suppliers are strong enough that we can leverage our position as a major purchaser to purchase equipment on better terms, including shorter lead time, than the terms received by several other foundries.

Although we face the challenge of procuring the right equipment in sufficient quantity necessary for ramp-up or expansion of our fabrication facilities under constraint of short lead times, we have not in the past experienced any material problems in procuring the latest generation equipment on a timely basis even in periods of unpredictably high market demand. We manage the risks in the procurement process through timely internal communications among different divisions, efficient market information collection, early reservation of appropriate delivery slots and constant communications with our suppliers as well as by utilizing our good relationships with the vendors.

Raw Materials

Our manufacturing processes use many raw materials, primarily silicon wafers, chemicals, gases and various types of precious sputtering targets. These raw materials are generally available from several suppliers. Our policy with respect to raw material purchases, similar to that for equipment purchases, is to select only a small number of qualified vendors who have demonstrated quality and reliability on delivery time of the raw materials. We may have any long-term supply contracts with our vendors if necessary.

Our general inventory policy is to maintain sufficient stock of each principal raw material for production and rolling forecasts of near-term requirements received from customers. In addition, we have agreements with several key material suppliers under which they hold similar levels of inventory in their warehouses for our use. However, we are not under any obligation to purchase raw material inventory that is held by our vendors for our benefit until we actually order it. We typically work with our vendors to plan our raw material requirements on a quarterly basis, with indicative pricing generally set on a quarterly basis. The actual purchase price is generally determined based on the prevailing market conditions. In the past, prices of our principal raw materials have not been volatile to a significant degree. Although we have not experienced any shortage of raw materials that had a material effect on our operations, and supplies of raw materials we use currently are adequate, shortages could occur in various critical materials due to interruption of supply or an increase in industry demand.

The most important raw material used in our production processes is silicon wafer, which is the basic raw material from which integrated circuits are made. The principal makers for our wafers are Shin-Etsu, Siltronic AG, MEMC Corporation and Sumco Group. We have in the past obtained and believe that we will continue to be able to obtain a sufficient supply of silicon wafers. We believe that we have close working relationships with our wafer suppliers. Based on such long-term relationships, we believe that these major suppliers will use their best efforts to accommodate our demand.

We use a large amount of water in our manufacturing process. We obtain water supplies from government-owned entities and recycle approximately 85% of the water that we use during the manufacturing process. We also use substantial amounts of dual loop electricity supplied by Taiwan Power Company in the manufacturing process. We maintain back-up generators that are capable of providing adequate amounts of electricity to maintain the required air pressure in our clean rooms in case of power interruptions. We believe our back-up devices are adequate in preventing business interruptions caused by power outages and emergency situations.

Quality Management

We believe that our advanced process technologies and reputation for high quality and reliable services and products have been important factors in attracting and retaining leading international and domestic semiconductor companies as customers.

We structure our quality management system in accordance with the latest international quality standards and our customers’ strict quality and reliability requirements. Our quality management system incorporates comprehensive quality control programs into the entire business flow of foundry operation including, among others, new process development management, production release control, incoming raw material inspection, statistical process control and methodology development, process change management, technical documentation control, product final inspection, metrology tool calibration and measurement system analysis, quality audit program, nonconformity management, customer complaint disposition, eight-discipline problem solving and customer satisfaction monitoring.

We set a high quality goal to ensure consistent high yielding and reliable product performance. Our quality program is continually enhanced through top-down annual Business Policy Management and bottom-up Total Quality Management activities. In addition, our efforts to observe best practices among fabs in the foundry industry have also contributed to the improvement of our overall quality management system.

Many of our customers perform physical production site qualification process in the early development phase and routine quality conformance audits in the volume production phase. These audits include both quality system review and physical fabrication area inspection for verification of conformity with the international quality standard and customers’ quality requirement. Our quality management system and quality control programs have been qualified and routinely audited by numerous customers who are recognized as world-class semiconductor companies with best-in-class quality standards.

Our Quality Assurance Division and Reliability Technology and Assurance Division collaborate to provide quality and reliability performance to customers. With our wafer processing quality and reliability conformance monitor program, we monitor the product quality and reliability at various stages of the entire manufacturing process before shipment to customers.

All our fabs are certified in compliance with ISO/TS 16949 and QC080000 IECQ HSPM standards. ISO/TS 16949 sets the criteria for developing a fundamental quality management system emphasizing on customer satisfaction in quality management, continual improvement, defect prevention and variation and waste reduction. QC080000 IECQ HSPM sets the criteria for developing a process management system for hazardous substances and focuses on developing environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. We are committed to continuously improve our quality management system and to deliver high quality product to our customers.

Services and Products

We primarily engage in wafer fabrication for foundry customers. To optimize fabrication services for our customers, we work closely with them as they finalize circuit design and contract for the preparation of masks to be used in the manufacturing process. We also offer our customers turnkey services by providing subcontracted assembly and test services. We believe that this ability to deliver a variety of foundry services in addition to wafer fabrication enables us to accommodate the needs of a full array of integrated device manufacturers, system companies and fabless design customers with different in-house capabilities.

Wafer manufacturing requires many distinct and intricate steps. Each step in the manufacturing process must be completed with precision in order for finished semiconductor devices to work as intended. The processes require taking raw wafers and turning them into finished semiconductor devices generally through five steps: circuit design, mask tooling, wafer fabrication, assembly and test. The services we offer to our customers in each of these five steps are described below.

Circuit Design. At this initial design stage, our engineers generally work with our customers to ensure that their designs can be successfully and cost-effectively manufactured in our facilities. We have assisted an increasing number of our customers in the design process by providing them with access to our partners’ electronic design analysis tools, intellectual property and design services as well as by providing them with custom embedded memory macro-cells. In our Silicon Shuttle program, we offer customers and intellectual property providers early access to actual silicon samples with their desired intellectual property and content in order to enable early and rapid use of our advanced technologies. The Silicon Shuttle program is a multi-chip test wafer program that allows silicon verification of intellectual property and design elements. In the Silicon Shuttle program, several different vendors can test their intellectual property using a single mask set, greatly reducing the cost of silicon verification for us and the participating vendors. The high cost of masks for advanced processes makes this program attractive to intellectual property vendors. ARM Limited, Faraday Technology Corp., or Faraday Technology, MIPS Technologies International, Virage Logic Corporation (recently acquired by Synopsys) and Synopsys Inc. have utilized our Silicon Shuttle program. In our Alliance Program, we coordinate with leading suppliers of intellectual property, design and ASIC services to ensure their offerings are available to our customers in an integrated, easy to use manner which matches customers’ need to our technologies. With a view to lowering customer design barriers, we expanded our design support functions from conventional design support to adding intellectual property development to complement third-party intellectual properties and to provide customers with the widest range of silicon-verified choices. Our offerings range from design libraries to basic analog mixed-mode intellectual properties which, together, have helped shorten our customer’s design cycle time.

Mask Tooling. Our engineers generally assist our customers to design and/or obtain masks that are optimized for our advanced process technologies and equipment. Actual mask production is usually provided by independent third parties specializing in mask tooling.

Wafer Fabrication. As described above, our manufacturing service provides all aspects of the wafer fabrication process by utilizing a full range of advanced process technologies. During the wafer fabrication process, we perform procedures in which a photosensitive material is deposited on the wafer and exposed to light through the mask to form transistors and other circuit elements comprising a semiconductor. The unwanted material is then etched away, leaving only the desired circuit pattern on the wafer. As part of our wafer fabrication services, we also offer wafer probing services, which test, or probe, individual die on the processed wafers and identify dice that fail to meet required standards. We prefer to conduct wafer probing internally to obtain speedier and more accurate data on manufacturing yield rates.

Assembly and Testing. We offer our customers turnkey services by providing the option to purchase finished semiconductor products that have been assembled and tested. We outsource assembly and test services to leading assembly and test service providers, including Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd., or Siliconware, and Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. in Taiwan. After final testing, the semiconductors are shipped to our customers’ designated locations.

Customers and Markets

Our primary customers, in terms of our sales revenues, include premier integrated device manufacturers, such as Texas Instruments, Infineon and STMicroelectronics, and leading fabless design companies, such as Xilinx, Broadcom, MediaTek, Realtek and Novatek. Although we are not dependent on any single customer, a significant portion of our net operating revenues have been generated from sales to a few customers. Our top ten customers accounted for approximately 63.2% of our net operating revenues in 2010. Set forth below is a geographic breakdown of our operating revenues in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

		Year Ended December 31,
Region		2008				2009				2010
Taiwan			29.8	%			38.2	%			37.5	%
Asia (excluding Taiwan)			5.1				10.6				15.2
North America			55.4				50.2				47.3
Europe			9.7				1.0				0.0
Total			100.0	%			100.0	%			100.0	%

We believe our success in attracting these end customers is a direct result of our commitment to high quality service and our intense focus on customer needs and performance. Because we are an independent semiconductor foundry, most of our operating revenue is generated by our sales of wafers. For 2010, net wafer sales represents 95.0% of our net operating revenue, and excludes revenue from testing, mask and other services. The following table presents the percentages of our net wafer sales by types of customers during the last three years.

		Year Ended December 31,
Customer Type		2008				2009				2010
Fabless design companies			73.2	%			79.2	%			78.1	%
Integrated device manufacturers			26.8				20.8				21.9
Total			100.0	%			100.0	%			100.0	%

We focus on providing a high level of customer service in order to attract customers and maintain their ongoing loyalty. Our culture emphasizes responsiveness to customer needs with a focus on flexibility, speed and accuracy throughout our manufacturing and delivery processes. Our customer-oriented approach is especially evident in two types of services: customer design development services and manufacturing services. We believe that our large production capacity and advanced process technology enable us to provide better customer service than many other foundries through shorter turn-around time, greater manufacturing flexibility and higher manufacturing yields.

We work closely with our customers throughout the design development and prototyping processes. Our design support team closely interacts with customers and intellectual property vendors to facilitate the design process and to identify their specific requirements for intellectual property offerings. We are responsive to our customers’ requirements in terms of overall turn-around time and production time-to-market by, for example, helping our customers streamline their IP offering processes and delivering prototypes in a timely and easy-to-use fashion. We also maintain flexibility and efficiency in our technical capability and respond quickly to our customers’ design changes.

For IP offerings, we work with several leading IP vendors from digital, memory and analog fields in the semiconductor industry, such as Faraday Technology Corp., Synopsys Inc., ARM Limited, and eMemory Technology Inc., to deliver quality IP blocks that have been silicon validated using our advanced processes. Our alliance programs with major electronic design automation vendors, such as Cadence, Magma, Mentor and Synopsys Inc., provide our customers with digital/analog reference design procedures and easy-to-use design solutions. By continuously enhancing our IP offerings, reference design procedures and design services through collaboration with major vendors, we aim to provide complete, accurate and user-friendly design solutions to our customers.

As a design moves into manufacturing production, we continue to provide ongoing customer support through all phases of the manufacturing process. The local account manager works with our customer service representative to ensure the quality of our services, drawing upon our marketing and customer engineering support teams as required.

We offer an online service, “MyUMC”, which gives our customers easy access to our foundry services by providing a total online supply chain solution. MyUMC offers 24-hour access to detailed account information such as manufacturing, engineering and design support documents through each customer’s own customized start page. The features that are available to customers through MyUMC include (i) viewing the status of orders from the start of production to the final shipping stages; (ii) designing layouts to shorten customers’ tape out time; (iii) collecting customer engineering requests; (iv) gathering and downloading documents for design purposes; (v) and accessing online in real-time the same manufacturing data used by our fab engineers. In addition, we have a system-to-system connecting service to provide direct data exchange between our system and our customers’ systems. In order to continue to improve our information security management, our information technology division received ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certification in March 2008.

We price our products on a per die or per wafer basis, taking into account the complexity of the technology, the prevailing market conditions, the order size, the cycle time, the strength and history of our relationship with the customer and our capacity utilization. Our main sales office is located in Taiwan, which is in charge of our sales activities in Asia. United Microelectronics (Europe) BV, our wholly-owned subsidiary based in Amsterdam, assists our sales to customers in Europe. Our sales in North America are made through UMC Group (USA), our subsidiary located in Sunnyvale, California.

We typically designate a portion of our wafer manufacturing capacity to some of our customers primarily under two types of agreements: reciprocal commitment agreements and deposit agreements. Under a reciprocal commitment agreement, the customer agrees to pay for, and we agree to supply, a specified capacity at a specified time in the future. Under a deposit agreement, the customer makes in advance a cash deposit for an option on a specified capacity at our fabs for a stated period of time. Option deposits are credited to wafer purchase prices as shipments are made. If this customer does not use the specified capacity, it will forfeit the deposit but, in certain circumstances and with our permission, the customer may arrange for a substitute customer to utilize such capacity. In some cases, we also make available capacity to customers under other types of agreements, such as capacity commitment arrangements with technology partners.

We advertise in trade journals, organize technology seminars, hold a variety of regional and international sales conferences and attend a number of industry trade fairs to promote our products and services. We also publish a corporate newsletter for our customers.

Competition

The worldwide semiconductor foundry industry is highly competitive, particularly during periods of overcapacity and inventory correction. We compete internationally and domestically with dedicated foundry service providers as well as with integrated device manufacturers and final product manufacturers which have in-house manufacturing capacity or foundry operations. Some of our competitors have substantially greater production, financial, research and development and marketing resources than we have. As a result, these companies may be able to compete more aggressively over a longer period of time than we can. In addition, several new dedicated foundries have commenced operations and compete directly with us. Any significant increase in competition may erode our profit margins and weaken our earnings.

We believe that our primary competitors in the foundry services market are Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Shanghai) Corporation and Globalfoundries Inc., as well as the foundry operation services of some integrated device manufacturers such as IBM, Samsung, Intel and Toshiba. Other competitors such as DongbuAnam Semiconductor, Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., X-FAB Semiconductors Foundries AG and Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. have initiated efforts to develop substantial new foundry capacity, although much of such capacity involves less cost-effective production than the 12-inch fabs for which we possess technical know-how. New entrants in the foundry business are likely to initiate a trend of competitive pricing and create potential overcapacity in legacy technology. The principal elements of competition in the semiconductor foundry industry include technical competence, production speed and cycle time, time-to-market, research and development quality, available capacity, manufacturing yields, customer service and price. We believe that we compete favorably with the new competitors on each of these elements, particularly our technical competence and research and development capabilities.

Intellectual Property

Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain patents, licenses and other intellectual property rights covering our production processes and activities. To that end, we have acquired certain patents and patent licenses and intend to continue to seek patents on our production processes. As of December 31, 2010, we held 3,751 U.S. patents and 6,170 patents issued outside of the United States.

Our ability to compete also depends on our ability to operate without infringing on the proprietary rights of others. The semiconductor industry is generally characterized by frequent claims and litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. As is the case with many companies in the semiconductor industry, we have from time to time received communications from third parties asserting patents that allegedly cover certain of our technologies and alleging infringement of certain intellectual property rights of others. We expect that we will receive similar communications in the future. Irrespective of the validity or the successful assertion of such claims, we could incur significant costs and devote significant management resources to the defense of these claims, which could seriously harm our company. See “Item 3. Key Information—D. Risk Factors—Our inability to obtain, preserve and defend intellectual property rights could harm our competitive position.”

In order to minimize our risks from claims based on our manufacture of semiconductor devices or end-use products whose designs infringe on others’ intellectual property rights, we in general accept orders only from companies that we believe enjoy satisfactory reputation and for products that are not identified as risky for potential infringement claims. Furthermore, we obtain indemnification rights from customers. We also generally obtain indemnification rights from equipment vendors to hold us harmless from any losses resulting from any suit or proceedings brought against our company involving allegation of infringement of intellectual property rights on account of our use of the equipment supplied by them.

We have entered into various patent cross-licenses with major technology companies, including a number of leading international semiconductor companies, such as IBM, Renesas (and formerly Hitachi), Freescale (and formerly Motorola) and LSI. Our cross licenses may have different terms and expiry dates. Depending upon our competitive position and strategy, we may or may not renew our cross licenses and further and we may enter into additional technology and/or intellectual property licenses in the future.

Research and Development

We spent NT$8,274 million, NT$8,044 million and NT$8,740 million (US$300 million) in 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively, on research and development, which represented 8.6%, 8.8% and 6.9% respectively, of our net operating revenues for these periods. Our research and development efforts are mainly focused on delivering SoC foundry solutions that consist of the world’s leading process technologies, customer support services and manufacturing techniques. These resources provide our foundry customers with improved opportunities to develop SoC products that supply the global market. Our commitment to research and development can be illustrated by our 2010 research and development expenditures, which reached approximately 6.9% of net operating revenues. In June 2007, we completed the construction of a research and development center for nanometer technologies in the Tainan Science Park. The research and development center allows for seamless application of advanced process technology in the research and development phase to the manufacturing phase.

As of March 31, 2011, we employed 1,084 professionals in our research and development activities. In addition, other management and operational personnel are also involved in research and development activities but are not separately identified as research and development professionals.

Our Investments

Depending on the market conditions, we intend to gradually reduce our investments through secondary equity offerings, exchangeable bond offerings and other measures available to our company.

We issued exchangeable bonds of US$235 million due 2007 in May 2002, and exchangeable bonds of US$206 million due 2008 in July 2003. The first bonds were exchangeable, at the option of the bondholders, into common shares or American depositary shares of AU Optronics, and the second bonds were exchangeable into common shares of AU Optronics. As of December 31, 2004, all bondholders of the Exchangeable Bonds due 2008 had exercised their rights to exchange their bonds into common shares of AU Optronics. Prior to the maturity date of May 10, 2007, 99.9% of the bondholders of the Exchangeable Bonds due 2007 had exercised their rights to exchange their bonds into common shares or American depositary shares of AU Optronics. We redeemed all of the remaining bonds outstanding in the principal amount of US$0.3 million. We sold 78 million common shares of AU Optronics in 2007. As of December 31, 2007, we did not have any common shares of AU Optronics.

We issued two tranches of zero coupon exchangeable bonds due 2014 in December 2009. The two exchangeable bond offerings consist of $127.2 million bonds exchangeable into common shares of Unimicron Technology Corporation, or Unimicron, and $80 million bonds exchangeable into common shares of Novatek Microelectronics Corp., Ltd., or Novatek. As of December 31, 2010, no bonds had been exchanged into common shares of Unimicron and Novatek, respectively.

On March 16, 2011, our board of directors authorized the issuance of up to US$500 million principal value of unsecured zero coupon euro convertible bonds. The proceeds of this contemplated offering would be used for purchasing machinery and equipment. Any offering of convertible bonds would be subject to market conditions and the approval of Securities and Futures Bureau, Financial Supervisory Commission, Executive Yuan, R.O.C..

In 2008, we sold 5 million common shares of MediaTek for NT$1,673 million. In 2009, we sold 2 million common shares of MediaTek for NT$809 million. In 2010, we did not sell any common shares of MediaTek. As of December 31, 2010, we did not have any common shares of MediaTek.

In addition, we sold 3.6 million common shares of ITE Tech. Inc., or ITE, for NT$137 million and 6.3 million common shares of Holtek Semiconductor Inc., or Holtek, for NT$253 million in 2008. In 2009, we sold 0.5 million common shares of ITE for NT$35 million. We did not sell any common shares of Holtek in 2009. In 2010, we sold 0.2 million common shares of ITE for NT$11 million (US$0.4 million), 0.2 million common shares of Holtek for NT$9 million (US$0.3 million) and 96 million common shares of Mega Financial Holding Company, or Mega, for NT$1,903 million (US$65 million). As of March 31, 2011, we held 14.84%, 16.19% and nil in ITE, Holtek and Mega, respectively.

In recent years many developed and developing countries have listed energy saving and carbon reduction as primary administrative policies to tackle the challenge of potential energy shortages in future. Technologies for renewable energy and energy saving are expected to become a focus in future technology development and the growth of green energy related industries is predictable. On August 24, 2009, our Board of Directors approved the establishment of our New Business Development Center and its 100% owned subsidiary, UMC New Business Investment Corporation. As of December 31, 2010, the paid-in capital of the New Business Development Center is NT$3 billion. We established the New Business Development Center to capitalize on high growth and high profit in potential industries such as solar, LED and semiconductor through timely strategic investment. In the short to mid-term, we plan to complete the development of related technologies and establish a preliminary scale of operations. For the long term, as key proficiencies mature and resource integration is complete, the new energy business is expected to become one of our core businesses. We expect these measures will position us well for future growth.

Environmental, Safety and Health Matters

UMC implemented extensive ESH management systems since 1996. These systems enable our operations to identify applicable ESH regulations, assist in evaluating compliance status and timely establish loss preventive and control measures. The systems we implemented in all our fabs have been certified as meeting the ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards. ISO 14001 consists of a set of standards that provide guidance to the management of organizations to achieve an effective environmental management system. Procedures are established at manufacturing locations to ensure that all accidental spills and discharges are properly addressed. OHSAS 18001 is a recognizable occupational health and safety management system standard, which may be applied to assess and certify our management systems. Our goal in implementing ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 systems is to continually improve our ESH management, comply with ESH regulations and to be a sustainable green foundry. UMC’s major ESH policies include:

Environmental Protection Aspects:

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To be an environmentally friendly enterprise characterized by continual improvement with a goal of pollution-free production;

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To incorporate our environmental management system into the general organizational management system;

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To take initiatives to reduce waste production and prevent pollution by introducing and developing environmentally friendly technology for design, production and operation;

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To conserve energy and recycle resources in order to be a model of environmental protection for the international community;

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To fulfill corporate social responsibilities by playing an active role in public and community affairs to improve and protect the environment;

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To educate employees about environmentally sound ethics and practices.

Safety and Health Aspects :

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To achieve a goal of zero accidents and comply with all applicable safety and regulatory requirements to ensure safety is the top priority for UMC’s sustainable development.

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To reinforce best safety and health management practice to reach international ESH and risk management standards.

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To adopt risk control advanced ESH management and rescue technologies to enhance company’s standards.

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To provide safe work environment and operation through preventive management and audit.

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To eliminate hazard factors and prevent incidents through each and every ownership of responsibilities in safety and health.

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To encourage all employees to actively participate in safety and health training and promotional activities.

As a member of the global community and a semiconductor industry leader, we have implemented measures to deal with environmental problems and mitigate climate change. We have introduced green concepts in our operations, including green commitment, management, procurement, production, products, recycling, office, education and marketing.

In order to conquer the green barrier formed by the ROHS (the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive, we established a cross-division HSPM (Hazardous Substances Process Management) committee to manage all development and implementation of related work. We completed the final system audit for QC 080000 ICEQ HSPM qualification, a certification for having a hazardous substance process management system that meets the RoHS Directive, on June 9, 2006 and became the first semiconductor manufacturer worldwide to achieve HSPM certification for all fabs. In 2009, we completed the report on the carbon footprint verification for integrated circuit wafers produced at our facilities, the first such report in the foundry industry. In 2010, UMC completed water footprint verification for our 200 mm and 300 mm wafers. These verifications provide scientific and reliable statistics on the carbon and water information of products manufactured in our fabs as well as self-reviews of environmental impact.

With respect to safety and health management, we realized that lowering the risks in equipment and processes can reduce accidents, but cannot guarantee the safety of all employees. In order to achieve the goal of “zero-accident”, we intend to promote the concept of “safety is my responsibility”. We have educated the employees with the concepts of “be aware of your own safety well as the safety of others” and “safety is everyone’s responsibility, and my personal accountability.”

Furthermore, we have implemented the FMEA method to foster employees’ capabilities in risk analysis. Therefore, we established a channel for communication to encourage and ensure the employees to fully express their opinions for professional response and assistance. By doing so, we hope to establish a working attitude of “Safety and health first” to further improve the quality of our working environment, and eventually to become a good example of global safety and hygiene management.

Important Awards in Environmental Protection:

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Selected as a member of Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for 3 years since 2008.

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Awarded the Taiwan Environmental Heroes award, by Global Views Magazine in 2010.

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Awarded “Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Report Award” by Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy. (2008-2010)

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Awarded “Enterprises Environmental Award of the Republic of China” by the Environmental Protection Administration of Executive Yuan, R.O.C.. (totally 11 times since 2001)

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Awarded “Excellent Performance in Waste Management and Resource Reduction, Recycle and Reuse” by EPA. (2010)

Climate Change

We hope to contribute to energy saving and carbon reduction through breakthroughs in green technology development and applications and establish our company as a leader in the green technology industry by injecting fresh enthusiasm for sustainable development.

We announced the climate change policy and carbon emission reduction plans on April 22, 2010. The new plans include a reduction of 33% for normalized perfluorinated compounds, or PFC, emissions and 3% for electricity usage by 2012 compared with the base year 2009. It is estimated that once the plan is completed, relative CO₂ emissions will be reduced by another 170,000 tons each year, which is expected to bring the total relative CO₂ emission reduction achieved through our carbon reduction measures to 43%, or approximately 1.1 million tons per year. Relative PFC emissions are expected to be reduced by as much as 75% with the new plan when combined with existing efforts. Our climate change policies during this post-Kyoto Protocol period includes: (i) achieving carbon neutral status via carbon management, (ii) becoming a comprehensive low-carbon solution provider, and (iii) leveraging corporate resources to cultivate a low-carbon economy.

We are the leader in the foundry industry to complete the replacement of C₂F₆ with C₃F₈ of lower global warming potential in 2007. We estimate this replacement program helped reduce CO₂ emissions by 340,000 metric tons in 2008, 377,000 metric tons in 2009 and 441,000 metric tons in 2010. Furthermore, our introduction of C₄F₈ in 2008 further decreased the emission of CO₂ in our production process reducing CO₂ emissions by an estimated 75,000 metric tons in 2008, 73,000 metric tons in 2009 and 100,000 metric tons in 2010.

We also support timely disclosure of carbon information and ensuring data quality. Since 2006, we have participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project formed by global institutional investors and disclosed our annual greenhouse gas emission volume, reduction goals and results. Moreover, we engage third-party verifiers to ensure the quality of the data. We completed verification on greenhouse gas emission and reduction records from 2000 to 2009 for all of our fabs in Taiwan. We plan to complete the 2010 GHG emissions data verification within this year.

In addition, our environmental efforts include the establishment of our New Business Development Center which will promote a low carbon economy by investing across the entire supply chain of the green technology industry, including renewable energy, solar energy, and new generation light-emitting diode (LED). The New Business Development Center will focus its primary investments on the LED and solar energy industries and such companies as LED lighting company Power Light Co. and photovoltaic engineering design company EverRich Energy Corporation.

Litigation

Hejian, a semiconductor manufacturer in Suzhou, China, was set up in December 2001. Soon after the establishment of Hejian, various rumors circulated that Hejian was set up by us. We immediately denied these rumors: we did not provide any capital nor did we transfer any technology to Hejian.

Nevertheless, in early 2006, the Hsinchu District Prosecutor’s Office brought criminal charges in the Hsinchu District Court against our former Chairman, Robert H. C. Tsao and our former Vice Chairman, John Hsuan in connection with alleged breach of fiduciary duties and certain alleged violations of the R.O.C. Commercial Accounting Act regarding Hejian. Prior to such charges, both our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman resigned from their respective positions with our company. In October 2007, the Hsinchu District Court found our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman not guilty, but the Prosecutor’s office filed an appeal with the Taiwan High Court in November 2007. On December 31, 2008, the Taiwan High Court rejected the prosecutor’s appeal and sustained the Hsinchu District Court’s decision. On January 20, 2009, Taiwan High Prosecutor’s office filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. On December 3, 2009, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of, and remanded the case to, the Taiwan High Court for a new trial on the prosecutor’s appeal. On September 14, 2010, the Taiwan High Court again ruled in our favor, finding our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman not guilty. The Prosecutor’s Office did not file for an appeal within the time allowed, and this case is now closed in our favor.

The R.O.C. FSC, a regulatory authority that supervises securities, banking, futures, and insurance activities in Taiwan, also began their investigation into whether there had been any violation of R.O.C. securities laws by us regarding Hejian. In April 2005, our former Chairman was fined (1) NT$2.4 million by the R.O.C. FSC for delay in making timely public disclosure (within two days) regarding information relating to Hejian, which had been resolved in the March 4 Resolution, and (2) NT$0.6 million for our failure to disclose information regarding assistance we had provided to Hejian. Our former Chairman’s appeal in relation to such fines was overruled in early 2006, and our former Chairman filed a lawsuit with the Taipei Administrative High Court to challenge the R.O.C. FSC fines. In December 2007, the Taipei Administrative High Court revoked the R.O.C. FSC’s decision and ruled in favor of our former Chairman. In January 2008, the R.O.C. FSC filed an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court. On November 5, 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court denied the R.O.C. FSC’s appeal. This case is now closed in favor of our former Chairman.

In connection with the March 4 Resolution, our company was also fined in the amount of NT$30,000 by the Taiwan Stock Exchange for an alleged delay in making public disclosure regarding Hejian. After our former Chairman and former Vice Chairman were indicted by the prosecutor, our company was found by the R.O.C. MOEA to be in violation of the Act Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area and fined in the amount of NT$5 million for our alleged investment in Hejian. Our appeal to the R.O.C. MOEA in relation to such fines was denied in late 2006. We filed an administrative lawsuit in December 2006 with the Taipei Administrative High Court to challenge the R.O.C. MOEA fine. In July 2007, the Taipei Administrative High Court revoked the R.O.C. MOEA’s decision and ruled in our favor. In August 2007, the R.O.C. MOEA filed an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court. On December 10, 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court reversed the decision of, and remanded the case to, the Taipei High Administrative Court for a new trial on our administrative lawsuit. On July 21, 2010, the Taipei High Court ruled against us and we appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court on August 23, 2010. This matter remains open, with the case pending in the Supreme Administrative Court.

In June 2005, our Singapore Branch as plaintiff issued a Writ of Summons against Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Company (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., or Tokio Marine, as defendant under a marine cargo insurance policy for the replacement cost of a 300mm Endura System damaged in transit. We incurred a cost of approximately US$1.24 million to replace the damaged chamber. Our Singapore Branch filed suit to recover under the Tokio Marine insurance policy on the grounds that the equipment was damaged in shipment as a result of rough handling or conditions. Tokio Marine denied that the incident was a covered event under the policy. In April 2008, the trial court entered a judgment in our favor in the amount of US$1.24 million with costs to be taxed in accordance with Singapore law. Before the time for Tokio Marine to appeal passed, Tokio Marine paid us US$1.24 million plus interest in accordance with the judgment. Tokio Marine filed a notice of appeal to appeal the trial court decision on January 5, 2009. After a hearing on March 26, 2009, the Court of Appeal entered its order in our favor, dismissed the appeal and ordered Tokio Marine to pay the costs we incurred on appeal. This case is now closed. Tokio Marine has made full payment for the amounts awarded by the court and is pursuing subrogation claims against China Airlines, the third-party carrier.

In February 2006, Taiwan Power Company, or TPC, filed a civil litigation case in Taiwan Hsinchu District Court against us and other Taiwan companies, claiming that (1) we and the other defendants collectively should pay electrical fees of NT$13.3 million with accrued interest to TPC, and (2) we pay electrical line fees of NT$21.2 million to TPC. On March 11, 2009, the Hsinchu District Court denied TPC’s claim and ruled in our favor. TPC filed an appeal with the Taiwan High Court on April 9, 2009. On July 13, 2010, the Taiwan High Court ruled against us and we filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on August 13, 2010. On December 30, 2010, the Supreme Court found our appeal to be legitimate, dismissed the Taiwan High Court’s judgment against us and remanded the case back to the Taiwan High Court for retrial. This case is now pending in the Taiwan High Court.

In March 2006, the spouse of Mr. C.F. Shih, a workman employed by Yih-Shin Construction Co., Ltd, or Yih-Shin, one of the subcontractors we engaged for construction of the Fab 12A dormitory, filed a request with the Taiwan Tainan Prosecutors’ Office for charges against us and other related parties in connection with Mr. Shih’s severe injury in connection with the construction work. The Taiwan Tainan Prosecutor’s Office denied this request, but Mr. Shih filed a civil claim in the Taiwan Tainan District Court against us, Yih-Shin and other related parties in April 2006. In the civil claim, Mr. Shih has asked for NT$21.0 million from us, Yih-Shin and other related parties collectively. In addition, Mr. Shih’s mother and spouse each requested compensatory damages of NT$0.3 million, and each of Mr. Shih’s three children requested for compensatory damages of NT$0.1 million. On January 15, 2010, the Taiwan Tainan District Court entered its order in our favor. The plaintiff did not file any appeal by the February 10, 2010 deadline, and this case is now closed in our favor in accordance with applicable rules.

On August 27, 2008, the Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office visited our offices in relation to an investigation related to our investment in ProMOS Technologies. We fully cooperated with the authorities in this investigation. We also conducted an internal inquiry regarding this investment, and we did not find any evidence of inappropriate activities that violate any of the applicable regulations. The Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office has decided not to prosecute this case.

Dispute with LSI

Due to the recent merger between LSI and Agere, we exercised our option to terminate Agere’s payments under the Alternate Payment Provisions and Supplemental Licenses, or the APP, effective January 1, 2004 between us and Agere. As a result, the licenses granted to Agere and Lucent Technologies under our patents and the licenses granted to us under the semiconductor patents owned by Agere, Lucent Technologies and AT&T were terminated. In light of the merger, we believed we could secure more favorable terms than those afforded under the APP and entered negotiations with LSI/Agere toward that goal.

Based on past experience and our patent portfolio, on April 1, 2009, we entered a negotiated solution which resolves all disputes between us and LSI/Agere without any material adverse effect on our operations or financial performance as a whole. Pursuant to the terms of the settlement, the proceedings were terminated and/or dismissed with prejudice, including each of the following proceedings:

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In April 2008, LSI filed a petition with the U.S. International Trade Commission naming us and eighteen other companies as proposed respondents (including AMIC Technology, one of our customers). LSI’s petition was based on alleged infringement of U.S. Patent Number 5,227,335, claiming certain methods for forming nitrided glue layers for tungsten processing in semiconductor fabrication. LSI’s petition sought an order prohibiting import and/or sale of the accused devices in the U.S.. Under established ITC practice, the ITC initiated an investigation on the petition.

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On April 18 2008, LSI also filed a complaint in Federal District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, alleging an infringement of the same patent by the same parties. This complaint sought an injunction or order prohibiting the alleged infringement along with a reasonable royalty, and other damages in a trebled amount on the basis of alleged willfulness. Based on our motion, this court case was stayed pending the outcome of the ITC matter.

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On October 31, 2008, we filed a counter-suit against LSI in the Federal District Court in the Northern District of California alleging infringement of two our patents, U.S. Patent Numbers 5,459,354 and 5,652,689. Our complaint sought an injunction or order prohibiting the alleged infringement along with a reasonable royalty, and other damages, trebled on the basis of alleged willfulness.

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On December 24, 2008, LSI filed its response to our complaint, denying infringement and alleging invalidity and unenforceability. In addition, LSI included counterclaims against us, alleging invalidity and unenforceability of our patents and further alleging infringement of four LSI U.S. Patents, U.S. Patent Numbers 5,149,672; 6,153,543; 5,599,739; and 5,693,561. LSI’s counterclaim sought an order invalidating and/or rendering the our patents unenforceable, together with an injunction or order prohibiting the alleged infringement along with a reasonable royalty, and other damages, trebled on the basis of alleged willfulness. On January 15, 2009, LSI dismissed that counterclaim without prejudice, and reasserted the same claims in the same court against us and our U.S. subsidiary.

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On January 9, 2009, we filed a second complaint in the Federal District Court in the Northern District of California, alleging infringement by LSI and Agere of our U.S. Patent Number 5,393,701. Our complaint sought an injunction or order prohibiting the alleged infringement along with a reasonable royalty, and other damages, trebled on the basis of alleged willfulness.

We entered into a multi-year cross license agreement with LSI, effective from April 1, 2009 through December 31, 2012, which provides for the cross license of certain semiconductor patents including process and design. We and LSI further agreed not to assert patents against each other prior to December 31, 2012. We also agreed to pay LSI certain royalty fees under this agreement. See “Item 10 — Material Contracts”.

Risk Management

Risk and safety matters are administered by our Group’s Risk Management and Environmental Safety Health Division, or the GRM & ESH, established in 1998. We are pursuing the goal of a highly protected risk status in the semiconductor industry through the implementation of strict engineering safety procedures, regular enforcement of safety codes and standards, and compliance of detailed industry safety guidelines.

Our hazards risk management slogans are set forth below:

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Uniqueness in risk management

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Maturity in property loss control

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Continuous improvement in BCP

We have also adopted the Triple Star Ranking System of Chartis Insurance, a global leader in risk management and insurance, since 1999. All fabs have been ranked as top-class following Chartis’s risk evaluation and risk improvement recommendations. The ranking system focuses on 20 items, including ten Physical Protection Elements and ten Human Elements. Our latest 12-inch lines, Fab 12A P1/2, 12A P3/4 and 12i, obtained triple-stars in all 20 elements in the very first Triple Star Audit.

We have also implemented proactive efforts in earthquake risk prevention. We believe our efforts contributed to our quick and exemplary recovery from two major earthquakes in Taiwan on September 21, 1999 and March 4, 2010, respectively. Our Hsinchu fabs and Fab 12A in Tainan sustained only minor impact to their operations from the earthquake without interruption to the power system or water service. Normal operations resumed shortly after the incidents.

Our continuous efforts in risk improvement and mitigation programs were recognized by the “clean room risk identification and mitigation” Gold Medal we received in the National Quality Control Circle competition held by the R.O.C. MOEA in 2005. In addition, we were awarded “Outstanding Performance Award” in Risk Management in 2006 by Chartis Insurance as a result of our outstanding risk management program.

Insurance

We maintain industrial all risk insurance for our buildings, facilities, equipment and inventories as well as third party properties, if any. The insurance for fabs and their equipment covers physical damage and business interruption losses up to their respective policy limits except for exclusions as defined in the policy. We purchase directors and officers liability insurance for our board directors and executive officers, covering the liabilities incurred in relation to his/her/its operation of business and legally responsible for. We also maintain public liability insurance for losses to third parties arising from our business operations. We believe that our insurance coverage is adequate to cover all major types of losses relevant to the semiconductor industry practice. However, significant damage to any of our production facilities, whether as a result of fire or other causes, could seriously harm our business.

C. Organizational Structure

The following list shows our corporate structure as of December 31, 2010:

				Percentage of
		Jurisdiction of		Ownership as of
Company		Incorporation		December 31, 2010
UMC Group (USA)		California, U.S.A.			100.00	%
United Microelectronics (Europe) B.V.		The Netherlands			100.00	%
UMC Capital Corp.		Cayman Islands			100.00	%
TLC Capital Co., Ltd.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			100.00	%
UMC New Business Investment Corp.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			100.00	%
Alpha Wisdom Limited		Cayman Islands			100.00	%
Green Earth Limited		Samoa			100.00	%
Fortune Venture Capital Corp.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			100.00	%
UMC Japan		Japan			100.00	%
Unitruth Investment Corp.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			100.00	%
UMC Capital (U.S.A)		California, U.S.A.			100.00	%
ECP VITA Ltd.		British Virgin Islands			100.00	%
Soaring Capital Corp.		Samoa			100.00	%
Unitruth Advisor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.		China			100.00	%
Mos Art Pack Corp.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			73.34	%
Nexpower Technology Corp.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			57.67	%
Wavetek Microelectronics Corporation		Taiwan, R.O.C.			99.79	%
United Lighting Opto-Electronic Inc.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			94.65	%
United Lighting Opto-Electronic Investment (HK) Limited		China			94.65	%
Everrich Energy Corp.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			91.12	%
Everrich Energy Investment (HK) Limited		China			91.12	%
Everrich (Shandong) Energy Co. (formerly Yongsheng (Shandong) Energy Co.)		China			91.12	%
Unistars Corp.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			65.63	%
Topcell Solar International Co. Ltd.		Taiwan, R.O.C.			51.49	%
Jenenergy System Corporation		Taiwan, R.O.C.			38.45	%
Smart Energy Enterprises Limited		China			38.45	%
Smart Energy ShanDong Corporation		China			38.45	%

D. Property, Plants and Equipment

Please refer to “—B. Business Overview—Manufacturing Facilities” for a discussion of our property, plants and equipment

ITEM 4A.		UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

Not applicable.

ITEM 5.		OPERATING AND FINANCIAL REVIEW AND PROSPECTS

Unless stated otherwise, the discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in this section apply to our financial information as prepared in accordance with R.O.C. GAAP. You should read the following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations together with the consolidated financial statements and the notes to such statements included in this annual report. R.O.C. GAAP varies in certain significant respects from U.S. GAAP. These differences and their effects on our financial statements are described in Note 34 to our audited consolidated financial statements included in this annual report.

For the convenience of readers, NT dollar amounts used in this section for, and as of, the year ended December 31, 2010 have been translated into U.S. dollar amounts using US$1.00 = NT$29.14, the noon buying rate as certified for customs purposes by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on December 30, 2010. The U.S. dollar translation appears in parentheses next to the relevant NT dollar amount.

Overview

We are one of the world’s leading independent semiconductor foundries, providing comprehensive wafer fabrication services and technologies to our customers based on their designs. We manage our business as two operating segments but measure our results of operations based on a single reportable segment because the other operating segment does not exceed the materiality threshold.

Cyclicality of the Semiconductor Industry

As the semiconductor industry is highly cyclical, revenues varied significantly over this period. It can take several years to plan and construct a fab and bring it to operations. Therefore, during periods of favorable market conditions, semiconductor manufacturers often begin building new fabs or acquiring existing fabs in response to anticipated demand growth for semiconductors. In addition, after commencement of commercial operations, fabs can increase production volumes rapidly. As a result, large amounts of semiconductor manufacturing capacity typically become available during the same time period. Absent a proportional growth in demand, this increase in supply often results in semiconductor manufacturing overcapacity, which has led to a sharp decline in semiconductor prices and significant capacity under-utilization. Our average capacity utilization rate decreased to 70.7% in 2008, decreased to 69.4% in 2009 and increased to 93.7% in 2010. We believe that our results in 2008, 2009 and 2010 reflect the ongoing uncertainty in the global economy, conservative corporate information technology spending and low visibility with respect to end market demand.

Pricing

We price our products on either a per die or a per wafer basis, taking into account the complexity of the technology, the prevailing market conditions, the order size, the cycle time, the strength and history of our relationship with the customer and our capacity utilization. Because semiconductor wafer prices tend to fluctuate frequently, we in general review our pricing on a quarterly basis. As a majority of our costs and expenses are fixed or semi-fixed, fluctuations in our products’ average selling prices historically have had a substantial impact on our margins. Our average selling price increased approximately 2.7% from 2009 to 2010, mainly due to a change in our product mix.

We believe that our current level of pricing is comparable to that of other leading foundries in each respective geometry. We believe that our ability to provide a wide range of advanced foundry services and process technologies as well as large manufacturing capacity will enable us to compete effectively with other leading foundries at a comparable price level.

Capacity Utilization Rates

Our operating results are characterized by relatively high fixed costs. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, approximately 68.1%, 67.2% and 61.5%, respectively, of our manufacturing costs consisted of depreciation, a portion of indirect material costs, amortization of license fees and indirect labor costs.

If our utilization rates increase, our costs would be allocated over a larger number of units, which generally leads to lower unit costs. As a result, our capacity utilization rates can significantly affect our margins. Our utilization rates have varied from period to period to reflect our production capacity and market demand. Our average capacity utilization rate decreased to 70.7% in 2008, 69.4% in 2009 but increased to 93.7% in 2010, respectively, primarily due to the global economic recovery from credit crisis. Utilization rates can also be affected by efficiency in production facility and product flow management. Other factors affecting utilization rates are the complexity and mix of the wafers produced, overall industry conditions, the level of customer orders, mechanical failure, disruption of operations due to expansion of operations, relocation of equipment or disruption of power supply and fire or natural disaster.

Our production capacity is determined by us based on the capacity ratings given by manufacturers of the equipment used in the fab, adjusted for, among other factors, actual output during uninterrupted trial runs, expected down time due to set up for production runs and maintenance, expected product mix and research and development. Because these factors include subjective elements, our measurement of capacity utilization rates may not be comparable to those of our competitors.

Change in Product Mix and Technology Migration

Because the price of wafers processed with different technologies varies significantly, the mix of wafers that we produce is among the primary factors that affect our revenues and profitability. The value of a wafer is determined principally by the complexity and performance of the processing technology used to produce the wafer, as well as by the yield and defect density. Production of devices with higher levels of functionality and performance, with better yields and lower defect density as well as with greater system-level integration requires better manufacturing expertise and generally commands higher wafer prices. The increase in price generally has more than offset associated increases in production cost once an appropriate economy of scale is reached.

Prices for wafers of a given level of technology generally decline over the processing technology life cycle. As a result, we have continuously been migrating to increasingly sophisticated technologies to maintain the same level of profitability. We began our volume production with 90 nanometer and 65 nanometer technologies in 2004 and 2006, respectively. We started 40-nanometer production in the first half of 2009. These types of technology migration require continuous capital and research and development investment. Because developing and acquiring advanced technologies involve substantial capital investment, we expect to continue to spend a substantial amount of capital on upgrading our technologies and capabilities.

Manufacturing Yields

Manufacturing yield per wafer is measured by the number of functional dice on that wafer over the maximum number of dice that can be produced on that wafer. A small portion of our products is priced on a per die basis, and our high manufacturing yields have assisted us in achieving higher margins. In addition, with respect to products that are priced on a per wafer basis, we believe that our ability to deliver high manufacturing yields generally has allowed us to either charge higher prices per wafer or attract higher order volumes, resulting in higher margins.

We continually upgrade our process technologies. At the beginning of each technological upgrade, the manufacturing yield utilizing the new technology is generally lower, sometimes substantially lower, than the yield under the current technology. The yield is generally improved through the expertise and cooperation of our research and development personnel and process engineers, as well as equipment and at times raw material suppliers. Our policy is to offer customers new process technologies as soon as the new technologies have passed our internal reliability tests.

Investments

Most of our investments were made to improve our market position and for strategy considerations, a significant portion of which are in foundry-related companies including fabless design customers, raw material suppliers and intellectual property vendors. In addition, we also invest in non-foundry-related businesses, such as Cathay Financial Holding Co. Ltd. and ProMOS Technologies Inc. We have established the New Business Development Center to identify and make strategic investments in high growth industries such as solar, LED and semiconductor. In recent years, we have from time to time disposed of investments for financial, strategic or other purposes.

See “Item 4. Information on the Company—B. Business Overview—Our Investments” for a description of our investments.

Treasury Share Programs

We have from time to time announced plans, none of which was binding on us, to buy back up to a fixed amount of our shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange at the price range set forth in the plans. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, we purchased an aggregate of 200 million, 300 million and 300 million, respectively, of our shares under these plans. From August 27, 2008 to October 2, 2008, we purchased 200 million of our shares for cancellation. From December 17, 2008 to February 16, 2009, we purchased 300 million of our shares at an average price of NT$7.98 per share to transfer to employees. From February 3, 2010 to April 2, 2010, we purchased 300 million of our shares at an average price of NT$16.15 per share to transfer to employees. Of the repurchased shares, 137 million, 97 million, 78 million and 64 million shares were purchased by our employees in November 2003, December 2007, December 2009, and December 2010 respectively; 556 million shares in aggregate were canceled in 2008.

Critical Accounting Policies

General

Our discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based upon our consolidated financial statements included in the annual report, which have been prepared in accordance with R.O.C. GAAP. R.O.C. GAAP varies in certain respects from U.S. GAAP. These differences and their effects on our financial statements are described in Note 34 to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this annual report. The preparation of our consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses, and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. We evaluate our estimates on an ongoing basis and base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

We believe the following critical accounting policies involve significant judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements.

Revenue Recognition

We recognize revenue when persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, the product or service has been delivered, the seller’s price to the buyer is fixed or determinable and collectability is reasonably assured. Most of our sales transactions have shipping terms of Free on Board, or FOB, or Free Carrier, or FCA, shipment in which title and the risk of loss or damage are transferred to the customer upon delivery of the product to a carrier approved by the customer.

Allowance for sales returns and discounts are estimated based on the information of customer complaints, historical experiences, management judgment and any other known factors that might significantly affect collectability. Such allowances are recorded in the same period in which sales are made. Shipping and handling costs are included in sales expenses.

Accounts Receivable and Allowance for Doubtful Accounts

The allowance for doubtful accounts is provided based on the evaluation of collectability and aging analysis of accounts and on management’s judgment. In circumstances where the ability of a specific customer to meet its financial obligations is in doubt, a specific allowance will be provided. Considerable judgment is required in assessing the ultimate realization of these receivables including the current credit worthiness and the past collection history of each customer. If the financial conditions of our customers were to worsen, additional allowances would be required. A deterioration of economic conditions either in the R.O.C. or in other major overseas markets may contribute to the deterioration of financial conditions of our customers, resulting in an impairment of their ability to make payments.

The allowances for doubtful accounts accounted for 1.23%, 0.50% and 0.35% of our accounts receivables as of December 31, 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively. The decrease in the allowance for doubtful accounts as a percentage of our accounts receivables is primarily due to the growth of customer demand in 2010.

Inventory

Inventories are accounted for on a perpetual basis. Raw materials are recorded at actual purchase costs, while the work in process and finished goods are recorded at standard costs and subsequently adjusted to costs using the weighted-average method at the end of each month. Allocation of fixed production overheads to the costs of conversion is based on the normal capacity of the production facilities. Prior to January 1, 2009, inventories are stated individually by category at the lower of aggregate cost or market value as of the balance sheet date. The market values of raw materials and supplies are determined on the basis of replacement cost while the market values of work in process and finished goods are determined by net realizable values. Effective January 1, 2009, inventories are valued at the lower of cost and net realizable value item by item. Net realizable value is the estimated selling price in the ordinary course of business less the estimated costs of completion and the estimated costs necessary to make the sale.

Income Taxes

Most of our existing tax benefits arise from investment tax credits, and others from net operating loss carry-forward and temporary differences. We recognize these tax benefits as deferred tax assets. Income tax expense or benefit is recognized when there is a net change in deferred tax assets and liabilities. A valuation allowance is recorded to reduce our deferred tax assets to the extent that we believe it is more likely than not that the tax benefits will not be realized. The assessment of the valuation allowance involves subjective assumptions and estimates as it principally depends on the estimation of future taxable income and prudent and feasible tax planning strategies. If future taxable income is lower than expected due to future market conditions or other reasons or in the event we determine that we will not be able to realize all or part of our net deferred tax assets in the future, an adjustment to our deferred tax assets valuation allowance may be required with the adjusting amount charged to income in this period. Likewise, should future taxable income be higher than expected due to future market conditions or other reasons or in the event we determine that we would be able to realize our deferred tax assets in the future in excess of our net recorded amount, an adjustment to our deferred tax assets valuation allowance would increase income in this period.

According to Accounting Standards Codification, or ASC, 740-10, Income Tax, our uncertain tax positions are accounted for based on a two-step process. The first step is to evaluate the tax position for recognition by determining if it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained based on the technical merits. The second step requires us to estimate and measure the tax benefit as the largest amount that is more than 50% likely to be realized upon ultimate settlement. Although ASC 740-10, Income Tax provides further clarification of the accounting for uncertainty in income taxes recognized in the financial statements, significant management judgment must be made and used in connection with the recognition threshold and measurement attribute. Determination of our uncertain tax positions involves the legal and factual interpretation with respect to the application of relevant tax laws and regulations, along with our assessment of other factors including changes in facts or circumstances, changes in tax law, and/or effectively settled issues under audit. As mentioned above, the application of tax laws and regulations is inherently subject to legal and factual interpretation, judgment and uncertainty. In addition, tax laws and regulations themselves are subject to change as a result of changes in fiscal policy, changes in legislation, the evolution of regulations and court rulings. Therefore, the final settlement of these uncertain tax positions might be materially different from our estimates, which could result in the need to record additional tax liabilities or potentially reverse previously recorded tax liabilities.

Long-lived Assets Impairment

Pursuant to R.O.C. GAAP and U.S. GAAP, we are required to review the long-lived assets for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying value of the long-lived assets might not be recoverable. Such review may include assessing whether there is a significant decrease in market values of long-lived assets or significant deterioration of market conditions to indicate the carrying value of such assets may not be recovered through future cash flows, any change in the use of long-lived assets to negatively affect their fair values, and any obsolescence issues that would lead to a lower fair value determination. If there is an indication that an asset might be impaired, we proceed with a further impairment test, which is performed for asset groups related to the lowest level of identifiable independent cash flows. Due to our asset usage model and the interchangeable nature of our semiconductor manufacturing capacity, we must make subjective judgments and estimates in determining the independent cash flows that can be related to specific asset groups, including the service potential of long-lived assets through its estimated useful life, cashflow-generating capacity, physical output capacity, potential fluctuation of economic cycle in the semiconductor industry and our operating situation. Under R.O.C. GAAP, we compare the carrying amount with the recoverable amount derived from discounted cash flow analysis to determine whether the asset is impaired and recognize impairment loss to the extent that its carrying amount exceeds its recoverable amount. If there is evidence that impairment losses recognized previously no longer exists, or has diminished, and the recoverable amount of the long-lived assets increases because of an increase in the asset’s estimated service potential, the amount of loss may be reversed to the extent that the resulting carrying value should not exceed the carrying value had no impairment loss been recognized in prior years. Under U.S. GAAP, we compare the carrying amount with undiscounted cash flows to evaluate whether the asset is impaired and recognize an impairment loss equal to the excess of its carrying amount over its fair value derived from discounted cash flow analysis. Such impairment cannot be reversed. However, changes in the estimates of expected cash flows may result in impairment charges in the future.

Pension

All of our regular employees were entitled to a defined benefit pension plan under the R.O.C. Labor Standards Law, or Labor Standards Law, prior to July 1, 2005. Such pension plan was managed by an independently administered pension fund committee, and fund assets were deposited under the committee’s name at the Bank of Taiwan. On July 1, 2005, the R.O.C. Labor Pension Act, or the Labor Pension Act, became effective, under which qualified employees may elect to apply the pension calculation either under the R.O.C. Labor Standards Law or under the R.O.C. Labor Pension Act in accordance with a new defined contribution plan. The employees that selected to apply the Labor Pension Act may have their seniority previously accrued under the Labor Standards Law retained.

Under the defined benefit pension plan of the Labor Standards Law, we have significant pension benefit costs and liabilities that are developed from actuarial valuations. Inherent in these valuations are key assumptions including discount rates and expected return on plan assets. We consider current market conditions, including changes in interest rates, in selecting these assumptions. In addition to changes resulting from fluctuations in our related headcount, changes in the related pension costs or liabilities may also occur in the future due to changes in assumptions. Under the defined contribution pension plan of the R.O.C. Labor Pension Act, we are required to make monthly contributions to employees’ individual pension accounts and recognize expenses in the periods in which the contributions become due.

Investments in Debt and Equity Securities

Under U.S. GAAP and R.O.C. GAAP, equity securities over which we exercise no significant influence or control and with readily determinable fair values and debt securities are to be classified as either trading, which are known as financial assets at fair value through profit or loss, or FVTPL, under R.O.C. GAAP, available-for-sale or held-to-maturity securities. Debt securities that we have the intent and ability to hold to maturity are classified as held-to-maturity securities and reported at their amortized cost. Debt and equity securities that are bought and traded for short-term profit are classified as trading securities and reported at fair value, with unrealized gains and losses included in earnings. Debt and equity securities not classified as either held-to-maturity or trading securities are classified as available-for-sale securities and reported at fair value, with unrealized gains and losses reported in other comprehensive income under stockholders’ equity. Unrealized losses that are deemed to be other than temporary are charged to earnings. For individual securities classified as either available-for-sale or held-to-maturity, we would determine whether a decline in fair value below cost is other than temporary pursuant to guidance provided by ASC 320-10-35, Investments-Debt and Equity Securities. We consider, among other factors, information concerning significant adverse changes in market conditions in which the investee operates and operating issues specific to the investee in determining whether a decline in value is temporary. In general, a decline in market value below cost for a continuous period of six months is considered to be other than temporary unless there is persuasive evidence to the contrary. If the decline in fair value is judged to be other than temporary, the cost basis of the individual security is written down to fair value with a charge against earnings.

Derivative Instruments

Under U.S. GAAP and R.O.C. GAAP, the embedded derivative features contained in exchangeable bonds are bifurcated and separately accounted for if the economic characteristics and risks of the embedded derivative instruments are not clearly and closely related to those of the host contracts. Those bifurcated embedded derivatives are fair valued at the end of each reporting period by using the option pricing model with the changes in fair value included in earnings. The valuation model uses the market-based observable inputs including share price, volatility, credit spread and swap rates.

We also hold certain freestanding derivative instruments such as interest rate swap and forward contracts, which are fair valued at each reporting period end. The fair values of these instruments are determined using market established valuation techniques, which involve certain key inputs such as the expected interest forward rate, expected volatility in interest rates, spot exchange rate and swap point. Any change in such key inputs could materially impact the determination of fair value of these derivative instruments.

Employee Stock Options

Under R.O.C. GAAP, for stock options granted before January 1, 2008, we apply the intrinsic value method to recognize the difference between the market price of the stock at grant date and the exercise price of the employee stock option as compensation expense. For stock options granted on or after January 1, 2008, we recognize compensation cost using the fair value method in accordance with R.O.C. SFAS No. 39 “Accounting for Share-Based Payment”, or R.O.C. SFAS 39, consistent with U.S. GAAP. For equity-settled employee stock options, the corresponding increase in equity is measured at the fair value of the options. For cash-settled employee stock options, the corresponding liability incurred is measured at the fair value of the liability and such fair value is remeasured subsequently at each reporting date through the settlement date.

The Black-Scholes option-pricing model requires the use of input assumptions, including expected volatility, expected life, expected dividend rate and expected risk-free rate of return. We applied the historical realized volatility, which calculates volatility based on the historical stock price volatility over the time period equal to the expected term of the employee stock option, in estimating expected volatility because our shares have been publicly traded for a long time. For the options granted prior to 2008, we determined the expected term as the mid-point between the vesting period and the contractual term by using the simplified method. For the options granted after 2008, we determined the expected term based on historical stock option exercise data and we used the historical pattern of dividend yield for estimating the expected dividend of the underlying employee stock options. For entities based in jurisdictions outside the United States, the risk-free interest rate is the implied yield of zero-coupon government bonds currently available in the market in which the shares are primarily traded. Hence, we use the average yield of Taiwan Government Bond with the remaining term similar to the expected option term as the risk-free interest rate. The estimates of option fair value are not expected to foresee future events or the values realized by employees who receive stock option at the end of plans. In addition, later events are not indicative of the rationality of the initial estimates of the fair value of options used by us. We adjust employee stock option expenses on an annual basis for changes in expected forfeitures based on the examination of latest employee stock option forfeiture activity. The effect of adjusting the forfeiture rate used for expense amortization is recognized in the corresponding period in which the expected forfeiture rate is changed.

A. Operating Results

Net Operating Revenues

We generate our net operating revenues primarily from fabricating semiconductor devices. We also derive a small portion of our net operating revenues from wafer probe services that we perform internally as well as mask tooling services and assembly and test services that we subcontract out.

Cost of Goods Sold