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Winbond Issues Y2K Update on Fab Conditions from San Jose

SAN JOSE, Calif., January 1, 2000--Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading supplier of semiconductor solutions, today issued an update on Y2K corporate conditions. Due to the Y2K roll-over, Winbond has experienced an electrical power outage. Although the outage affected all of Winbond's facilities, including its four fab sites, initial reports from Taiwan indicate that the effect of this power outage does not even begin to approach what the Company experienced during the massive earthquake that struck the country in September, 1999.

Operating on back-up generators, all mission-critical fab equipment has been restored to operating status. No damage was reported as a result of the black out. At this time, the Company anticipates no adverse impact on customer orders or shipments. Winbond is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, where the mission-critical manufacturing of more than 400 different types of IC products takes place.

Winbond was able to respond quickly to the outage due to extensive Y2K planning and lessons learned from the quake. The Company has had Y2K emergency teams in place since well before 12 p.m., Taiwan time, and back-up generators, containing sufficient stored battery power to operate production equipment, were also up and running well before midnight.

"Overall, Winbond has entered the new millennium quite successfully. We accurately anticipated the possibility of a power outage and were well prepared to respond accordingly," said Fred Cheng, vice president of general and administration, Winbond Electronics Corporation America. "After weathering the massive earthquake that struck Taiwan last year, we feel confident that we have the necessary experience for executing crisis turnaround plans designed to get mission critical processes back on line in minimal time. The power outage, of course, remains a concern and we are in close contact with Taiwan and the local power company to ensure that restoration of power takes place as quickly as possible."

Winbond started its Year 2000 planning five years ago when the company began initiating procedures that would ensure Y2K compliance. By 1996, Winbond had initiated in-house procedures to ensure that all new IS systems and hardware were Y2K compliant and compliance plans for each fab site were well underway. Throughout 1997, Winbond worked closely with vendors to ensure that new equipment purchases would be Y2K compliant and in 1998, the Company began working with its vendors to ensure that non-compliant equipment would be successfully upgraded. By July 1999, the company marked a significant milestone in its Y2K efforts when it successfully completed a number of mission critical Y2K tests and integration efforts, including fab site test and equipment upgrades, integration testing of accounting and non-accounting IS applications systems, CIM integration and assessment of test of the company's IT environment.

To ensure Year 2000 compliance on all hardware and software throughout the company, six task groups were formed composed of: program management, IT environment, information application, CIM system, production equipment and facilities. Each task group was then given responsibility for compliance within its specific area. For example, the IT environment task group was given responsibility to ensure Y2K compliance for IT infrastructure facilities (telecommunications and networks); as well as office environments (PCs, servers, office automation tools); R & D environment (workstations, CAD/CAM tools, databases) and backend systems (including mainframes, database servers, etc.).




Spokesperson
    Wilson Wen
    Vice President of Administrative Center
    Tel:03-5792755

News Liaison
    Mike Liu
    Deputy Director
    Tel:03-5792516
    Email:ckliu@winbond.com

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