VIA Takes Delivery of One Millionth Wafer from TSMC

Longstanding relationship fuels mutual innovation and market leadership

Taipei, Taiwan, 23 September 2003 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today received its one millionth semiconductor wafer from its major foundry partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC).

Long established as a market and technology leader with its high performance core logic chipsets, VIA has also shipped millions of processors and was first to market with TSMC’s leading edge 0.13 micron technology; the latest processors ship with operating speeds of up to 1GHz and beyond, with power consumption as low as 6 watts.

“As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA's partnership with TSMC has been a key element to our success over the past nine years,” said Mr. Wen-Chi Chen, President and CEO, VIA Technologies, Inc. “This close relationship has allowed us to focus on maximizing architectural partitioning, unit performance, product quality, reliability, and volume production. TSMC’s manufacturing excellence enables us to deliver products of the highest quality with the latest technology in the most cost-effective manner. With the proven success of this alliance, we expect TSMC will remain VIA’s primary foundry partner long into the future.”

“This is a great milestone for VIA,” said Dr. Rick Tsai, president of TSMC. “They currently have many new designs for a variety of innovative applications in the pipeline with us, and we expect an even stronger relationship going forward. TSMC’s vision is to be the most advanced and largest technology and foundry services provider to our customers, and in partnership with them, to forge a powerful competitive force in the semiconductor industry. The partnership with VIA is one of the best realizations of this vision. In the face of the fierce competition in the global semiconductor industry, TSMC will continue to team up with VIA to seek long-term win-win solutions.”

One million wafers stack over 2,000 feet high and yield hundreds of millions of individual chips that are incorporated into a similar number of end products.

Dr. Morris Chang, Chairman and CEO at TSMC, will address the VIA Technology Forum (VTF 2003) with a keynote speech in Taipei tomorrow, Wednesday 24th September 2003, and will present VIA President and CEO Wenchi Chen with the one millionth wafer at the opening of the event.



About TSMC

TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry's leading process technology and the foundry industry's largest portfolio of process-proven library, IP, design tools and reference flows. The company operates one advanced 300mm wafer fab, five eight-inch fabs and one six-inch wafer fab. TSMC also has substantial capacity commitments at its wholly-owned subsidiary, WaferTech, and its joint venture fab, SSMC. In early 2001, TSMC became the first IC manufacturer to announce a 90-nm technology alignment program with its customers. TSMC's corporate headquarters are in Hsinchu, Taiwan. For more information about TSMC please see http://www.tsmc.com.

About VIA Technologies, Inc.

VIA Technologies, Inc. is the foremost fabless supplier of market-leading core logic chipsets, low power x86 processors, advanced connectivity, multimedia, networking and storage silicon, and complete platform solutions that are driving system innovation in the PC and embedded markets. Headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, VIA’s global network links the high tech centers of the US, Europe and Asia, and its customer base includes the world’s top OEMs, motherboard vendors and system integrators. VIA is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE2388) and achieved annual revenues of over US$720 million in 2002. http://www.via.com.tw