Tokyo, December 25, 2015 - Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. (hereinafter 'Hitachi Kokusai', President and Chief Executive Officer: Manabu Shinomoto) received the 'Excellence Performance Awards' from TSMC (Chairman: Dr. Morris Chang, headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan) on December 4. TSMC is the largest semiconductor manufacturing foundry in the world. The award was for our core products, batch thermal process systems.

The award was announced and presented at the 15th Supply Chain Management Forum and more than 600 suppliers participated from a variety of fields such as manufacturing and testing equipment, materials, packaging, IT technology, cleanroom and environment.

The award Hitachi Kokusai received was in recognition of our contribution to TSMC for improvements of their most advanced process design products ramp up and also for the next generation process developments. This is the 5th award Hitachi Kokusai received from TSMC since last received in 2013. This indicates that Hitachi Kokusai's products can contribute to the most advanced development in industry and high-volume production.

Hitachi Kokusai, as a company engaged in the semiconductor industry will establish even stronger relationship with customers and proactively expand sales of semiconductor manufacturing systems and its services worldwide so that further contributions can be made to the industry.

*1:Foundry: Company which operates a semiconductor fab for the purpose of manufacturing semiconductor for other companies such as fabless semiconductor companies. *2:Supply Chain Management Forum: General meeting with suppliers held by TSMC once a year.

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.): TSMC is the world's largest and dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry's leading process technology and the foundry's largest portfolio of process-proven libraries, IP, design tools and reference flows. TSMC served for about 450 customers and manufactured more than 8,800 products for various applications covering a variety of computer, communications and consumer electronics market segments.

Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. issued this content on 2015-12-25 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 2015-12-25 06:37:33 UTC

Original Document: http://www.hitachi-kokusai.co.jp/global/news/news151225.html