UMC, the world's second largest foundry, saw a small rise in revenue in Q4 on Q3 but a massive rise in revenues for Q409 on Q408.
Q409 saw revenues rise 1.2% sequentially, but year-on-year the rise was 50% to hit US$868m.
Gross margin was 25.9%, operating margin was 13.5% and the fab utilisation rate was 86%.
For the full year, revenue fell 4.2% on 2008 to reach US$2.7bn. Gross profit margin was 17.9% and operating profit margin was 3.8%. Net profit was US$121m.
"UMC shares the industry's positive outlook on growth for the foundry sector" said Shih-Wei Sun, CEO of UMC. The company intends to spend US$1.2-1.5bn on capex in 2010 - well over double the 2009 capex of US$500m. Part of the 2010 capex will go on introducing pilot production on 28nm at Fab12A in Tainan in the south of Taiwan.
Europe only accounted for 8% of UMC's revenues in Q409. The US accounted for 51% of the revenues, Asia/Pac for 40% and Japan for 1%.
17% of the revenues came from 65nm processes and better, with 48% of the revenues generated a nodes between 65nm+ and 0.13micron.
Fabless customers accounted for 80% of UMC's business and IDMs for 20%.
Communications chips were 62% of overall revenues. Second largest segment was consumer at 25%. Computer represented 11%.
UMC shipped 990,000 8-inch equivalent wafers in Q409.