CHARTERED OUTLINES PLANS
TO ENHANCE eBUSINESS SERVICES AND CAPABILITIES
Leading dedicated foundry delivers initial milestone with launch of integrated, web-based portal and online
prototyping service to worldwide customer base
SINGAPORE - July 9, 2003 - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq: CHRT and SGX-ST: Chartered),
one of the world's top three dedicated semiconductor foundries, today outlined plans to enhance its eBusiness model,
with the goal to extend a dynamic eBusiness network environment where information is available on demand for
facilitating ongoing, borderless communication and fostering supply-chain collaboration among Chartered's worldwide
customers, partners, suppliers and employees.
The eBusiness enhancement initiative will be implemented as an ongoing effort with milestones delivered in phases. It
involves streamlining business processes as well as achieving information and business systems integration across
three major supply-chain activities: buy, make and sell. With today's announcement, Chartered achieved its initial
milestone of enhancing its "sell" capabilities by upgrading the Chartered Online Access System (COLAS), which is an
essential part of Chartered's customer services and virtual online business support strategies, to a more responsive
and streamlined integrated business platform. By enhancing COLAS, Chartered's objectives are to effectively support
customers' supply-chain strategies and to accelerate their access to Chartered's complete suite of value-added foundry
services and solutions.
As part of this initial phase, Chartered upgraded COLAS to an integrated web-based portal platform utilizing the
Plumtree Corporate Portal offered by Plumtree Software, the enterprise web leader who creates a comprehensive Web
environment for employees, customers and partners across the enterprise to interact with different systems and work
together. Through the enhanced portal, customers will be able to view integrated databases for technical
specifications, experience better information search, and gain broader access to detailed technical and product
reports. Other value-added features include customizable preferences for information access, support for multiple
languages, and a simpler user interface. The portal is accessible directly from Chartered's
web site, www.charteredsemi.com, and has been launched to
Chartered's worldwide customer base.
Additionally, as part of the enhanced COLAS, Chartered has also successfully integrated and launched Webview, which
is an online prototyping service for enabling customers through any-time access for performing design rule results
verification and final checks before reticle release.
The launch of the enhanced portal and online prototyping service builds upon Chartered's successful connection earlier
this year of its back-end business systems, such as electronic product testing, production monitoring and enterprise
resource planning systems, directly with its customers' and partners' proprietary systems. This end-to-end
connectivity, which deploys the webMethods Integration Platform and is standardized on RosettaNet's data exchange
formats, allows participating customers and partners timely access to Chartered's information on work-in-process,
product order, shipping and product testing status.
"Chartered is committed to delivering world-class semiconductor product solutions and we seek to differentiate
ourselves by offering a best-in-class customer service model that evolves with our customers' changing needs," said
Tang Yong Ang, vice president of fab support operations and acting chief information officer at Chartered. "We
believe that an effective eBusiness infrastructure has the potential to empower our business, connect people and
enhance our workplace. And we are committed to fostering more closely coupled supply-chain relationships that will
result in greater opportunities for market success through sharing of information, resources and expertise."
Upcoming eBusiness Enhancement Deliverables
The next phase of Chartered's COLAS enhancement efforts will drive towards customer empowerment through the ability
to proactively interact and manage the entire business engagement process within Chartered's dynamic manufacturing
environment. The next deliverables, which are aimed at improving information access and providing greater
transparency, include:
- Publishing features, such as web-based document management system
- Support for multiple file download formats
- Advanced search and sort capability
- Online capabilities to support tape-out, query, document download for Standard Process List, mask Work-In-Process (WIP) and customer purchase request
These enhancements are expected to be unveiled during Chartered's upcoming Worldwide Technology Forums in September
2003.
Future phases of COLAS enhancement will focus on providing a fully self-service virtual customer platform for
performing "make" and "buy" functions using online features for quotations, mask orders, capacity bookings,
billings and online channels for after-sales support services, as well as establishing a virtual community for
facilitating design and engineering collaboration.
About Chartered
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, one of the world's top three dedicated semiconductor foundries, is forging a
customized approach to outsourced semiconductor manufacturing by building lasting and collaborative partnerships with
its customers. The Company provides flexible and cost-effective manufacturing solutions for customers, enabling the
convergence of communications, computing and consumer markets. In Singapore, Chartered operates five fabrication
facilities and has a sixth fab, which will be developed as a 300mm facility.
A company with both global presence and perspective, Chartered is traded on both the Nasdaq Stock Market
(Nasdaq: CHRT) and on the Singapore Exchange (SGX-ST: CHARTERED). Chartered's 3,500 employees are based at 11
locations around the world. Information about Chartered can be found at www.charteredsemi.com.
Chartered Safe Harbour Statement under the provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
This news release may contain forward-looking statements, as defined in the safe harbour provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect our current views with respect to future events, and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated. For example : changes in market outlook or customer demands; the availability of COLAS; the difficulties, interruptions or unforeseen delays in the implementation of our eBusiness infrastructure and enhancement initiative. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be attained. In addition to the foregoing factors, a description of certain other risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially can be found in the section captioned "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are based on the current view of management on future events. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.