Hua Hong Joins hands with iMQ to Enter Chinese White Home-appliance Market

HONG KONG, Oct. 31, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Hua Hong Semiconductor Limited ("Hua Hong" or the "Company", together with its subsidiaries, the "Group", stock code: 1347), a leading pure-play 200mm foundry in the world, and iMQ Technology Inc. ("iMQ") announced that Hua Hong and iMQ's jointly developed MCUs for inverter appliances and smart meters have passed high standard chip product validation of the end customer, and commenced the mass production. These two products adopt high-performance microcontroller as the MCU core, Hua Hong's low leakage power embedded flash technology, as well as iMQ's high precision, high anti-interference and high reliability circuit. The two parties joined forces to promote their products and speed up the entry into the Chinese white home-appliance and smart meter market, to create the "energy-saving and eco-friendly" green home.

The jointly developed MCUs for inverter appliances and smart meters boast the most prominent feature -- 'the high-performance, low-power microcontroller core which supports up to 9 kinds of diverse system modes, and iMQ's high-precision 10-bit ADC, high-precision embedded oscillator and complete range of communication I/O ports. iMQ's exquisite design and Hua Hong's low power leakage embedded flash process technology is a perfect combination that gives the MCU not only a capacity of up to 64KB, a flash memory of 100,000 writing cycles but also significantly reduced power consumption - saving over 60% compared to the previous generation of products, to meet the requirement of low-power consumption smart appliances. In order to achieve the required high performance of the inverter appliances such as air conditioners in terms of precise voltage detection control system, anti-interference and noise cancellation, iMQ specially designed for Hua Hong's process a new generation of high-precision ADC and embedded oscillator circuits, strengthening the interference protection of the single-chip's integrated circuits, which eventually passed high standard product reliability testing with excellent result. This MCU is an important breakthrough in new generation of high-end microcontrollers and will take the lead in expanding their share of Chinese white home-appliance and smart meter market.

Dr. Cheng Fu, Hua Hong's Executive Vice President remarked: "This is a powerful and win-win cooperation of complementary partners -- Hua Hong and iMQ, it marks a milestone for both parties. The mass production of these two MCUs for air conditioners and smart meters not only marks Hua Hong's high reliability, cost-effective embedded flash processes' another successful entry into the realm of international high-quality products, but also further strengthens Hua Hong's leading position in embedded flash technology. Embedded flash technology is one of Hua Hong's strategic directions of development. In future, Hua Hong will continue to reinforce the development of this technology platform, to provide our customers with highly competitive high-quality products."

Dr. Herman Lee, iMQ's President said: "The first time we have developed in Hua Hong's eFlash process passed the high standard home appliance and smart meter product validation, it is a great affirmation and encouragement for iMQ which is positioned to provide high-performance, high-reliability microcontroller design services. With this successful start of three party cooperation, iMQ will continue to expand the design on Hua Hong's low-leakage embedded flash platform of all kinds of high-standard circuits and come up with a greater variety of IP combinations and more complete and efficient design services to expand the MCU appliances in white household appliance, smart meter and other high-end industrial applications."

About Hua Hong Semiconductor Limited

Hua Hong is a global leading pure-play 200mm foundry. The Group primarily focuses on manufacturing semiconductors on 200mm wafers for specialty applications. The Group's manufacturing expertise comes from many years of research and development of advanced and differentiated technologies for 200mm wafer manufacturing, in particular eNVM and power discretes. The Group's portfolio also includes several other advanced process technologies such as RFCMOS, analog and mixed signal, CMOS image sensors, PMIC and MEMS. According to IBS, based on total 2013 revenues, the Group ranked second globally amongst pure-play 200mm foundries, and sixth amongst all the pure-play foundries worldwide. The semiconductors Hua Hong manufactures are incorporated into a wide range of products in diverse markets, including consumer electronics, communications, computing, and industrial and automotive. Hua Hong uses its own proprietary processes and techniques to manufacture semiconductors of the design specifications of its diverse customers. The Group currently has one of the largest 200mm wafer processing capacities in China through its three fabs in Shanghai, with an approximate total 200mm wafer manufacturing capacity of 124,000 wafers per month as of June 30, 2014. The Group also offers design enablement services facilitating the timely completion of complex designs that are optimized in terms of performance, cost and manufacturing yield on its processes.

Hua Hong's current business is mainly operated and developed through Shanghai Huahong Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation ("HHGrace"), which is its subsidiary based in Shang Hai. HHGrace was incorporated through the consolidation between Shanghai Hua Hong NEC Electronics Company, Limited and Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation.

For more information please visit: www.huahonggrace.com.

About iMQ Tehcnology Inc.

iMQ is an MCU company providing high-performance and highly reliable MCU products along with integrated design service and application solutions. By integrating a powerful MCU core with self-engineered digital, analog and IO circuits, iMQ realizes MCU designs on Hua Hong Semiconductor Limited 0.18um process with exceptional quality. iMQ's MCU products are widely adopted in a variety of applications ranging from consumer electronics, home appliances, industrial controls to medical systems. Founded on Dec. 1, 2010, iMQ establishes headquarters in the Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan and office in Shenzhen, China for sales and customer support.

For more information please visit: www.imqtech.com

For further information, please contact:

Porda Havas International Finance Communications Group

Fax: +852-3150-6728