UMC rumoured to take over little SiS

Chipset manufacturer SiS is denying reports published in Taiwan that UMC, one of the country's larger semiconductor foundries is interested in acquiring it. The speculation was fostered after TSMC snapped up a rival foundry, WSMC, at the end of last week. UMC is second only to TSMC in size on the island. SiS, amongst other things, makes chipsets for x.86 based motherboards, but has a far lower profile in the marketplace than either Via or ALi. The rumours also suggest that the first stages of an eventual merger between SiS and UMC will be based on technical cooperation and then production capacity. ®