In order to develop economic processes for ethanol production from starch, a simultaneous saccharification and fermentation(SSF) process using Zymomonas mobilis and amyloglucosidase (AMG) was studied in semibatch modes using cell recycle. The cell recycle was carried out by adopting two different methods; microfiltration and settling. The cell recycle using microfiltration revealed higher productivity(5.4 g/l/h) than that using a settler(4.3 g/l/h). Taking the large-scale ethanol fermentation into account, the semibatch process using microfiltration system appeared most promising among others with respect to ethanol productivity, feasibility of scale-up and simplification of operation.