SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean prosecutors have arrested and indicted a former government of Samsung Electronics suspected of stealing commerce secrets and techniques whereas making an attempt to determine a copycat pc chip plant in China.
The Suwon District Prosecutors’ Workplace stated Monday that the unnamed 65-year-old unlawfully obtained Samsung’s manufacturing facility blueprints and clean-room designs from 2018 and 2019 whereas attempting, unsuccessfully, to duplicate a chip manufacturing facility within the Chinese language metropolis of Xi’an, close to the place Samsung operates a plant.
The expertise allegedly stolen by the person’s China-based firm would have been price at the very least 300 billion received ($233 million) for Samsung, prosecutors stated. They charged six individuals employed by the person with “lively participation” within the tech theft.
South Korea is very delicate to breaches of applied sciences associated to semiconductors, which accounted for almost 17% of its complete exports in 2022. Samsung, the world’s largest producer of pc reminiscence chips, didn’t instantly touch upon the fees.
In an announcement, prosecutors described the arrested man as an “undisputed high home skilled in semiconductor manufacturing.” After an 18-year profession at Samsung he held government roles for a decade at SK Hynix, one other main South Korean chip maker which trails Samsung within the reminiscence chip market.
The person later created chip manufacturing firms in China and Singapore with the backing of Chinese language and Taiwanese buyers and lured greater than 200 chip consultants from Samsung and Hynix with larger pay earlier than arranging to smuggle out essential applied sciences from Samsung, prosecutors stated.
The manufacturing secrets and techniques allegedly taken from Samsung included processing blueprints and “fundamental engineering knowledge” for designing clean-room environments to forestall contamination throughout semiconductor manufacturing, which prosecutors described as “core nationwide applied sciences.”
“The suspect … tried to duplicate a whole (Samsung) manufacturing facility to fabricate and mass-produce semiconductors in China,” stated the prosecutors’ workplace, who described his crime as incomparable in injury and scale to earlier theft instances.
It stated South Korea’s semiconductor trade would have been “irreversibly broken” and the nation’s safety pursuits enormously compromised if the manufacturing facility was really constructed and produced chips much like Samsung’s merchandise.
