Former Samsung Executive and Five Chinese Nationals Indicted for Stealing Samsung’s Chipmaking Technology
It makes me wonder if any Chinese intelligence operatives were involved in influencing this former Samsung executive to leak this sensitive chipmaking technology to China:
A file photo of the Suwon District Prosecutors Office (Yonhap)
A former senior executive of Samsung Electronics Co. has been arrested and indicted for stealing the chip giant’s trade secrets to build a copycat chip plant in China, prosecutors said Monday.
The 65-year-old former executive, whose name is withheld, was charged with violating the industrial technology protection and unfair competition prevention laws, according to the Suwon District Prosecutors Office.
He is accused of attempting to build a complete copy of Samsung’s semiconductor factory in China after illegally acquiring the company’s confidential data, including chip plant basic engineering data (BED) and process layout and design drawings, from August 2018 to 2019.
The prosecution also indicted six other people — one employee of a Samsung Electronics subcontractor and five employees of a Chinese chipmaker established by the former executive — without detention on charges of colluding in the alleged technology leak.
BED is a technology needed to ensure impurities do not exist in semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Process layout contains information on the floor plan and dimension of a chip plant’s eight core processes for semiconductor production. Such trade secrets essential for the manufacturing of sub-30-nano DRAM and NAND flash chips are considered national core technologies.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Under General Park, the Samsung executive might have been hanged. After being “questioned” within an inch of his life.
I’m not certain prison is a good fit for chaebol executives who commit this type of crime that damages South Korea and advantages her enemies.
What are the relevant Korean laws about this? Is it considered treason? Or just theft?
Yes, pretty bad thing to do from China. But is it just as bad as US forcing South Korean chip makers to give the US government all the profits, the blueprints to the chips, as well as give all the trade secrets to the US government and military?
Under General Park, the Samsung executive might have been hanged. After being “questioned” within an inch of his life.
The Setnaffarian leader shows his true colors.
No doubt he wants Korea to go back to the dark days of dictatorship, regardless of the well being and welfare of ordinary Koreans.
What are the relevant Korean laws about this? Is it considered treason? Or just theft
It’s obviously theft.
We’re talking about corporate proprietary materials not state secrets.