The 65-year-old former CEO, whose name has not been released, has been charged with violating industrial technology protection laws and preventing unfair competition, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Suwon, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Prosecutors accused the manager of trying to build a factory that fully resembled Samsung’s semiconductor plant in China, after allegedly illegally obtaining confidential company data, including engineering data basic on chip factory, process planning and design drawings from August 2018 to 2019.
Prosecutors have charged six other people, including an employee of a Samsung Electronics subcontractor, and five employees of a Chinese chipmaker founded by the former executive, but none have been arrested.
Basic engineering data is a necessary technology to ensure that there are no defects in semiconductor manufacturing facilities.
Process diagrams contain floor plan and dimension information for the eight basic operations of a semiconductor chip factory.
These trade secrets are essential for the manufacture of DRAM and NAND Flash chips under 30 nanometers, which are South Korea’s national core technologies.
According to the prosecution, the former director tried to use the stolen technologies and data to build a clone of the Samsung Electronics chip factory 1.5 kilometers from the company’s factory in Xi’ year, in western China. But his plan fell through after a Taiwanese company reneged on its promise to invest 8 trillion won ($6.2 billion) in the project.
Instead, the CEO reportedly received 460 billion won in investment from Chinese investors and manufactured experimental products from a chip factory built in Chengdu last year based on Samsung technology. .
The agency said its Chinese factory employed about 200 people from Samsung and SK Hynix. The charges allege that he ordered them to obtain and use semiconductor design data and other trade secrets, and that they participated in the crime under his direction.
The prosecution explained that Samsung is estimated to have suffered losses of at least 300 billion won due to the leaks.
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