Taipei [Taiwan], April 27 (ANI): A former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) engineer has been sentenced to 10 years in jail. According to a report by, in accordance with a report by Focus Taiwan, the engineer obtained this punishment for his position within the leak of commerce secrets and techniques involving the corporate’s superior 2-nanometer course of.
The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court discovered Chen Li-ming responsible of violating the National Security Act and of different offenses associated to the unauthorized acquisition and use of Taiwan’s ‘nationwide core key applied sciences.’ As per the report, the ruling could be appealed.
The case marks the primary involving a company entity beneath the National Security Act, which is said to nationwide core key applied sciences.
Along with Chen Li-ming, two different TSMC engineers, Wu Ping-chun and Ko Yi-ping, had been sentenced to 3 and two years in jail, respectively, whereas one other worker, Chen Wei-chieh, obtained a six-year sentence.
As per the report, a fourth defendant, Lu Yi-yin, was given a 10-month suspended sentence and fined NT$1 million (USD 31,000). She is an worker of Tokyo Electron Taiwan, the corporate to which the TSMC commerce secrets and techniques had been leaked.
‘Tokyo Electron Taiwan, a TSMC gear provider, was fined NT$150 million, which can be suspended if it pays NT$100 million in compensation to TSMC and NT$50 million to the treasury, in accordance with the courtroom ruling,’ the report said.
Chen beforehand labored in a yield engineering unit at TSMC’s Fab 12 and joined Tokyo Electron Taiwan’s advertising division after leaving the chipmaker, in accordance with the prosecutors from the Intellectual Property Branch of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office.
‘Between the second half of 2023 and the primary half of 2025, Chen repeatedly solicited confidential technical data from Wu and Ko, who had been nonetheless employed at TSMC, in a bid to assist Tokyo Electron safe extra gear provide positions for TSMC’s superior course of nodes. The data, together with commerce secrets and techniques associated to etching gear utilized in 2nm manufacturing, was photographed and reproduced to permit Tokyo Electron to judge and enhance its gear efficiency,’ the report talked about.
TSMC reported the case to authorities on July 8 final 12 months after detecting irregularities by means of an inner investigation, in accordance with an earlier assertion. Prosecutors then investigated the matter between July 25 and 28 and obtained courtroom approval to detain Chen, Wu, and Ko incommunicado.
As per the report, the three suspects had been indicted in August on expenses together with theft of commerce secrets and techniques and extraterritorial use of nationwide core applied sciences. Prosecutors sought jail phrases of 14 years, 9 years, and 7 years for Chen, Wu and Ko, respectively.
The Prosecutors later decided that Tokyo Electron Taiwan didn’t train enough supervision over Chen and didn’t take ample measures to stop violations of the regulation, they usually due to this fact pursued company prison legal responsibility beneath the National Security Act, in search of a positive of NT$120 million towards the corporate.
Investigators additionally discovered that the corporate’s cloud storage nonetheless contained TSMC’s commerce secret supplies, together with built-in circuit manufacturing applied sciences under the 14-nanometer node and associated gear and chemical processes.
‘Tokyo Electron, Japan’s largest semiconductor gear maker and TSMC’s main Japanese provider, mentioned in a press release issued after the indictments final 12 months that it had discovered no proof that TSMC’s 2nm know-how had been leaked to 3rd events, and pressured that it doesn’t tolerate violations of the regulation or moral requirements. TSMC has mentioned it maintains a zero-tolerance coverage towards commerce secret violations and pledged to strengthen inner controls to safeguard its technological benefit,’ the report mentioned.
Additional expenses had been filed in January towards Chen, Chen Wei-chieh, Tokyo Electron Taiwan, and Lu, who was accused of destroying proof. (ANI)