Former Samsung staff arrested for promoting commerce secrets and techniques to Chinese language reminiscence maker

The large image: Two former Samsung staff have been arrested in reference to a scheme to promote commerce secrets and techniques from the South Korean tech titan to a rival reminiscence maker in China. Consultants consider the leak prompted a minimum of 2.3 trillion gained ($1.8 billion) in broken, a determine that would swell ought to Samsung lose market share within the DRAM phase.

The Korea Financial Day by day experiences that the 2 males, with surnames Kim and Bang, had been arrested previous to the weekend. In line with the publication, Kim was a former Samsung supervisor that retired in 2016 earlier than beginning work at ChangXin Reminiscence Applied sciences (CXMT).

It’s alleged that Kim equipped his new employer with commerce secrets and techniques concerning the fabrication course of and semiconductor deposition tech used to create Samsung’s 16nm chips. In trade, Kim reportedly acquired thousands and thousands in annual wage.

Deposition is a crucial expertise in semiconductor manufacturing, with chemical vapor deposition (CVD) changing bodily vapor deposition (PVD) as a very powerful.

Presently, Samsung is answerable for roughly 40 p.c of the worldwide DRAM market. The switch additionally considerably narrowed the tech hole between Samsung because the Chinese language firm.

In line with South Korea’s Nationwide Intelligence Service (NIS), the leak is one in all greater than 30 such events which have taken place in South Korea since 2018. That is a rise of fourfold in comparison with the earlier five-year interval.

Kim and Bang returned to Korea in October 2023 and had been arrested this previous Friday. They had been charged with violating the Act on the Prevention and Safety of Industrial Expertise Leakage.

The Korea Financial Day by day said prosecutors plan to ramp up the investigation to see if different accomplices had been concerned, and look into related leaks involving Samsung’s different fabrication processes. Some would additionally wish to see harsher penalties for these convicted of such crimes, the publication added.

CXMT was based in 2016 and had over 3,000 staff as of 2019. In 2022, the Nationwide protection Authorization Act banned the US authorities from utilizing or shopping for reminiscence from CXMT.

Picture credit score: Tim Hufner