Former Samsung Executive Indicted for Stealing Factory Blueprints and Technology

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yue recently said that the country’s chip manufacturingTotal War“, and the latest incident in Suwon seems to confirm this point.according to BusinessKorea Prosecutors in the region have decided to indict a former Samsung executive accused of stealing Samsung’s factory blueprints and technology, the report said. The executive, who also served as vice president of another South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix in the past, allegedly caused Samsung $230 million in losses from information he stole between 2018 and 2019.

The report mentioned that the defendant initially planned to use the stolen secrets to build a new semiconductor factory in Xi’an, China, and the location he selected was near Samsung’s Xi’an factory. It is said that he also deliberately hired 200 employees from Samsung and SK Hynix in order to “copy” the South Korean factory’s plan. During this process, a company from Taiwan offered to invest US$6.2 billion to cooperate with the defendant, but the matter was never resolved. Ultimately, the defendant received approximately $358 million from investors in mainland China, which he used to produce prototypes at a Chengdu chip factory.

“This is a very serious incident. It is difficult to even compare it with previous individual semiconductor technology leakage cases in terms of crime scale and harm.” The prosecutor said, “This is a major crime that competes in the chip manufacturing industry.” By destabilizing the foundations of South Korea’s chip industry, this could deal a severe blow to our economic security, given the exacerbated premise.”