The Seoul Central District Court said on April 22 that a researcher who once worked at Samsung Electronics was sentenced to seven years in prison for leaking semiconductor technology to a Chinese company. The court found that the defendant, who was only published by his last name, violated the Industrial Technology Protection Act. The data he leaked was defined as "national core technology" and he conspired with others to leak secrets.
The 56-year-old former researcher was one of 10 suspects indicted by South Korean prosecutors last year for allegedly leaking memory chip manufacturing processes to Chinese memory chip manufacturer Changxin Memory Technology Co., Ltd. (CXMT). Relevant South Korean authorities said at the time that the case helped China "pave the way" in developing high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is one of the important key components of artificial intelligence computing. Samsung Electronics declined to comment, while Changxin Memory has not yet responded to a request for comment.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported that after leaving Samsung Electronics, the researcher joined Changxin Memory with a former Samsung executive and provided Samsung's DRAM process technology to the company in the process. According to the news agency, citing prosecutors’ sources, the defendant received a total of approximately 2.9 billion won (approximately US$1.96 million) from Changxin Storage in six years. The Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters.
Changxin Storage said last year that it planned to raise 29.5 billion yuan (about 4.33 billion U.S. dollars) through an initial public offering by issuing 10.6 billion shares in Shanghai. The company said the proceeds from the fundraising will be used to upgrade its production lines and related technologies to expand DRAM production capacity and improve process levels. The report also cited the exchange rate of the day and pointed out that 1 U.S. dollar was equivalent to approximately 6.8204 yuan, or approximately 1,477.45 Korean won.