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In South Korea, police have arrested a group of ex-Samsung Eletronics employees suspected of transferring DRAM memory technology to China. The estimated damage caused to Samsung by the "spies" is in the billions of dollars. Over the past few years, attempts – with varying degrees of success – to copy foreign technologies have been thwarted by law enforcement agencies in South Korea and Taiwan.
Koreans Arrested for Leaking Samsung Technologies to China
Two former Samsung employees have been arrested in Seoul, South Korea, on suspicion of stealing integrated circuit technology. According to Bloomberg, the company's intellectual property was subsequently used to deploy chip production in China. The estimated damage caused to Samsung is estimated at 4.3 trillion won ($3.2 billion).
According to law enforcement agencies, two defendants in the case, together with regional Chinese officials, participated in the creation of the Chengdu Gaozhen company. It was led by one of the now arrested, Choi. After taking office, 66-year-old Choi began to search for specialists in the field of semiconductors.
One of the people who joined Chengdu Gaozhen at Choi's invitation was a second suspect who previously worked at Samsung Electronics as a senior researcher, surnamed Oh. Among the tasks assigned to the specialist and his colleagues, allegedly, was the extraction of information about the technological process used by Samsung for the production of chips according to the 20 nm norm, as well as other information representing a commercial secret. With the help of the collected data, it was planned to deploy its own production of computer dynamic memory (DRAM) chips at a site in China.
According to a statement from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Department, the suspects not only caused $3.2 billion in damage to Samsung by their actions, but also contributed to "weakening the country's competitiveness during the 'chip wars'." The police also reported on the actual shutdown of the activities of the Chinese enterprise and the continuation of work to identify other cases of technology leakage abroad.
A recognized leader in the field of computer memory and an ally of the United States, South Korea is the world's largest manufacturer of computer memory chips. According to Statista, in the first quarter of 2024, the share of South Korean companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together accounted for 75% of all DRAM memory supplied to the global market (in money).
In addition to them, the top 6 include Micron from the United States (21.5%), as well as Taiwanese vendors Nanya (1.6%), Winbond (0.9%) and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (0.2%). Mainland Chinese companies are not included in this ranking.
South Korea is seen by the United States as an ally in curbing China's technological development. This East Asian country, along with Japan and Taiwan, according to the plan of the Americans, was to become part of the Chip 4 technology alliance. Among the tasks of the union: ensuring the security of global supply chains for semiconductor products, coordinating the governments of the participating countries on the regulation and subsidizing of the industry, conducting joint research and development work.
In September 2022, CNews wrote about theChip 4 difficulties. The merger procedure was delayed due to a large number of contradictions between potential members of the alliance.
Accusations of industrial espionage
At the end of 2023, South Korean media reported on the arrest of ex-Samsung employees Mr. Kim and Mr. Bang, who at a certain stage of their careers decided to terminate their employment with the company and move to China. There, according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service, the men got a job at ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), the largest DRAM manufacturer in China, and allegedly transferred the technology behind Samsung's 16-nanometer memory production to the company. According to preliminary investigations, CXMT paid Kim an annual salary of several million dollars, which is too high by the standards of his position. Prosecutors tend to view the transaction as payment for Kim's services in the field of industrial espionage.
It is not only South Korea that China accuses of stealing technology. Claims to the methods of information extraction used by businesses in the Celestial Empire, in particular, were expressed by the Dutch ASML, the largest supplier of equipment for the production of microcircuits. In February 2023, the vendor reported that one of its former employees in China illegally gained access to an important patented technology that should not have fallen into the wrong hands and stole it.
In September 2021, CNews wrote that a Taiwanese court sentenced two managers of the local subsidiary of the American Micron to three years in prison for stealing technology. According to the court's findings, the Taiwanese, before resigning from the company in 2016, filmed the situation in the clean rooms at the factory's production site with the help of personal smartphone cameras. The managers sent hard copies of the photos to China Wafer Technology, located in mainland China. For the service provided, China Wafer Technology assigned new employees a salary of $31 thousand per month, which is much higher than the average in the labor market.
Chinese business is often accused of involvement in the theft of intellectual property of foreign companies. Industrial espionage, in particular, is one of the key contradictions in trade relations between the U.S. and China.
In 2013, the US Government Commission on Intellectual Property (IP Commission) published a report according to which China was responsible for 80% of cases of theft of American intellectual property. Experts estimated the total damage from the neglect of the right to its protection at $300 billion.
In particular, China, under its terms, was supposed to initiate "structural changes" in the country that would effectively combat counterfeiting and theft of intellectual property.
Koreans Arrested for Leaking Samsung Technologies to China
Two former Samsung employees have been arrested in Seoul, South Korea, on suspicion of stealing integrated circuit technology. According to Bloomberg, the company's intellectual property was subsequently used to deploy chip production in China. The estimated damage caused to Samsung is estimated at 4.3 trillion won ($3.2 billion).
According to law enforcement agencies, two defendants in the case, together with regional Chinese officials, participated in the creation of the Chengdu Gaozhen company. It was led by one of the now arrested, Choi. After taking office, 66-year-old Choi began to search for specialists in the field of semiconductors.
One of the people who joined Chengdu Gaozhen at Choi's invitation was a second suspect who previously worked at Samsung Electronics as a senior researcher, surnamed Oh. Among the tasks assigned to the specialist and his colleagues, allegedly, was the extraction of information about the technological process used by Samsung for the production of chips according to the 20 nm norm, as well as other information representing a commercial secret. With the help of the collected data, it was planned to deploy its own production of computer dynamic memory (DRAM) chips at a site in China.
According to a statement from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Department, the suspects not only caused $3.2 billion in damage to Samsung by their actions, but also contributed to "weakening the country's competitiveness during the 'chip wars'." The police also reported on the actual shutdown of the activities of the Chinese enterprise and the continuation of work to identify other cases of technology leakage abroad.
A recognized leader in the field of computer memory and an ally of the United States, South Korea is the world's largest manufacturer of computer memory chips. According to Statista, in the first quarter of 2024, the share of South Korean companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together accounted for 75% of all DRAM memory supplied to the global market (in money).
In addition to them, the top 6 include Micron from the United States (21.5%), as well as Taiwanese vendors Nanya (1.6%), Winbond (0.9%) and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (0.2%). Mainland Chinese companies are not included in this ranking.
South Korea is seen by the United States as an ally in curbing China's technological development. This East Asian country, along with Japan and Taiwan, according to the plan of the Americans, was to become part of the Chip 4 technology alliance. Among the tasks of the union: ensuring the security of global supply chains for semiconductor products, coordinating the governments of the participating countries on the regulation and subsidizing of the industry, conducting joint research and development work.
In September 2022, CNews wrote about theChip 4 difficulties. The merger procedure was delayed due to a large number of contradictions between potential members of the alliance.
Accusations of industrial espionage
At the end of 2023, South Korean media reported on the arrest of ex-Samsung employees Mr. Kim and Mr. Bang, who at a certain stage of their careers decided to terminate their employment with the company and move to China. There, according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service, the men got a job at ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), the largest DRAM manufacturer in China, and allegedly transferred the technology behind Samsung's 16-nanometer memory production to the company. According to preliminary investigations, CXMT paid Kim an annual salary of several million dollars, which is too high by the standards of his position. Prosecutors tend to view the transaction as payment for Kim's services in the field of industrial espionage.
It is not only South Korea that China accuses of stealing technology. Claims to the methods of information extraction used by businesses in the Celestial Empire, in particular, were expressed by the Dutch ASML, the largest supplier of equipment for the production of microcircuits. In February 2023, the vendor reported that one of its former employees in China illegally gained access to an important patented technology that should not have fallen into the wrong hands and stole it.
In September 2021, CNews wrote that a Taiwanese court sentenced two managers of the local subsidiary of the American Micron to three years in prison for stealing technology. According to the court's findings, the Taiwanese, before resigning from the company in 2016, filmed the situation in the clean rooms at the factory's production site with the help of personal smartphone cameras. The managers sent hard copies of the photos to China Wafer Technology, located in mainland China. For the service provided, China Wafer Technology assigned new employees a salary of $31 thousand per month, which is much higher than the average in the labor market.
Chinese business is often accused of involvement in the theft of intellectual property of foreign companies. Industrial espionage, in particular, is one of the key contradictions in trade relations between the U.S. and China.
In 2013, the US Government Commission on Intellectual Property (IP Commission) published a report according to which China was responsible for 80% of cases of theft of American intellectual property. Experts estimated the total damage from the neglect of the right to its protection at $300 billion.
In particular, China, under its terms, was supposed to initiate "structural changes" in the country that would effectively combat counterfeiting and theft of intellectual property.
