[TAIPEI] Taiwanese prosecutors on Wednesday (Aug 27) charged three people with stealing trade secrets relating to TSMC’s most advanced 2-nanometre chips to help a Japanese company that makes equipment for the chipmaking giant.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, is the world’s largest contract maker of chips that are used in everything from smartphones to missiles, and counts Nvidia and Apple among its clients.
The three people – including a former TSMC engineer who went to work for Tokyo Electron’s Taiwan subsidiary and two staff employed by the chipmaker at the time – were charged under the National Security Act and the Trade Secrets Act.
“This case involves critical national core technologies vital to Taiwan’s industrial lifeline, gravely threatening the international competitiveness of Taiwan’s semiconductor sector,” the High Prosecutors Office’s Intellectual Property Branch said in a statement.
The ex-TSMC employee surnamed Chen allegedly used his relationships with former colleagues at the chipmaker to access trade secrets with the aim of helping Tokyo Electron “compete to become a supplier of equipment for more sites in TSMC’s advanced processes”, prosecutors said.
“After obtaining these files, Chen reproduced them to help Tokyo Electron improve etching machine performance and secure a qualification to supply production machinery for TSMC’s 2-nanometre etching process.”
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Tokyo Electron is a major producer of chipmaking equipment used by TSMC, winning the 2024 TSMC Excellent Performance Award for both “technology collaboration and production support”.
Prosecutors said they would seek prison sentences of 14 years for Chen, and nine and seven years for the other two defendants.
Another three people initially arrested in relation to the incident were not charged.
Tokyo Electron said previously it had sacked its staff member after they were “confirmed to be involved in an incident announced by Taiwanese judicial authorities on Aug 5”.
Prosecutors “found a total of 12 pages of classified trade secrets tied to core national key technologies”, TSMC told AFP in an email.
“TSMC maintains a zero-tolerance policy towards any actions that compromise the protection of trade secrets or harm the company’s interests,” it added.
The company said in a previous statement it had taken “strict disciplinary actions against the personnel involved” in the “potential trade secret leaks”.
TSMC did not provide details about the technology involved in the suspected leaks. AFP
