Prosecutors indict former Samsung Electronics manager on charges of leaking ‘semiconductor equipment core technology’ to China

The prosecution brought to trial Mr. Kim, a former manager of Samsung Electronics who had taken semiconductor deposition equipment technology to China and started manufacturing the actual equipment, and the Chinese company Shinkai they founded.

The Information Technology Crime Investigation Department of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Chun) arrested and indicted three people, including Mr. Kim, who founded the semiconductor equipment manufacturing company ‘Shinkai’ with investment from Chinese capital, and indicted three others without detention. The corporation ‘Shinkai’ was also sent to trial under the dual punishment rule. The prosecution of three members of the group in China, including Chinese representative Mr. H, was suspended.

The main culprit, Mr. Kim, moved from Samsung Electronics to Chinese semiconductor company Changshin Memory Technology (CXMT) around 2016. The prosecution confirmed that Mr. Kim copied and filmed Samsung Electronics’ 18-nano DRAM processing technology, a national core technology, and handed it over to a Chinese company.

In 2021, Mr. Kim moved again to Company A, a domestic company that manufactures semiconductor deposition equipment. The following year, he established the semiconductor equipment company ‘Shinkai’ in China with investment from Chinese solar energy companies and other companies. Mr. Kim brought engineers working at leading domestic semiconductor equipment companies to Shinkai. The condition was that he would be promised double his existing salary and also be distributed shares of Shinka. The prosecution discovered that around this time, Mr. Kim was stealing company A’s trade secrets, such as ALD equipment design technology data, and that engineers who had moved to Shinkai were stealing key technologies from existing domestic companies. We also confirmed that the stolen core technology was stored on a Korean server and attempted to be downloaded from China using a VPN. Company A’s technical data that Mr. Kim stole and stored on the server exceeded 10,000.

Based on the stolen technology, Shinkai created a design drawing in four months and began manufacturing semiconductor equipment. Prosecutors confiscated the semiconductor deposition equipment modules they had entrusted to domestic partners to manufacture and prevented them from being delivered to China.

The prosecution said, “Technology from three semiconductor equipment companies was stolen. The total investment by the three companies to develop the technology exceeds 70 billion won. If the equipment was actually produced and transferred to China, the loss would be over 50 billion won every year.” “I was concerned,” he explained.