Taiwan court hands 10‑year sentence

A Taiwan court sentenced former TSMC engineer Chen Li-ming to 10 years in prison on Monday in a trade-secrets case tied to Tokyo Electron Taiwan. (abcnews.com) The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court also fined Tokyo Electron Taiwan NT$150 million, about $4.8 million, and handed four other defendants prison terms of up to six years. (usnews.com) (abcnews.com) The court said Chen had worked at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. before joining Tokyo Electron Taiwan, where he used former colleagues to obtain confidential data. Judge Chang Ming-huang said Chen copied and passed along materials to help improve Tokyo Electron’s technology and its bids as a TSMC supplier. (abcnews.com) The stolen material involved TSMC’s 2-nanometer process, including trade secrets related to etching equipment used in that next-generation manufacturing line. In simple terms, etching tools carve microscopic patterns into chips, and small process changes can affect speed, yield, and cost. (focustaiwan.tw) Taiwan treated the case as more than an ordinary corporate leak. The court found Chen guilty under the National Security Act for unauthorized acquisition and use of what Taiwan classifies as “national core key technologies.” (focustaiwan.tw) (usnews.com) Focus Taiwan reported the case is the first involving a corporate entity under that law. Reuters described it as one of Taiwan’s highest-profile prosecutions over alleged breaches of national core technologies. (focustaiwan.tw) (usnews.com) Prosecutors said the scheme ran from the second half of 2023 through the first half of 2025. They said Chen repeatedly solicited information from two TSMC engineers who were still at the company, and that confidential screens were photographed and reproduced. (focustaiwan.tw) TSMC reported the matter to authorities on July 8, 2025, after an internal investigation found irregularities. Prosecutors detained key suspects later that month and filed indictments in August 2025. (focustaiwan.tw) Tokyo Electron said after the indictment that it had dismissed an employee involved in the case. On Monday, the company said it took the ruling “with the utmost seriousness” and would strengthen information management, while maintaining that neither the court nor its own probe found organizational involvement. (abcnews.com) The ruling can still be appealed. But the sentence, the corporate fine, and the use of Taiwan’s national-security framework show how aggressively the island is now policing leaks around its most advanced chip technology. (focustaiwan.tw) (abcnews.com)