TSMC jails ex‑engineer, fines Tokyo Electron
- Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court sentenced former TSMC engineer Chen Li-ming to 10 years and fined Tokyo Electron Taiwan NT$150 million Monday. - Prosecutors said Chen used former colleagues to obtain TSMC’s 2-nanometer process secrets, helping Tokyo Electron sharpen equipment bids; four others got up to six years. - The ruling is the first corporate penalty under Taiwan’s National Security Act in a chip trade-secrets case. (digitimes.com)
A Taiwan court sentenced former TSMC engineer Chen Li-ming to 10 years in prison and fined Tokyo Electron Taiwan NT$150 million on Monday. (abcnews.com) (digitimes.com) The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court said Chen used ties to former co-workers at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to collect trade secrets and pass them to Tokyo Electron. Judge Chang Ming-huang said the material was used to improve Tokyo Electron’s bids as a TSMC supplier. (abcnews.com) Taipei Times, citing the indictment, said the stolen material related to TSMC’s 2-nanometer process and was used to review and improve etching equipment for a bid on that node. Prosecutors said the conduct ran from mid-2023 into the first half of 2025. (taipeitimes.com) The court also sentenced four other defendants to prison terms of up to six years. Taipei Times reported that former TSMC employees Wu Ping-chun and Ko Yi-ping got three and two years, another TSMC employee, Chen Wei-chieh, got six years, and Tokyo Electron Taiwan employee Lu Yi-yin received a 10-month suspended sentence. (abcnews.com) (taipeitimes.com) Taiwan treated the case as more than an ordinary corporate leak. DIGITIMES reported that Monday’s ruling marked the first time a corporation had been penalized under Taiwan’s National Security Act. (digitimes.com) That law has become a tool for protecting chip process know-how as Taiwan’s semiconductor industry sits at the center of the artificial-intelligence boom. Associated Press said the heavy sentencing reflects Taiwan’s effort to shield advanced technology that is central to its export economy. (abcnews.com) The fine was structured in two parts, according to Taipei Times: NT$100 million in compensation to TSMC and NT$50 million to the public treasury, with the corporate penalty suspended for three years. The same report said prosecutors later filed additional indictments after finding TSMC core technology in the company’s cloud storage. (taipeitimes.com) Tokyo Electron said Monday it took the ruling “with the utmost seriousness” and would strengthen information management, while maintaining that neither the court nor its internal probe found organizational involvement. TSMC said it has a zero-tolerance policy for trade-secret violations and pursues them fully under the law. (abcnews.com) The ruling can still be appealed, but the message from Taiwan’s court was already explicit on April 27: chipmaking process data now sits in the same legal frame as national security. (taipeitimes.com) (digitimes.com)
