Ex‑TSMC engineer jailed 10 years

Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court sentenced former TSMC engineer Chen Li-ming to 10 years in prison in a trade-secrets case tied to Tokyo Electron. (cna.com.tw) (apnews.com) The court said Chen sought TSMC’s advanced chipmaking secrets after leaving for Tokyo Electron and pushed two then-current TSMC engineers to provide internal data. Prosecutors said the material was meant to help Tokyo Electron improve etching tools and win more TSMC 2-nanometer production business. (cna.com.tw) (digitimes.com) Tokyo Electron Taiwan was fined NT$150 million, with a three-year suspended sentence for the company. The court said the suspension depends on paying TSMC NT$100 million and the public treasury NT$50 million within one year after the verdict becomes final. (cna.com.tw) Four other defendants also received prison terms. TSMC engineer Chen Wei-chieh was sentenced to six years, Wu Bing-jun to three years, Ge Yi-ping to two years, and Tokyo Electron employee Lu Yi-yin to 10 months with probation. (cna.com.tw) (asia.nikkei.com) The stolen know-how centered on chipmaking processes below 14 nanometers and on TSMC’s 2-nanometer technology. In semiconductor manufacturing, those process recipes are the instructions that tell tools how to carve and build circuits layer by layer. (cna.com.tw) (digitimes.com) Taiwan rewrote its National Security Act to treat some semiconductor trade secrets as “core critical technologies,” putting overseas use of stolen know-how in the same legal frame as a national-security offense. The court said this was the first judgment under those amended provisions. (cna.com.tw) (digitimes.com) The court said Tokyo Electron admitted wrongdoing, cooperated with investigators, and reached a settlement with TSMC alongside its Japanese parent company. TSMC also told the court Tokyo Electron was a supplier, not a direct rival, and that the material was not shown to outside third parties beyond the company and its parent. (cna.com.tw) Tokyo Electron said confidential information did not leak outside the company, according to local reporting. The case can still be appealed. (cna.com.tw)