The Taiwan unit of Japanese semiconductor equipment maker TEL was indicted in the "TSMC technology leak" case.
According to Taiwan media including the Liberty Times on the 3rd, the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office filed an additional indictment against TEL's Taiwan unit over its involvement in a case of leaking TSMC's advanced technology in the Taiwan foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) sector. Prosecutors said TEL bore responsibility for "poor management and supervision" in connection with the leak of TSMC's 2-nanometer (nm; 1 nm = one-billionth of a meter) process technology.
The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office had previously, in Aug., indicted and detained a former employee of TEL's Taiwan subsidiary, a person surnamed Cheon, on charges of violating the National Security Act. Prosecutors said TEL was also responsible for failing to control its own employee. Prosecutors were reported to have asked the court to impose a fine of 120 million Taiwan dollars (about 5.6 billion won). This is the first case since the May 2022 amendment of the National Security Act that applied the crime of "overseas use of trade secrets of nationally critical and key technology" related to semiconductor technology to a corporation.
According to the prosecution's investigation, Cheon, who had been a TSMC employee, moved to TEL and worked as a marketing and product manager. Cheon reportedly attempted to leak technology after feeling pressure from the financial burden of a child's medical treatment and from TEL's failed follow-up testing and mass production after TSMC began initial production related to 2 nanometers.
Cheon asked TSMC engineers a person surnamed Woo and a person surnamed Geo, who were close to Cheon, for help, and Woo and Geo, while working remotely from home, used company-issued laptops to access the internal intranet, viewed confidential documents, photographed 2-nanometer process images with their mobile phones, and sent them to Cheon. Cheon continued to receive their help from Aug. 2023 to May this year and was also said to have kept a work log to report some of the secrets to management.
The Intellectual Property Branch of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office launched an investigation in July into nine current and former TSMC employees, and a month later detained three people—Cheon, who left TSMC's integrated systems institutional sector and moved to TEL, and TSMC employees Woo and Geo—on suspicion of violating the National Security Act.