This photo, provided by the National Nanofab Center in Daejeon, 164 kilometers south of Seoul, shows a test bed for 12-inch semiconductors.
SEOUL, Jan. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — Prosecutors on Monday have indicted individuals including a former employee of a domestic company for leaking one of the nation’s core semiconductor technologies to China.
The Suwon District Prosecutors Office announced that it had indicted four people, including a former researcher at SEMES Co., an affiliate of Samsung Electronics Co., for violating the unfair competition prevention act.
The researcher set up his own company three years after resigning in 2016.
He acquired the drawings of the supercritical semiconductor cleaning equipment that SEMES developed for the first time in the world from the CEO of a SEMES subcontractor in June 2021, and leaked the information to China through a broker.
In return for passing the information, the CEO of the subcontractor received an investment of 3.8 billion won (US$3.07 million) from the researcher. The broker received 1.6 billion won.
Supercritical cleaning equipment is used to clean semiconductor substrates with supercritical carbon dioxide, and was designated as one of the nation’s core technologies by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
“SEMES invested 35 billion won to develop the technology. If the leakage leads to the deterioration of its competitiveness and a 10 percent decline in order volume, the company would suffer losses of more than 40 billion won per year,” prosecutors said.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
