Ring that sold tech related to Samsung chips is indicted

Five suspects including one Chinese national were charged with allegedly leaking crucial semiconductor technology from a Samsung subsidiary to a Chinese company.

The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office [JOONGANG PHOTO]

Five suspects including one Chinese national were charged with allegedly leaking crucial semiconductor technology from a Samsung subsidiary to a Chinese company.

Prosecutors in Suwon, Gyeonggi, told reporters Monday that the technology allegedly leaked related to the manufacturing of semiconductor cleaning equipment, which the Korean government considers a “national core technology.”

The Korean company was identified as Semes, which is a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.

Prosecutors did not reveal the Chinese company’s name.

Four suspects were indicted with physical detention, while one was indicted without.

The three detainees include a 47-year-old former Semes worker, the CEO of a Semes subcontractor and a 39-year-old Chinese broker. The suspect who was indicted but not detained was described as a worker for a Semes subcontractor.

According to prosecutors, the 47-year-old former Semes worker left the company in 2016 and started a company three years later. The former worker received the manufacturing blueprint for a type of Semes semiconductor cleaning equipment from the CEO of a Semes subcontractor via KakaoTalk in June 2021, and forwarded it to the Chinese broker.

The Chinese broker allegedly gave the blueprint to a Chinese company.

The former Semes worker is suspected of signing an agreement with a Chinese semiconductor company to hand over 10 sets of semiconductor cleaning equipment worth about 24.8 billion won ($20 million) each, though prosecutors said the delivery apparently wasn’t made.

The former Semes worker separately faces charges of colluding with a colleague, who also worked for Semes, in leaking “single-type phosphoric acid” cleaning equipment technology from Semes.

Prosecutors have been investigating the case at Semes since October 2021.

Last year, 10 people including the former Semes worker were prosecuted for leaking Semes technology related to wet semiconductor cleaning equipment. Prosecutors at the time determined that the suspect was paid nearly 113.9 billion won from selling 20 sets of wet semiconductor cleaning equipment to a Chinese company.

Prosecutors continued to investigate and found out that the suspect allegedly trafficked in other types of semiconductor technology that Korea considers national core technology. Prosecutors stressed that the technology the former Semes worker allegedly handed over to China was used to manufacture memory chips below 20 nanometers.

A prosecutor who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity stressed that such a technology leak could undermine Samsung’s competitiveness in semiconductor manufacturing, which could cause losses of trillions of won in Korean industries.

BY SON SUNG-BAE,LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]