TAIPEI — Taiwan prosecutors indicted a former TSMC employee on Monday (July 20) for allegedly stealing TSMC trade secrets involving technologies designated by Taiwan as national core technologies, with intent to use them in China.
The former employee, who previously served as a deputy manager at the world's largest contract chipmaker, was charged with violating Taiwan's National Security Act and the Trade Secrets Act, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors, who identified the defendant by the surname Chen, said they were seeking a seven-year prison sentence.
The defendant is accused of conspiring with a Hong Kong national between 2023 and 2024 to establish CSMAC, a semiconductor materials analysis company in China, and of copying 21 TSMC documents relating to national core technologies and other trade secrets, intending to use the information in China.
Reuters was unable to contact Chen for comment because he remains in custody.
TSMC had detected the unauthorised copying through an internal investigation and recovered all of the duplicated technical documents, prosecutors said, adding that the Hong Kong suspect was not prosecuted because he had died.
TSMC declined to comment.
Taiwan is home to TSMC, a major supplier to companies including Nvidia and Apple.
Protections for technologies deemed critical to Taiwan's economic and national security have been tightened as concerns have grown over China's efforts to recruit Taiwanese semiconductor talent and acquire advanced chip know-how.
Prosecutors described the case as Taiwan's first involving alleged theft of trade secrets related to technologies designated as national core technologies for intended use in China.
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