Intel Engineer Flip-Flops to AMD, Company Secrets Stolen?

An ex-Intel employee is currently being investigated by the FBI for allegedly attempting to provide confidential company secrets to market competitor, AMD.

Biswahoman Pani, a former engineer at Intel’s Hudson facility, is learning a rather simple lesson the hard way – it is not the best idea to start secretly working for AMD while still an Intel employee. Worse yet, it probably is a really bad idea to have over a hundred pages of sensitive Intel documents, top secret design plans and CAD drawings belonging to Intel laying around your home when starting that new job at AMD. Pani has been recently charged with allegedly stealing company trade secrets after an FBI investigation into the matter back in July 2008,

According to The Boston Globe, the story began when Biswahoman Pani told his Intel supervisors he missed his wife, Vandana Padhi, who was also an Intel employee, but who had been stationed at a facility out in California. Near the end of May, Intel approved the request to transfer his wife to the Hudson facility, however the response from Pani was probably not what Intel expected.

Only hours after, Pani handed in his resignation to Intel claiming he now wanted a job with a hedge fund and then left on vacation leave, waiting for his employment at Intel to end on June 11. When it was later discovered by another Intel employee that Pani had begun working for AMD, the FBI were called in to investigate. Apparently Pani began working for AMD on June 2, only days after his resignation from Intel.

An investigation of Pani’s house on July 1 unturned secret documents belonging to Intel of future design plans for upcoming Intel processors, although Pani claimed they were kept for reasons of curiosity and to help aid his wife with her job at the new facility. Pani is no longer working for AMD and despite having his passport seized, he is not under custody.

The FBI states there is no evidence that AMD was involved in Pani’s alleged actions and there is no evidence that AMD gained possession of any sensitive Intel documents. AMD and Intel are both fully cooperating with the investigation.

  • jimmysmitty
    Wow. What stupid people will do. He will probably get some fines or something bad.
    Reply
  • neodude007
    MMMM FBI searching your house = fail. I don't see how CAD blueprints and 100 page secret documents are your average reading material. That sucks but I would imagine he deserves everything coming his way. Buuuut AMD could use the help. If they stepped up there would be some hot competition like AMD/Nvidia. Cheap stuff for everyone hooooooo
    Reply
  • Camikazi
    Isn't this the same guy who's wife STILL works for Intel and would have reason for having those papers? Yes, starting to work for AMD while still employed to Intel is bad, but that does not mean he stole those papers, when there is a chance his wife needed them for her work.
    Reply
  • sacre
    See..

    Its the FBI and two major companies at work here, I think there is more behind this, and lot more lies then truth.

    With those 3 Giants (intel, amd, fbi) there is NO possible way 1 single guy would beable to defend himself.

    After seeing the amount of corruption in Americas system, and how democracy doesn't mean a thing if you're rich, I have a hard time believing any of this.
    Reply
  • zerapio
    Camikazi, this is not stock paper for the printer we're talking about; it's TOP SECRET stuff. As you can imagine not everyone in the company has access to top secret material and all of those who do have only access to the material relevant to their work.
    Reply
  • falchard
    Meh who cares. Intel cannot create new technology for its hardware now until AMD creates it first. Thier quad solution was simply sticking 2 Dual cores together. Now its a hypertransport L3 cache user like... The Phenoms. They even have a 512KB L2 Cache.

    What were the secret blue-prints? Larrabee designs for a multi-core array of processors that utilize GDDR5, and DX10.1?
    Reply
  • As an engineer for a major motherboard manufacturer, I have countless documents which could be considered sensitive at my home. Finding time to study new schematics and data sheets at work can be difficult at times. I guess I should destroy them should I ever start working for someone else...
    Reply
  • stephen1960
    If I were running Intel, I would actually throw some designs to AMD to help them. A healthy AMD is good for us and good for Intel. And it would reduce risk of those pesky anti trust issues. Leadership maturity required, though. It would have to be slipped to AMD on the sly. Perhaps by way of an ex employee, which would provide denyability in case of exposure...
    Reply
  • stephen1960
    I'm such a genius. Intel should totally hire me. First thing I would do, other than slip trade secrets to AMD, would be to hire Tom's Hardware. Perhaps I wouldn't need to actually hire Tom's Hardware, perhaps I could just troll the message boards and article comments.
    Reply
  • Pei-chen
    So that's why the 45nm Phenom is delayed until next year instead of this holiday season.
    Reply