South Korean prosecutors have arrested 10 former Samsung employees who have allegedly leaked 10-nm DRAM technology to ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT). The 10 individuals are accused of breaking the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology, better known as the Industrial Technology Protection Act. Of the ten, five are key development personnel, which includes a former executive. Others include section heads responsible for development and research. Prosecutors say that after CXMT’s founding in 2016, it recruited executives and key people from Samsung Electronics, which was the only place mass-producing 10-nm DRAM at that time, according to The Asia Business Daily.
The leak allowed CXMT to produce China’s first 10-nm DRAM in 2023, with prosecutors arguing that the stolen technology laid the groundwork for the Chinese company’s advancements in HBM. CXMT reportedly began mass production of HBM2 memory in 2024, and that it’s expected to capture as much as 15% of the market, resulting in trillions of losses in Korean Won for both Samsung and South Korea’s national economy. This can arguably be seen already as Samsung Electronics’ sales declined by about 5 trillion Won last year.
Reports indicate that a Mr. A, a former Samsung executive, was in charge working on 10-nm DRAM technology for CXMT, while Mr. B, a key employee involved with the research on the technology allegedly copied information on DRAM manufacturing. The Chosun Daily says that “B” transcribed 12 pages of information manually to avoid detection, especially as semiconductor companies are particularly protective of their information and that copying files from a computer or photographing them with a smartphone could lead to them being caught.
This isn’t the first time that employees of South Korean tech firms have been arrested for stealing information for Chinese companies. A former SK hynix employee was apprehended earlier this year before boarding a flight for China, while another engineer was sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempting to sell information to Huawei. Two former Samsung executives were also arrested last year for allegedly stealing proprietary information and then using that to start their own chip factory in China.
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