Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋半導體) yesterday said investigators suspect some of its former and current engineers of involvement in the theft of corporate secrets, some of which were sent on to Chinese rival Chengdu Gastone Technology Co (成都嘉石).
The investigation is the latest in a slew of trade-secret thefts linked to the nation’s technology companies, after employees of handset chipmaker MediaTek Inc (聯發科) pleaded guilty of stealing personnel information to be used in talent poaching last month.
Win Semi called on rivals to stop stealing trade secrets, poaching talent or employing any other unfair competition practices, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Photo: Cheng Shu-ting, Taipei Times
More than 50 investigators yesterday raided 12 locations, including the offices and homes of seven former and current employees of Win Semiconductors, and have seized important evidence, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau said in a statement.
“Investigators found seven suspects, led by one surnamed Yang (楊), have passed information on key technologies developed by Win Semiconductors to its Chinese rival, Chengdu Gastone,” an investigator said on the telephone.
Chengdu Gastone approached former Win Semiconductors employees and its equipment suppliers via headhunting agencies to obtain trade secrets and key technology information, said the investigator, who declined to be named.
The Chinese semiconductor company offered bribes and jobs in exchange for valuable technology information, the bureau said in the statement.
Yang and other suspects were offered positions at Chengdu Gastone and they were set to leave Taiwan for China on Monday, the bureau added.
Win Semiconductors is the world’s largest foundry services provider of gallium arsenide components used in mobile phones. The Linkou (林口), Taoyuan-based firm has become a target of Chinese rivals as they aggressively expand their reach in the supply chain of the semiconductor industry, the statement said.
China plans to build new factories to produce gallium arsenide components in Beijing, Chengdu and Fuzhou, the bureau said, citing information it obtained.
Two months ago, Win Semiconductors told the Taoyuan District Court that it had found several employees had illegally duplicated and stored certain secret technology information. The company told the court at the time that it was highly concerned about possible leakage to rivals.
Win Semiconductors reported net income of NT$805 million (US$24.6 million) for last quarter, up 30 percent from a year earlier and 83 percent from the previous quarter, with earnings per share of NT$1.32. In the first three quarters, cumulative earnings per share reached NT$2.81, while revenue totaled NT$9.87 billion in the first 10 months of the year, up 20.11 percent from a year earlier.
The company yesterday said its operation would not be affected by the latest investigation.
Last month, management forecast revenue for this quarter to increase by high single digits from last quarter’s NT$2.913 billion with a stable gross margin, saying that inventory correction would gradually come to an end, and citing emerging signs of stabilizing demand from wireless, cellular and infrastructure segments.
Win Semiconductors shares plunged 3.43 percent to NT$46.5 yesterday, under-performing the TAIEX, which declined 1.77 percent.
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass
RSS