National Development Council (NDC) Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) was questioned in the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday about a National Development Fund-supported silicon photonics chip start-up reportedly being in touch with Chinese officials to transfer its core technology.
Kung was questioned by several Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers at a meeting of the Economics Committee about a local report last week, which alleged to have received tips from board members and employees of Taiwan Nano & Micro-Photonics Co (台灣奈微光科技) that the chairman had been in contact with Chinese officials.
It said that the start-up, established in 2019 and receiving an angel investment of NT$17.63 million (US$546,887 at the current exchange rate) from the National Development Fund, was generously offered about NT$23 billion to set up a foundry in China to mass-produce the company’s state-of-the-art innovation.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The company’s setup was based on National Taiwan University (NTU) electrical engineering and computer science professor Lin Ching-fuh (林清富) and his team’s work and patent on a photodetector for measuring infrared radiation, according to the report. Lin currently serves as the company’s chief technology officer.
According to the NTU College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science’s announcement in 2021, the photodetector technology-based silicon photonics chip is able to detect “far and mid-infrared, near-infrared, and visible light.”
It added that the company was the world’s first sensing integrated optical circuit (IOC) design company to have its chips mass-produced using a silicon wafer CMOS process.
The company in October last year said it was ready to mass-produce its “multifunctional, far- and mid-infrared silicon photonics chip.”
Local media outlet Mirror Media reported that Lin had said the technology could be used in military and aerospace industries, electric vehicles and medicine, and therefore had the potential to become Taiwan’s next major technological stronghold.
The tips received by Mirror Media had accused company chairman Chang Kun-yu (張坤昱) of trying to transfer the technology to China. The report cited as evidence several screenshots of Chang’s message to board members and copies of Chinese official reports on the plan to make investments in the company.
The National Development Council, a day after the report had been published on Tuesday last week, issued a statement stressing that in the same report the company had already denied that the patent had been transferred or that it had any plans to set up factories in China or any other countries.
The council said the National Development Fund has a 4.93 percent stake in the company and has no one on its board.
“To our understanding, [the technology] of the company is still at the R&D [research and development] stage,” the statement said.
Kung repeated the stance yesterday when questioned by the lawmakers, who called it a “national security issue,” adding that the company also denied the report when the council contacted it about the report.
He said the council holds no investigative power, but would submit a report on the matter to the committee within a month.
The Mirror Media report said that the whistle-blowers had already reported the alleged offense to the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice.
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