Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday.
Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said.
The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology.
Photo: Reuters
Two-nanometer wafers are the most advanced design and the tape-out process for making the first chips is scheduled to take place next month.
The office’s intellectual property branch launched a probe into the data breach after TSMC reported the incident to the authorities, it said.
The case is the first time Taiwan has invoked the National Security Act’s (國家安全法) provisions barring Taiwanese from leaking the nation’s core technology to foreign governments or commercial entities, the office said.
Article 3 of the act stipulates that core national technologies cannot be reproduced, utilized or disclosed without authorization, it said.
Law enforcement officials are working to determine the motive behind the alleged intellectual property theft and whether classified technology has been transferred to a third party, the office said.
Prosecutors did not announce whether the engineers were acting on behalf of a foreign government or company.
TSMC said that it has zero tolerance for any action that jeopardizes its operational secrets and that it would work with law enforcement to protect its competitive advantage.
Police and prosecutors have carried out a search of Tokyo Electron’s branch at the Hsinchu Science Park, which sources said could be related to the leak at TSMC.
The race to secure a leading role in the artificial intelligence era has made cutting-edge chips and memory a prized asset. Investment in chipmaking development is at an all-time high, as TSMC and its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, have set aside more than US$30 billion in annual capital expenditure, while US and Chinese companies are also eyeing developing the most advanced technology.
China’s progress has stalled several generations behind TSMC, with Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯) now fabricating silicon at 7-nanometers. In the US, Intel Corp is at a more advanced stage.
Additional reporting by Wu Sheng-ju and Bloomberg
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS