Eight Chinese enterprises are suspected of poaching talent and stealing industry secrets from Taiwanese semiconductor companies by disguising their identities with shell companies overseas or setting up branches in Taiwan, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau said today.
Thirty locations were raided and 65 people questioned from Aug. 19 to 30 in the joint investigation launched by the Hsinchu, Taipei, New Taipei City and Shilin prosecutors’ offices, mobilizing 135 officers under the direction of the bureau.
According to investigators, the eight Chinese enterprises hid their backgrounds and poached talent from Hsinchu Science Park, attempting to acquire high-end technologies such as semiconductors and integrated circuits.
Photo courtesy of the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office
The eight Chinese enterprises involved were ICOMMSEMI (中國深圳市南方硅谷半導體), Shanghai New Vision Microelectronics Co Ltd (上海新相微電子), NJAVC (南京齊芯半導體), Emotibot Technologies Ltd (中國竹間智能科技(上海)), Tongfang Co Ltd (同方), ACTT (成都銳成芯微科技), Naura (中國北方華創微電子裝備) and HestiaPower (中國上海瀚薪科技), the bureau said in a news release.
Naura headhunted engineers by setting up a Taiwan branch office, whose major clients are high-end semiconductor manufacturers including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際集團) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co Ltd (長江存儲科技), the bureau said.
HestiaPower introduced its capital in Taiwan by setting up shell companies overseas with funding from the Sub-Fund of China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund and the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Fund of the Chinese Ministry of Finance, the bureau said.
HestiaPower aims to develop silicon carbide as a third-generation semiconductor material for application in various high-tech industries, having a huge impact on the competitiveness of the industry, the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office said.
Tongfang — owned by China National Nuclear Corp, a Chinese state enterprise that oversees military nuclear programs, information technology, and energy and environment projects — disguised its source of funding by setting up a Taiwanese company that poached a research team of nearly 100 people, attempting to acquire relevant technologies, the bureau said.
ACTT, which is a supplier of integrated circuit patents and product design, attempted to cover up its illegal business in Taiwan by telling its staff to register their health insurance at trade unions or district offices, the bureau said.
Bureau Director-General Chen Pai-li (陳白立) when he took office vowed to safeguard national security and combat the Chinese Communist Party’s stealing of state-of-the-art semiconductor technologies and talent, the statement said.
The illegal acts of the Chinese enterprises have severe impacts on the competitiveness of Taiwan’s high-tech industry, the bureau said.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS