Korea's top semiconductor expert, who served as a high-ranking executive at Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, was caught selling Korea's core semiconductor secrets to China. The judiciary plans to respond sternly to such acts.

The Suwon District Prosecutors' Office's Defense Business and Industrial Technology Crime Investigation Department (Chief Prosecutor Park Jin-seong) investigated the case of Samsung Electronics' trade secrets and national core technology, semiconductor design data, being smuggled to China and misused. As a result, the company arrested and indicted the head of a semiconductor manufacturing company in China, who was a former Samsung Electronics semiconductor executive, and indicted six accomplices, including former employees of the company, without detention.

Person C, currently the representative of a Singaporean company located in China and a joint venture with China, is accused of violating the Industrial Technology Protection Act and the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (overseas leakage of trade secrets, etc.) by improperly using Samsung Electronics' trade secrets and national core technologies, such as semiconductor plant BED (Basic Engineering Data: environmental conditions for making the 'clean room', the space where semiconductors are manufactured, into an optimal semiconductor manufacturing space with almost no impurities) and process layout while building a semiconductor plant in Xi'an, China with investment from a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer and distributor, and improperly obtaining and improperly using Samsung Electronics' trade secrets, semiconductor plant design drawings.

Mr. C is a self-proclaimed top expert in the domestic semiconductor manufacturing field, having worked as an executive director at Samsung Electronics and vice president at SK Hynix.

It is known that he was awarded the Silver Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit for his contribution to the semiconductor industry, and was also selected as one of the '60 Engineers Who Built Korea' by the National Academy of Engineering of Korea and Seoul National University.

Mr. C established Company B, a Chinese company, in Chengdu, China with a capital of approximately 460 billion won, and Company A, a Singaporean company, with capital from a Taiwanese company (an investment commitment of approximately 8 trillion won). He then recruited more than 200 key domestic semiconductor personnel from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix at high salaries.

Afterwards, a cloned palm factory was built just 1.5km away from Samsung Electronics' Xi'an semiconductor factory in China, modeled after the above factory. For this purpose, Samsung Electronics' semiconductor technology was illegally acquired and used without permission.

During this process, it was revealed that Mr. C actively instructed the use of Samsung Electronics' semiconductor design data, and that Company A's executives and employees actively participated in the crime by illegally obtaining and using Samsung Electronics' semiconductor factory design data without permission in accordance with the above instructions.

Samsung Electronics' BED, process layout, and design drawings that were leaked and used illegally are known to be trade secrets with a value of at least 300 billion won and up to several trillion won, as they are data that Samsung Electronics obtained through numerous trials and errors, research and development, and simulations over a long period of more than 30 years in order to implement the optimal semiconductor manufacturing process.

In particular, BED and process layout are semiconductor process-related technologies for manufacturing 30nm or lower DRAMs and NAND flashes, and are national core technologies according to relevant notices.

A Suwon District Prosecutors' Office official said, "We will continue to respond strictly to infringements on trade secrets and national core technologies, such as semiconductor technology, that threaten the survival of companies and cause fatal damage to the national economy."