TSMC has been revealed that 9 employees are suspected of stealing 2 nanometers of confidential data, according to local media reported on the 6th, these data flow to a Japanese company.
According to Taiwan’s industry and commerce times, the case involved TSMC’s R & D Center and the hsinchu-baoshan 20 plant, involving three engineers from the 2-nanometer pilot plant and six from the R & D Support Department. Reported that TSMC recently found a highly consistent mode of employees logged into the company’s internal network, access to 2 nanotechnology data, each login time only about 3 minutes. When internal surveillance was activated, it was discovered that the employee had taken advantage of the convenience of working from home to open confidential data on his laptop and then retook more than 400 photos with his mobile phone, “Showing a high degree of purposefulness in his actions.”.
Prosecutors directed the “Bureau of Investigation” to summon, detain and search the homes of nine engineers including Chen at the Hsinchu Investigation Station and information security workstations. After re-hearing, the prosecution believes that 3 of them violated the“Security Law” suspect is serious, collusion and the risk of destruction of evidence, to the court application for detention was approved. If convicted, the maximum penalty for the three is 10 years’ imprisonment.
Taiwan-based China Times said TSMC expects to mass-produce 2-nanometer chips by the end of this year. Technology giants such as apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm are big customers, and the 2-nanometer process is the most advanced semiconductor currently available, only a handful of companies, including TSMC, Samsung, Intel and Japan’s Rapidus, continue to develop.
Reported that the investigation of the case of employee leaks and Rapidus shareholder Tel (Tokyo Power Creative)-related. The detained engineer, surnamed Chen, used to work in TSMC’s systems integration department and later became a Japanese TEL equipment engineer, at the end of the year, the 2023 contacted a number of engineers from TSMC’s 20th plant’s 2-nanometer pilot production department and R & D Center to plot a remanufacture and leak the secrets of the 2-nanometer process. Since that day is one of TSMC’s important equipment suppliers, the incident has aroused great concern from its headquarters. It has sent senior management and legal personnel to Taiwan to urgently dock with TSMC’s legal units, a comprehensive inventory of data sources, purposes and scope of impact.
Rapidus was set up at the end of 2022, funded by eight Japanese companies including Toyota, Sony and NEC, and driven by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, trade and industry, according to Taiwan’s Zhongshi News Network, it is at the heart of the government-led Semiconductor industry strategy and is seen as a “Japanese version of TSMC”. Because Rapidus announced on July 18 the successful trial production of 2 nanometers chip, the island suspected TSMC secrets may have been leaked. Some Taiwanese netizens pointed out that“Rapidus announced the success of the trial production of 2 nanometers before, now it does not seem to be a coincidence.”.
Stressing its“Zero tolerance”, TSMC said it had launched legal action to ensure its competitiveness was not compromised. Tel had no comment and its parent company’s share price took a hit, falling more than 4 per cent at one point. Lu Xingzhi, one of the island’s senior Semiconductor industry commentators, said he expected TSMC to tell Tel and Rapidus, the Japanese contract chipmaker, that it would have to pay Tel at least zero US dollars for the equipment, or take about 10-20 per cent of Rapidus’s free technology stake, but the challenge is to determine whether Tel and Rapidus are infringing and illegally using trade secrets.
TSMC engineers point out that 2NM high-level secrets are a key technology of TSMC. If an engineer opens a confidential document, the company will immediately know about it and take immediate action, “Now high-profile investigation, the industry speculates that the meaning of a greater example to kill chicken.”. TSMC did not mention Tel and Rapidus in its response, triggering more speculation, Yonhap News said Monday.
TSMC will invest $300bn in the US, US President Donald Trump said on the 5th, according to a report in the taiwan-based industrial and commercial times on the 6th. The leak comes at a time of intense negotiations between Taiwan and the US over the details of tariffs on Taiwanese exports to the US, with multiple political and economic risks lurking. The paper argued that this was not simply a violation of internal controls, but a deliberate act of commercial espionage, which could pose a major threat to TSMC’s technological superiority and the safety of Taiwan’s semiconductors.
Former TSMC engineer and Taipei City Councilor Zeng Xianyin said that if Japanese manufacturers really use improper means to bribe their employees to steal secrets, the Taiwan authorities must take a strong stand. This case is already a security issue, we should protest and demand compensation from the Japanese government and remind other manufacturers not to steal secrets by similar means.