Former Samsung employees brought to court for alleged tech leaks

Two former Samsung Electronics employees arrested for stealing the chip giant's trade secrets and personnel to build a copycat factory in China have been handed over to prosecutors where they could potentially face charges, police said on Tuesday.

The two are the 66-year-old head of Chengdu Gaozhen (CHJS), surnamed Choi, and the Chinese company's 60-year-old chief designer, surnamed Oh, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) said. Choi previously worked as a senior executive at Samsung Electronics and the predecessor of SK hynix, while Oh was a senior researcher at Samsung.

Choi, who formed a joint semiconductor company with a Chinese local government in September 2020, is accused of sharing and misusing Samsung's core memory semiconductor technologies after recruiting a large number of Korean chip experts, including Oh.

Choi is alleged to have stolen core technologies developed by Samsung with the aim of producing 20-nanometer semiconductors for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and produced basic products in April 2022. Oh is accused of playing a key role in the alleged technology theft after joining CHJS.

The SMPA estimated the economic value of the leaked Samsung technologies at 4.3 trillion won ($3.2 billion). The police agency also said it was investigating whether there were further technology leaks by other former Samsung employees who moved to CHJS.

Yonhap