(April 27): A Taiwanese court sentenced a former Tokyo Electron Ltd employee to 10 years in prison for stealing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s proprietary data, highlighting growing alarm over industrial espionage involving the island’s most strategic sector.
Ex-Tokyo Electron engineer Chen Li-ming was handed the sentence by Judge Chang Ming-huang at Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court on Monday. Four others indicted in the case were given sentences of as much as six years in prison, with one woman getting a 10-month sentence, suspended for three years. A Tokyo Electron spokesperson had no immediate comment.
The hefty prison term for Chen reflects the Taiwanese government’s efforts to protect its world-class semiconductor industry. TSMC is the primary chipmaker for Nvidia Corp, Apple Inc and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Policymakers around the world now consider semiconductors a matter of national security because their capabilities determine the quality of artificial intelligence, supercomputers and defence systems.
The court also fined Tokyo Electron’s Taiwan unit NT$150 million, of which it has the option to pay NT$100 million to TSMC. Chen did not leak trade secrets to outside parties beyond Tokyo Electron and its Taiwan unit, and Tokyo Electron tried to mitigate the damage from the incident, according to the ruling. But the Japanese company could have done more to monitor its employees, the judge said. All defendants have the right to appeal the verdict.
Shares of Tokyo Electron rose 2.7% in Tokyo. TSMC’s stock price gained 3.7% in Taipei.
Taiwan is on high alert for technology leaks. Attention is on both long-time partners such as Tokyo Electron and entities with ties to Beijing, which is pushing hard to develop its own chip capabilities. In early 2025, Taiwan started an investigation into whether China’s leading chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp illegally poached local engineers as part of an effort to access the island’s chip technology.
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Last year, prosecutors also searched the homes of a former TSMC executive who joined Intel Corp after the Taiwanese firm accused him of potentially transferring intellectual property. The US company has rejected those allegations.
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