A senior engineer at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) who left the company after nearly 20 years, has been found
guilty of illegally passing on the firm's trade secrets, specifically the FinFET fabrication process, to Samsung -- which then copied the process in order to win a majority of the orders of Apple's A-series processor manufacturing, a Taiwanese court has found.
Liang Mong-song oversaw advanced research and development at TSMC, but was passed over for a promotion by the company and left to work at a Samsung-sponsored university in Seoul, where the "students" were said to be entirely Samsung engineers. The court found that this was a cover designed to protect Liang's TSMC stock options, and avoid violating a non-compete agreement. After the agreement expired, Liang became head of the System LSI division at Samsung and assisted the company in developing its own copy of the FinFET fabrication process.
At the time of his leaving TSMC, the company had notably more advanced chip fabrication processes than Samsung, though Samsung had (on its own) developed a smaller and more advanced process, but was having difficulty with quality and capacity. Following Liang's leaving, TSMC starting having problems with its
own 16-nanometer process, while Samsung was able to develop its own version of a 14-nanometer FinFET-based chip, allowing it to retain
the majority of Apple's A-series processor orders.
TSMC has recently won a larger percentage of orders back from Samsung, after resolving its own issues. The Taiwan court has sentenced Liang to a "slap on the wrist" penalty of barring him from working for Samsung for the remainder of the year. A more severe penalty will likely come from Liang's former employer, which will likely suspend his stock options and possibly sue over the breach of contract uncovered by the court's ruling.
Top