inside a heist of american chip designs, as china bids for tech power - samsung

China-Jinjiang
Engineers from a Taiwanese chip maker have tried their best to hide a bold corporate espionage case as the Internet-style company closes.
When police searched their offices, HR staff warned engineers to hurry up and throw away the evidence.
USB drives, laptops and documents were handed over to a lower
Staff who hid them in lockers.
Then she took out an engineer's phone from the front door.
These devices are more valuable than gold or jewelry: microchips from the American company Micron Technology, designed to help drive the global digital revolution.
According to Taiwan authorities, the designs are designed for China, where they will help with new designs worth $5.
The size of several aircraft hangars at the 7 billion microchip plant rumbled into production.
China has ambitious plans to reform the economy and compete technically with the United States and other countries in the future.
The robbery of these designs two years ago and the raid of last year, described by the US in court documents and by the Taiwan police, represent the dark side of this effort --
And explain to some extent why the United States is engaged in a trade war with China.
A plan called "Made in China 2025" requires China to become a global competitor in a range of industries such as semiconductors, robots and electric vehicles.
China has invested heavily in innovation and buying technology from abroad.
Politicians and American companies in Washington have accused China of intimidating and outright theft in order to achieve that goal.
Idaho, they believe, is an Idaho company whose storage chips give mobile phones and computers the critical ability to store and quickly retrieve information, a major example of such aggression.
Three years ago, Meiguang rejected a $23 billion offer from a state.
Chinese company.
Today, the company faces lawsuits and investigations in China, where annual sales are about half of $20 billion.
According to officials there, Meiguang was the target of a robbery in Taiwan at the time, and the company filed a lawsuit against UMC, a Taiwanese company that hired engineers, which said, fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company, a Chinese company that hopes to obtain this technology.
Industry experts say other companies are likely to face a similar dilemma as Meiguang. One state-
Changjiang memory technology (YMTC)'s backup plant in Wuhan will produce chips that look similar to those made by Samsung, a South Korean chip maker, said Mark Newman, an analyst at sunford Bernstein.
"YMTC is almost the same as Samsung's, which makes it clear that they have been copying," he said. Newman said.
A Samsung spokesman declined to comment and YMTC officials did not respond to a comment.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited YMTC's production facilities this year as a way for Chinese leaders to endorse the project.
China defends the 2025 made in China necessary for its economic survival.
On key products such as chips and software, China is still dependent on other countries, and China is funding local labs and entrepreneurs who want to seize the future.
But in a report this year, Trump administration officials talked about how Chinese officials sometimes help local companies gain intellectual property rights from American companies, including in the fields of energy, electronics, software and avionics.
American business groups worried about Chinese manufacturing reached 2025 points.
The legal documents of Taiwan and the United States are a description of their struggle.
On 2015, a representative of the Chinese chipmaker Tsinghua University group (uniunigroup) offered an offer to Meiguang, which rejected the offer.
A person familiar with the matter said that because of concerns about protecting its technology, the company later rejected several cooperation proposals from Chinese companies, A person who is required not to be identified because of the person's lack of authorization to speak publicly.
In a filing filed with the Federal District Court in Northern California on last December, Micron said it was the time for a Chinese company to resort to theft.
Meiguang's allegations focus on the efforts of Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company.
A $5 chip maker.
7 billion factories in Fujian province, China.
Two years ago, Jinhua used the Taiwanese company UMC to develop technology for the factory.
Micron said in the suit that UMC and Jinhua decided to steal it instead of going through the long steps needed to design the technology.
A umc spokesman denied the allegations and declined to comment further.
Jinhua did not respond to requests for comment.
First, according to the Taiwan authorities, UMC attracts engineers from Meiguang's Taiwan business by promising salary increases and bonuses.
Then, according to the court documents of Meiguang and the authorities, it asked them to take away some of the secrets of Meiguang.
Engineers illegally took more than 900 files, including key specifications and details for Micron advanced memory chips, authorities said.
According to court documents, meinguang became suspicious after finding out that one of its departing engineers was asking Google for instructions on how to wipe the company's laptop.
Later, in the recruitment campaign for Meiguang employees in the United States, Jinhua and UMC showed PowerPoint slides using Meiguang's internal code when discussing future chips, according to court documents.
In a reminder from Micron, Taiwan police bugged a phone call from Kenny Wang, a Micron engineer recruited by UMC.
According to Taiwan's lawsuit against him
UMC contacted Mr. Wang and others.
Wang used the smartphone messaging app Line in early 2016, when he was still working for Micron.
UMC explained that it had problems developing memory chip technology. Mr.
Wang then took the required information from Meiguang's server and later used it to help UMC's design.
Police say,
Wang was promoted in UMC.
Police said that when investigators appeared in UMC's office early last year, some employees rushed to hide what they had taken from Micron. Mr.
Wang and another former Meiguang employee handed over laptops, USB flash drives and files to an assistant engineer who locked them in her personal locker.
Then she left the office with her husband. Wang’s phone —
The one that the police bugged was quickly tracked.
UMC filed his own criminal complaint against Mr.
Taiwan prosecutors rejected Wang's request last year. Mr.
Wang and other alleged engineers said they used trade secrets for personal research. Mr.
Wang did not respond to emails and phone calls for comment.
On January, Meiguang was sued for patent infringement by Jinhua and UMC for several types of memory.
As part of the proceedings, the companies asked the court to prohibit Micron from producing and selling these products and to pay them damages.
A court in Fujian province is hearing the case.
The Fujian provincial government is an investor in Jinhua.
In a letter to President Trump, Senator Jim Reese and Michael D.
Idaho Republican Crapo expressed concern about the rapid progress in the whole case, especially in patent litigation.
The case could prevent Meiguang from selling some products in China.
"If the case against Meiguang moves forward, the Chinese government will again make a ruling in favor of itself, which will cause significant damage to Meiguang and the United States. S.
The New York Times read the letter, which said.
Chinese market regulators announced on the 5 th
Together with South Korean memory maker SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, Micron was investigated.
Over the past year, memory prices have risen sharply due to surging demand and limited production of the three companies, which dominate the market.
Another Chinese regulator has also given millions of dollars in prices, which it has said is also monitoring price increases.
Money for Jinhua
Jinhua and other Chinese chip makers face obstacles in catching up.
The production of semiconductors is a highly complex and automated process that controls everything to the atomic level.
Jinhua and others spent a lot of money there.
In Jinjiang city, Fujian province, once known as the Shoe City.
The new factory in Jinhua is almost finished.
The building is five stories high, extends several football fields and has 100,000 square feet of new office space.
Economic planners in Jinjiang say they want to attract more talent from Taiwan.
In addition to adding more flights, the town is also building a bilingual International School, a hospital with international certification and an upscale apartment.
The new factory is only a short drive from the airport.
"Most of the 2025 made in China are likely to succeed.
Not all technology is rocket science, "said Wang Dan, a technical analyst at dragekal dragonics, a research firm in Beijing.
"With enough subsidies, Chinese companies have a great opportunity to catch up with the cutting edge of technology.