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AMD and Nvidia Silicon Manufacturing Secrets Allegedly Stolen, Sold To China (pcgamesn.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the chamber-of-secrets dept.

According to a report on DigiTimes, a former TSMC engineer has been accused of stealing the secrets of their 28nm manufacturing process and taking them across the Taiwan Straits to Chinese rival, HLMC. "The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produce the chips for the great and the good of the PC hardware market, specifically Nvidia and latterly AMD," reports PCGamesN. From the report: The report claims the former engineer, known only as Hsu, has been accused of taking details and materials relating to TSMC's 28nm manufacturing process and handing them over to Shanghai Huali Microelectronics (HLMC) after being offered a job there. The engineer was arrested before he even had a chance to start his new job on mainland China. This isn't the first reported instance of potentially shady dealings involving HLMC. DigiTimes previously reported that the Chinese foundry had headhunted a team of up to 50 research and development engineers from Taiwan's first semiconductor company, United Microelectronics (UMC), to help them get their 28nm production process up to speed. DigiTimes also alleges that some Chinese memory manufacturers have been doing the same thing, headhunting Taiwanese talent to get their own fabs off the ground, and that Micron are taking legal action against some of their Taiwan partners for allegedly nicking their tech and handing it over to China-based RAM companies.

2 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Stop framing this as "China steals from America" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    This has nothing to do with AMD, NVidia, or any other American companies. This was, supposedly, a Taiwanese engineer selling information on manufacturing processes used by the Taiwanese TSMC, to a company on mainland China.

  2. Re:This keeps happening by Notabadguy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I used to be involved in building nuclear power plants in the U.S. One of my key suppliers kept sourcing steel (bar stock) from China - not from third party suppliers, but from their Chinese foundries.

    Then came the day when coupon testing of the steel showed some irregularities, and when we sent inspectors to China to see what was going on, discovered that instead of delivering LCC (impact tested, low temperature performing) steel, they were taking WCC (different steel), removing the "W" from the imprint, forging on an "L" and faking the CMTR (material chemistry) data sheets.

    This isn't unique, it wasn't a one-off, and there's a reason that giant companies have sourcing restrictions in their RFQs and POs like "No Chinese-sourced parts allowed."