Court orders detention of 3 over alleged TSMC trade secret theft

Taipei, Sept. 1 (CNA) The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court (IPCC) has ordered one former employee and two current employees of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) be detained and held incommunicado for allegedly stealing sensitive trade secrets involving the company's advanced 2 nanometer process.

The ruling was handed down after the three suspects -- Chen Li-ming (陳力銘), an ex-TSMC engineer, Wu Ping-chun (吳秉駿) and Ko Yi-ping (戈一平), who currently worked as engineers for the chipmaker -- were referred to the IPCC on Monday morning.

A three-judge panel at the IPCC ruled that the three deleted their communications records after their conduct involving the alleged theft of TSMC's advanced 2nm process was discovered, so there are reasonable fears they could continue to destroy evidence and collude with one another in making false statements.

The judges said that as the three suspects' conduct potentially harmed national security and affected market competition, they should be detained to make sure the future court hearings proceed smoothly.

On Aug. 27, the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office Intellectual Property Branch indicted the three suspects for their roles in the alleged theft of trade secrets and violation of the National Security Act by obtaining national core technology secrets for use abroad.

Prosecutors are seeking prison terms of 14 years, nine years, and seven years, respectively for Chen, Wu and Ko.

Chen is a former TSMC engineer working at Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL), a Japan-based supplier to TSMC. During the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025, Chen asked Wu and Ko to provide trade secrets they had access to, under the guise of helping TEL secure more TSMC supplying contracts, according to prosecutors.

TSMC detected the irregularity and filed a lawsuit against the three in early July. Prosecutors launched searches and raids related to the case from July 25-28 and secured approval from the IPPC to detain them men the investigation.

The case was referred to the IPCC on Monday, and a hearing was needed to decide whether the three suspects could continue to be detained.

TEL said in late August that an internal investigation has so far found no evidence that confidential information about TSMC's 2nm was leaked to a third party.

TSMC is developing the 2nm process, which is scheduled to start mass production in the second half of this year. Currently, the 3nm process is the latest technology for TSMC to begin commercial production.