Ex-TSMC employees receive final sentences in trade secret leak case

Taipei, July 30 (CNA) The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected appeals by two former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) employees convicted in a trade secret leak case, making their sentences final.

Former TSMC engineer Chen Li-ming (陳力銘) will serve 10 years in prison after being found guilty by the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court of violating the National Security Act and other offenses related to the unauthorized acquisition and use of Taiwan's "national core key technologies."

Another former TSMC employee, Chen Wei-chieh (陳韋傑), received a final six-year prison sentence in the same case.

The Supreme Court found no errors in the lower court's findings of fact or application of the law and therefore dismissed both appeals.

The case involved trade secrets related to TSMC's 2-nanometer (nm) and 14-nm manufacturing processes and marked the first corporate indictment under the National Security Act involving the leakage of Taiwan's national core key technologies.

Other defendants in the case, including former TSMC engineers Wu Ping-chun (吳秉駿) and Ko Yi-ping (戈一平), received prison terms of three years and two years, respectively, in April. Neither appealed, making their convictions final.

Tokyo Electron Taiwan, the company that received the leaked trade secrets, was given a suspended sentence of three years and ordered to pay NT$100 million (US$3.072 million) in compensation to TSMC and NT$50 million to the national treasury, according to the court ruling.

Another defendant, Lu Yi-yin (盧怡尹), an employee of Tokyo Electron Taiwan, is still appealing her conviction to the Supreme Court. She received a 10-month suspended prison sentence and a NT$1 million fine for destroying evidence in a criminal case.

Prosecutors said Chen Li-ming joined Tokyo Electron Taiwan, a supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to TSMC, after leaving the chipmaker. From 2023 to 2025, he repeatedly solicited confidential technical information from current TSMC employees to help Tokyo Electron secure additional equipment orders for TSMC's advanced process technologies.

Tokyo Electron Taiwan was also indicted for failing to properly supervise Chen. Investigators found that the company's cloud storage still contained TSMC trade secret materials during the investigation.

After the indictments were announced last year, Tokyo Electron, Japan's largest semiconductor equipment maker and a major supplier to TSMC, said it had found no evidence that TSMC's 2-nm technology had been leaked to third parties. The company also said it does not tolerate violations of the law or ethical standards.