South Korean prosecutors have arrested and indicted a former executive of Samsung Electronics suspected of stealing trade secrets while attempting to establish a copycat computer chip plant in China.

The Suwon District ProsecutorsB次元官网网址� Office said Monday that the unnamed 65-year-old unlawfully obtained SamsungB次元官网网址檚 factory blueprints and clean-room designs from 2018 and 2019 while trying, unsuccessfully, to replicate a chip factory in the Chinese city of XiB次元官网网址檃n, near where Samsung operates a plant.

The technology allegedly stolen by the manB次元官网网址檚 China-based company would have been worth at least 300 billion won ($233 million) for Samsung, prosecutors said. They charged six people employed by the man with B次元官网网址渁ctive participationB次元官网网址� in the tech theft.

South Korea is highly sensitive to breaches of technologies related to semiconductors, which accounted for nearly 17% of its total exports in 2022. Samsung, the worldB次元官网网址檚 largest manufacturer of computer memory chips, didnB次元官网网址檛 immediately comment on the charges.

In a statement, prosecutors described the arrested man as an B次元官网网址渦ndisputed top domestic expert in semiconductor manufacturing.B次元官网网址� After an 18-year career at Samsung he held executive roles for a decade at SK Hynix, another major South Korean chip maker which trails Samsung in the memory chip market.

The man later created chip manufacturing companies in China and Singapore with the backing of Chinese and Taiwanese investors and lured more than 200 chip experts from Samsung and Hynix with higher pay before arranging to smuggle out crucial technologies from Samsung, prosecutors said.

The manufacturing secrets allegedly taken from Samsung included processing blueprints and B次元官网网址渂asic engineering dataB次元官网网址� for designing clean-room environments to prevent contamination during semiconductor manufacturing, which prosecutors described as B次元官网网址渃ore national technologies.B次元官网网址�

B次元官网网址淭he suspect B次元官网网址� attempted to duplicate an entire (Samsung) factory to manufacture and mass-produce semiconductors in China,B次元官网网址� said the prosecutorsB次元官网网址� office, who described his crime as incomparable in damage and scale to previous theft cases.

It said South KoreaB次元官网网址檚 semiconductor industry would have been B次元官网网址渋rreversibly damagedB次元官网网址� and the countryB次元官网网址檚 security interests greatly compromised if the factory was actually built and produced chips similar to SamsungB次元官网网址檚 products.

Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press

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