Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋半導體) yesterday said investigators suspect some of its former and current engineers of involvement in the theft of corporate secrets, some of which were sent on to Chinese rival Chengdu Gastone Technology Co (成都嘉石).
The investigation is the latest in a slew of trade-secret thefts linked to the nation’s technology companies, after employees of handset chipmaker MediaTek Inc (聯發科) pleaded guilty of stealing personnel information to be used in talent poaching last month.
Win Semi called on rivals to stop stealing trade secrets, poaching talent or employing any other unfair competition practices, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Photo: Cheng Shu-ting, Taipei Times
More than 50 investigators yesterday raided 12 locations, including the offices and homes of seven former and current employees of Win Semiconductors, and have seized important evidence, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau said in a statement.
“Investigators found seven suspects, led by one surnamed Yang (楊), have passed information on key technologies developed by Win Semiconductors to its Chinese rival, Chengdu Gastone,” an investigator said on the telephone.
Chengdu Gastone approached former Win Semiconductors employees and its equipment suppliers via headhunting agencies to obtain trade secrets and key technology information, said the investigator, who declined to be named.
The Chinese semiconductor company offered bribes and jobs in exchange for valuable technology information, the bureau said in the statement.
Yang and other suspects were offered positions at Chengdu Gastone and they were set to leave Taiwan for China on Monday, the bureau added.
Win Semiconductors is the world’s largest foundry services provider of gallium arsenide components used in mobile phones. The Linkou (林口), Taoyuan-based firm has become a target of Chinese rivals as they aggressively expand their reach in the supply chain of the semiconductor industry, the statement said.
China plans to build new factories to produce gallium arsenide components in Beijing, Chengdu and Fuzhou, the bureau said, citing information it obtained.
Two months ago, Win Semiconductors told the Taoyuan District Court that it had found several employees had illegally duplicated and stored certain secret technology information. The company told the court at the time that it was highly concerned about possible leakage to rivals.
Win Semiconductors reported net income of NT$805 million (US$24.6 million) for last quarter, up 30 percent from a year earlier and 83 percent from the previous quarter, with earnings per share of NT$1.32. In the first three quarters, cumulative earnings per share reached NT$2.81, while revenue totaled NT$9.87 billion in the first 10 months of the year, up 20.11 percent from a year earlier.
The company yesterday said its operation would not be affected by the latest investigation.
Last month, management forecast revenue for this quarter to increase by high single digits from last quarter’s NT$2.913 billion with a stable gross margin, saying that inventory correction would gradually come to an end, and citing emerging signs of stabilizing demand from wireless, cellular and infrastructure segments.
Win Semiconductors shares plunged 3.43 percent to NT$46.5 yesterday, under-performing the TAIEX, which declined 1.77 percent.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS