Ex-Engineer Gets 10 Years for Stealing TSMC Proprietary Data
Taiwan court hands down a decade-long prison sentence to a former Tokyo Electron employee for theft of TSMC data.
A Taiwanese court just dropped the hammer on industrial espionage. Chen Li-ming, a former engineer at Tokyo Electron, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing proprietary data from TSMC.
Taiwan's Intellectual Property and Commercial Court issued the sentence. Chen worked at Tokyo Electron Ltd., a major semiconductor equipment supplier, before being caught lifting TSMC's confidential information.
The case underscores how seriously Taiwan is treating trade secret theft — especially when it involves TSMC, the world's most critical chipmaker. A decade behind bars sends a clear message: touch TSMC's data and face serious consequences.
Details on exactly what data was stolen or how it was exfiltrated remain limited in court reporting. But the severity of the sentence speaks volumes about the perceived damage.