[Apha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Paul Lee] A vice president of a partner company accused of leaking SK Hynix's core semiconductor technology to China and stealing equipment drawings from Samsung Electronics' subsidiary Semes was sentenced to prison.

The Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Agreement Department 25-3 (Ji Gwi-yeon, Park Jung-gil and Park Jung-je) on the 13th sentenced a 59-year-old vice president of SK Hynix's partners to one year in prison on charges of violating the Industrial Technology Protection Act and the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (foreign leakage of trade secrets). However, I did not make a court arrest.

The court sentenced the corporation to a fine of 400 million won. The seven employees charged together were sentenced to eight months to one and a half years in prison, suspended or fined.

A and others were also accused of leaking key semiconductor-related technologies, advanced technologies and trade secrets, including HKMG semiconductor manufacturing technology, which they learned through collaboration with SK Hynix, to Chinese semiconductor competitors from 2018. HKMG is a next-generation process that prevents leakage current and improves electrostatic capacity. It is a new technology that can speed up DRAM semiconductors while reducing power consumption.

However, the court found him innocent of informing other companies of the specifications of cleaning equipment jointly developed with SK Hynix. This is because there is a clause in the joint development contract that only prohibits external announcements.

 

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