Chip Technology Leakage
It has been found that a South Korean broker is assisting in the growth of China’s semiconductor industry by supplying South Korean engineers to Chinese semiconductor companies.
This person, who is a former vice president of both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, set up a semiconductor company in Taiwan two years ago. Although this company has the form of a consulting firm, industry insiders say that it is a manpower outsourcing firm supplying the engineers at the request of the Chinese companies. “The company in Taiwan and the Chinese companies have conducted joint projects for at least 18 months,” one of them said, adding, “The latter’s targets include experts experienced in semiconductor manufacturing process management.”
The anonymous person is an expert in the fields of solar power generation and semiconductor manufacturing. He or she joined Samsung Electronics in the mid-1980s and worked as a senior researcher and a senior managing director for 17 years until the early 2000s. Then, this person moved to SK Hynix, worked for about 10 years, and retired as a vice president before serving as a president of STX Solar and Hanwha. The person flew to Taiwan in the latter half of 2015. Regarding this matter, the National Intelligence Service of South Korea is currently looking into the semiconductor company in Taiwan.
These days, Chinese semiconductor companies are trying to employ more and more South Korean engineers in the industry via local headhunters. To this end, those companies are offering an annual salary three to 10 times that in South Korea, free houses and cars, education for their children, etc. The Chinese government is planning to invest up to one trillion yuan until 2025 so that the ratio of semiconductor chips produced by Chinese companies reaches at least 70%.