Ex-SK Hynix Employee Gets 18 Months for Leaking Chip Tech to Chinese Firm
A former SK Hynix employee was sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaking semiconductor manufacturing technology to a Chinese company.
A former employee of SK Hynix has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for leaking semiconductor manufacturing technology to a Chinese firm, according to a court ruling reported on Sunday.
The Seoul High Court upheld the lower court's sentence in an appeal case, finding the defendant guilty of leaking classified information about CMOS image sensors — a technology used in non-memory chips for smartphone cameras and laptops — to a Chinese company in 2022.
The court said the employee, who had worked at SK Hynix's office in China, printed or photographed documents containing trade secrets that were downloaded from the company's internal server, violating security rules. Some of the information was also included in a resume submitted to the Chinese firm, though the company was not named.
The defendant admitted to all charges, and most of the information he took was recovered by SK Hynix, the report said. The Seoul High Court did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours.