Former SK hynix employee charged with stealing tech for Huawei — Chinese national was arrested at airport

Prosecutors in South Korea have charged a Chinese national who worked in defect analysis at SK hynix with stealing semiconductor technology. The accused allegedly took thousands of pages of information about front-end semiconductor technology for Chinese chipmaker Huawei.

The unidentified woman was arrested at a South Korean airport in April 2024, according to Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police officials. She’s charged with violating South Korea’s Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology. The act imposes tough sentencing laws for anyone convicted of leaking or stealing technology information from South Korea.

According to prosecutors, the unidentified woman began working for SK hynix in 2013. Then, from 2020 to 2022, she worked as a team leader at a Chinese subsidiary of the company. Her role involved analyzing design flaws causing semiconductor failures .

When the Chinese national returned to South Korea in 2022, she allegedly took a position with Huawei almost immediately. Before leaving SK hynix, though, prosecutors say she printed 3,000 pages of A4 paper with solutions to core semiconductor process issues.

Police suspect the woman carried the documents out of the country in bags to turn over to Huawei. She has denied the allegations. SK hynix doesn’t allow the use of USB storage devices and tracks all print jobs within the company.

When SK hynix learned of the large amount of pages the woman had printed, it reported the anomaly to the police. By then, the Chinese national had already left the country. When she entered South Korea again in 2024, police arrested her at the airport.

Under South Korean law, the woman faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted. The country’s sentencing guidelines are tougher on those convicted of smuggling designated key technologies, which include semiconductor manufacturing methods , out of the country.

South Korea has seen an increase in criminal cases relating to stealing technology on behalf of Chinese companies. In December 2023, two ex-Samsung employees were charged with stealing DRAM technology for Chinese chipmaker CXMT.