A former Samsung employee who joined CXMT, China's top memory manufacturer, has testified in court that the company wanted to use intellectual property stolen from Samsung to build its own DRAM production nodes.
The testimony was provided in a South Korean criminal case concerning the leaks of Samsung's intellectual property.
Samsung has suffered trade secret thefts in recent years
Local media reports that a Samsung employee who worked at the company for 28 years, identified as Jeon, left the Korean conglomerate to join CXMT in 2016.
“From the beginning, CXMT CEO and CTO tried to develop DRAM by stealing Samsung Electronics' Process Recipe Plan (PRP) information,” Jeon testified, adding that CXMT did not have its own research institutes at that time, and that it had no intention of developing the technology its own research.
The implication here being that it was a strategic decision made by the managers at CXMT to rely on stolen Samsung intellectual property to develop DRAM fabrication processes. Jeon has already been sentenced to seven years in prison for stealing a 600-step Process Recipe Plan from Samsung.
The report mentions that it took Samsung five years to develop its 18nm-class node. A company starting from scratch would need as much time, if not more, but relying on either licensed or stolen IP can significantly reduce the development timeline.
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