Taipei: The Taiwan High Prosecutors Office Intellectual Property Branch on Wednesday indicted three former and current Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) employees for allegedly stealing sensitive trade secrets involving the company's advanced 2-nanometer process. Suspects Chen Li-ming, Wu Ping-chun, and Ko Yi-ping have been charged with theft of trade secrets and violating the National Security Act by obtaining national core technology secrets for use abroad. Prosecutors are seeking prison terms of 14 years, nine years, and seven years, respectively.

According to Focus Taiwan, Chen is a former TSMC engineer working at Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL), a Japan-based supplier to TSMC. He allegedly asked current TSMC employees to provide trade secrets they had access to, under the guise of helping TEL secure more TSMC supplying contracts, as per a news release by the prosecutors office. TSMC reported the case to the authorities on July 8, after they became aware of unusual activities and conducted an internal investigation.

Prosecutors conducted search and arrest operations from July 25-28 and subsequently received court approval to detain the three suspects incommunicado, according to the release. Chen has since been fired by TEL, while Ko has resigned from his post at TSMC. The prosecution noted that this is the first case involving unauthorized access to Taiwan's national core technology that violates the National Security Act.

Also on Wednesday, TSMC stated that the company has a zero-tolerance policy toward actions that violate trade secrets and damage the company's interest. The company expressed confidence that the investigation will protect its valuable trade secrets and technologies. TSMC also pledged to strengthen internal management and monitoring systems and to cooperate with law enforcement when necessary to safeguard its competitive advantage and ensure stable operations.