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Three ex-Samsung employees indicted for leaking advanced DRAM tech to China's CXMT

Published: 01 Oct. 2025, 17:31

A graphic image of a Chinese chip [GETTY IMAGES]

Three former Samsung Electronics employees, including a senior developer, were indicted Wednesday for leaking the Korean tech giant’s cutting-edge DRAM manufacturing technology to Chinese semiconductor maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT).

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said CXMT recruited the three at an unspecified time to join its so-called “second development team,” which was tasked with verifying and testing DRAM manufacturing processes allegedly stolen from Samsung. All three were promised salaries up to five times higher than what they had earned at Samsung — up to 3 billion won ($2.14 million) per year.

The indictment sheds new light on CXMT’s surprise announcement in 2023 that it had become the first Chinese company to successfully mass-produce 18-nanometer DRAM chips. At the time, only companies in Korea, the United States and Taiwan had managed to produce DRAM at that scale, and the news was seen as a major leap forward for China’s rise in the semiconductor industry.

However, prosecutors concluded that the technology was not independently developed by the Chinese firm, but rather stolen from Samsung by former employees. A former executive surnamed Yang, who headed CXMT’s development team, was among those indicted.

Prosecutors said the team, including a man surnamed Yang, utilized leaked documents from the company's initial development team, which had already obtained confidential Samsung data.

A view shows Samsung Electronics' chip production plant at Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on Sept. 7, 2022. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Another former Samsung employee, identified as Park, is suspected of copying hundreds of steps in Samsung’s DRAM production process into notebooks and passing them to CXMT. Park is currently the subject of an Interpol red notice.

Prosecutors estimate that Samsung suffered damage amounting to 5 trillion won last year due to the leak of its 16-nanometer DRAM technology to CXMT. They added that the financial damage continues to grow and could ultimately reach tens of trillions of won.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JEONG JIN-WOO [[email protected]]