Ex-Samsung Engineer's CXMT DRAM Leak Sentence Cut to 5 Years

What Was Taken in the CXMT DRAM Leak

The technology Jeon and others used was an 18-nanometer process recipe plan, a document that sets out the steps and specifications for making a chip. According to the findings reported by JoongAng Daily, a former Samsung process architecture engineer surnamed Park copied it by hand onto 12 pages of notes in September 2016. Park is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.

Seoul Economic Daily said the lower court classed the technology as national core technology. Voltgrid analysis, not a reported finding: a recipe for a DRAM node is the kind of asset that could shorten a rival's path to volume output. Samsung has also moved to keep its own memory engineers in house, as Voltgrid News reported when Samsung formed a core team with Memory Business-level bonuses amid CXMT poaching.

Other CXMT Cases and Open Questions

The ruling is one of several. A former Samsung department head surnamed Kim, who moved to CXMT with Jeon and headed its first-phase development division, was sentenced in April to six years and four months and fined 200 million won after a retrial ordered by the Supreme Court. A former executive surnamed Yang, who headed CXMT's second-phase development division, and former team leaders for eight key semiconductor processes are on trial in district courts.

Jeon also testified that CXMT executives pressured Korean employees to bring Samsung process recipes and equipment information, according to a written statement JoongAng Ilbo said it obtained. That account comes from the defendant and has not been tested in a ruling on CXMT itself. Neither outlet reported whether Jeon or prosecutors will appeal further.