Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are closely monitoring a worrying trend involving Chinese and American chip companies continuously “poaching” Korean talent.
According to experts in the technology industry, the “headhunting” battle in the semiconductor field will become increasingly fierce as ensuring technological advantage becomes extremely important in the AI era. Recently, a case related to technology leakage and theft emerged, causing everyone to pay attention.
A former senior engineer of Samsung Electronics (center) is escorted out of Seoul Central District Court after being questioned for leaking important semiconductor technology to a Chinese company, January 16. Photo: Yonhap
A former engineer from SK Hynix, a leader in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market – devices critical to AI services – moved to work for US chipmaker Micron. This person moved to Micron in July 2022 immediately after retiring from SK Hynix, despite an agreement not to work for a rival company for two years.
Therefore, SK Hynix filed a lawsuit against this engineer in August 2023. A local court ruled that the former employee could not work for Micron before July 26 and must pay SK Hynix 10 million won per day if he violated the ruling.
Technology leaks are an important issue, especially when the court takes 7 months to make a decision. In the competitive HBM market, the margin of difference in technology is only a matter of months.
Lee Jong-hwan, Professor of the Department of System Semiconductor Engineering at Sangmyung University, said the former SK Hynix engineer was a key figure in the development of HBM. It is still unclear why he violated the agreement and moved to Micron. According to the professor, in most work transfer processes, technology leakage still occurs. Although the law cannot solve everything, strong penalties will be imposed if semiconductor technologies belonging to national industrial secrets are exposed.
Samsung Electronics, as well as SK Hynix, have suffered losses due to technology leaks. A former Samsung engineer was investigated in January for allegedly transferring a 20 nm DRAM chip manufacturing process developed by Samsung in 2014 to a Chinese chip company. Additionally, last year, one of Samsung’s semiconductor officials came under scrutiny for misusing technical data from the semiconductor factory between 2018 and 2019.
According to the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the number of cases related to cross-border industrial technology leakage increased from 14 cases in 2019 to 23 cases in 2023. During the same period, the number of cases involving related to chips increased from 3 to 15. This highlights the severity of technology leakage in the semiconductor industry compared to other sectors.
Professor Lee Jong-hwan pointed out that recruiting experts from rival companies is the best way to quickly narrow the technology gap. Therefore, the government needs to coordinate with businesses to strengthen the management of these engineers.
Currently, South Korea is actively researching to strengthen penalties to prevent core technology leaks. Bills proposing to increase fines have been introduced in the National Assembly. In November 2023, the Committee on Commerce, Industry and Energy passed an amendment to the Industrial Technology Protection Act, penalizing the leakage of the country’s core technologies.
Current law only stipulates penalties for cases of technology leakage for the purpose of using or activating use abroad. However, proving intent to use abroad is difficult, making enforcement of penalties difficult.
Kim Dae-jong, professor of business administration at Sejong University, said that Korean companies need to make efforts to improve the way they treat their engineers. For example, increasing salaries, benefits, increasing job satisfaction, and implementing systems can prolong their careers. It is important to build positive relationships with employees.
(Theo Korea Times)