Ex-Samsung executive gets 7 years

[Anchor]

A former Samsung Electronics manager who transferred key semiconductor technology to a Chinese competitor has been sentenced to seven years in prison in the first trial.

The court defined the case as a serious crime that could negatively impact the national industrial competitiveness.

This is a report by Lee Won-hee.

[Report]

Mr. Kim resigned as a manager at Samsung Electronics in 2015.

The following year, he joined a Chinese competitor and participated in the development of 18-nanometer DRAM.

Mr. Kim was indicted for allegedly leaking Samsung Electronics' 18-nanometer DRAM process information, which is a core national technology, without authorization during this process.

[Lee Jong-hwan/Professor, Department of System Semiconductor Engineering, Sangmyung University: "These days, they call them AI semiconductors. 18-nanometer can be considered the latest technology. So, if you use that process technology to make DRAM, it becomes a competitive product."]

The 25th Criminal Division of the Seoul Central District Court sentenced Mr. Kim to seven years in prison and a fine of 200 million won today (Feb. 19).

The court stated that this case is a "serious crime that could have a significant negative impact on the industrial competitiveness of South Korea."

The semiconductor industry estimates that this technology leak has caused Samsung Electronics and its partners to incur damages of about 2.3 trillion won.

Investigations revealed that Mr. Kim had planned to recruit engineers responsible for semiconductor processes to unlawfully use Samsung Electronics' trade secrets.

In fact, he even offered over 500 million won after tax to recruit about 20 technical personnel.

Detailed process information was passed to Mr. Kim by other Samsung Electronics employees who took pictures of their monitor screens or wrote them down in notebooks, and Mr. Kim uploaded this information to the servers of the Chinese competitor.

However, the court found it unclear whether Mr. Kim's actions had a significant impact on the rapid growth of the Chinese competitor.

Along with this, the court also sentenced Mr. Bang, an employee of a Samsung Electronics partner company who helped Mr. Kim unlawfully export semiconductor equipment blueprints, to two years and six months in prison.

This is KBS News, Lee Won-hee.