Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted a former deputy manager at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, accusing him of attempting to funnel the chipmaker's most sensitive technical secrets to China, and have asked the court to impose a seven-year prison sentence.
The suspect, surnamed Chen, is charged with violating the National Security Act and the Trade Secrets Act. Between May 2023 and February 2024, he and a Hong Kong associate, Ding Xiaohu, allegedly drew up a "Blue Ocean Project" aimed at establishing a semiconductor materials analysis firm in China and recruiting Taiwanese chip talent to staff it. Investigators say Chen unauthorizedly copied 21 classified and general trade-secret documents belonging to TSMC and carried them home for study.
TSMC detected the breach during an internal review and recovered all duplicated materials before any transfer abroad. Chen was taken into custody following raids in late May. Ding was not prosecuted because he died before the case concluded.