U.S. Chip Engineers Charged in Theft Scheme for Chinese Firm
- Four ex-Applied Materials employees are indicted in California
- Prosecutors allege they downloaded more than 16,000 drawings
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Four former engineers at Applied Materials Inc. were charged by the U.S. with trying to steal chip designs from the semiconductor equipment giant to sell them to a Chinese startup, which may fuel fears the world’s second-largest economy is resorting to illegal tactics to break its dependence on chip imports.
Liang Chen, Donald Olgado, Wei-Yung Hsu and Robert Ewald are accused of downloading data from Applied’s internal engineering database, including more than 16,000 drawings, and plotting to lure investors to fund a U.S. and China-based startup that would compete with their former employer, prosecutors said Wednesday in a statement. The stolen specs detailed Applied’s processes for high-volume manufacturing of chips used to light and electrify flat-screen TVs and smartphones.