Former Samsung Employees Charged Over 10nm DRAM Tech Leak to China

For years, Samsung’s memory business has been the crown jewel of South Korea’s tech industry. That’s exactly why this latest case has set off alarm bells in Seoul. Prosecutors say former Samsung employees quietly walked away with some of the company’s most valuable semiconductor know-how and handed it to China’s biggest DRAM hopeful, CXMT.

China’s CXMT allegedly used stolen Samsung tech to jumpstart DRAM

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office has charged 10 people in connection with the leak, according to Chosun. Five former Samsung employees have been arrested, while five others, including engineers now linked to CXMT, were indicted without detention. All are accused of violating South Korea’s Industrial Technology Protection Act, which exists to protect technologies considered vital to the national economy.

According to investigators, the leaked material centers on Samsung’s 10-nanometer-class DRAM process. At the time, Samsung was the only company in the world mass-producing this technology. One former employee allegedly copied hundreds of manufacturing steps by hand before leaving the company, then passed the information to CXMT. Writing things down manually was reportedly a deliberate move to stay under the radar, as Samsung closely monitors digital access and file transfers.

The payoff was significant. CXMT reportedly mass-produced China’s first 10nm DRAM in 2023 and has since pushed into high-bandwidth memory. Samsung, meanwhile, spent about five years and 1.6 trillion won developing the same technology. Prosecutors estimate Samsung’s sales declined by around 5 trillion won in 2024 alone because of the leak.

That’s big amount and what’s even bigger is the missed opportunities because of this very leak. At the same time, such incidents are not so uncommon. In fact, last year two former Samsung employees were arrest while they were on their way to start a new chip factory in China after stealing proprietary information. Even more, Samsung Display executives were under scrutiny for leaking tech to an unnamed Chinese competitor. But this case, in particular, involves more people than we can think of in recent times.