US Accuses China, Taiwan Firms With Stealing Secrets From Chip Giant Micron

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced charges Thursday against Chinese and Taiwan companies for theft of an estimate $8.75 billion worth of trade secrets from US semiconductor giant Micron. From a report: Sessions said the case was the latest in a series that are part of a state-backed program by Beijing to steal US industrial and commercial secrets. 'Taken together, these cases and many others like them paint a grim picture of a country bent on stealing its way up the ladder of economic development and doing so at American expense,' Session said. 'This behavior is illegal. It is wrong. It is a threat to our national security. And it must stop.' The indictment released in the US district court in San Jose, California alleges that Chinese state-owned Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. and privately owned United Microelectronics Corporation of Taiwan, along with three UMC executives, conspired to steal Micron trade secrets to help UMC and Fujian Jinhua develop DRAM chips used in many computer processors. It said the three Taiwanese men -- Stephen Chen Zhengkun, He Jianting and Kenny Wang Yungming -- all previously worked at Micron and stole its technology when they joined UMC with the express purpose of transferring it to Fujian Jinhua, a two-year-old firm. Chen was originally a top executive at Micron, then moved to lead UMC, and subsequently became president of Fujian Jinhua.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.