According to Focus Taiwan, on April 27, 2026, Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court delivered a first-instance ruling in a major trade secret leak case involving TSMC’s advanced 2-nanometer process technology.
Four “insider” engineers were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 2 to 10 years. The main defendant, Chen Li-ming, received a 10-year sentence. The involved company, Tokyo Electron, was fined NT$150 million, given a 3-year suspended sentence, and ordered to pay NT$100 million to TSMC and NT$50 million to the public treasury within one year after the judgment becomes final.
According to reports by Central News Agency and TTV News, the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office’s Intellectual Property branch stated in its indictment that Chen Li-ming previously worked as an engineer in the yield department of TSMC’s Fab 12. After leaving TSMC, he joined the marketing department of Tokyo Electron Taiwan, a semiconductor equipment supplier to TSMC, where he was responsible for providing services related to etching equipment.
Prosecutors said that from the second half of 2023 to the first half of last year, Chen repeatedly asked then-current TSMC engineers Wu Bing-jun and Ge Yi-ping to provide key technologies and trade secrets in order to help Tokyo Electron secure more advanced process equipment contracts at TSMC. Chen also colluded with another sitting TSMC engineer, Chen Wei-jie, to steal “IC manufacturing technology for processes below 14 nanometers, as well as key gas, chemical, and equipment technologies.” These technologies were also classified as national core critical technologies.
Irregularities were detected
After detecting irregularities, TSMC launched an internal investigation and suspected that both current and former employees had unlawfully obtained sensitive technologies and trade secrets. The company filed a complaint on July 8 last year. Between July 25 and 28, prosecutors directed the Investigation Bureau to conduct searches and interrogations and sought detention of Chen Li-ming, Wu Bing-jun, and Ge Yi-ping without visitation rights.
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The prosecution carried out three waves of indictments in total.
In the first wave, on Aug. 27 last year, the Intellectual Property branch charged the three individuals with crimes under the Trade Secrets Act, including unauthorized acquisition for overseas use and theft of trade secrets, as well as violations of the National Security Act involving overseas use of national core critical technologies. Prosecutors sought sentences of 14 years for Chen Li-ming, 9 years for Wu Bing-jun, and 7 years for Ge Yi-ping.
In the second wave, prosecutors additionally indicted Tokyo Electron Taiwan and requested a fine of NT$12 million.
In the third wave, prosecutors further investigated whether Tokyo Electron met the National Security Act requirement of having “taken sufficient preventive measures.” They found that Tokyo Electron’s cloud storage still contained TSMC’s national core critical technologies, including 14-nanometer-and-below IC manufacturing processes and related gas, chemical, and equipment technologies. They then sought sentences of 7 years for Chen Li-ming, 8 years and 8 months for Chen Wei-jie, a NT$2.5 million fine for Tokyo Electron, and 1 year for Lu Yi-yin for evidence destruction.
Guilty under multiple counts
On the morning of April 27, the Intellectual Property Court issued its first-instance ruling. The court found Chen Li-ming guilty under multiple counts of “intentional overseas use of trade secrets infringement” and “intentional overseas use of national security trade secrets.” He received sentences of 2 years and 6 months, 1 year and 6 months, 3 years, and 3 years and 6 months for different counts, with one count exempted from punishment. His total sentence was set at 10 years in prison.
Co-defendant Wu Bing-jun was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months under the general trade secrets law for intended overseas use, and 2 years under the National Security Act, for a combined sentence of 3 years.
Another co-defendant, Ge Yi-ping, was sentenced to 2 years under the National Security Act.
Engineer Chen Wei-jie was sentenced to 6 years under the National Security Act.
Tokyo Electron executive Lu Yi-yin, who discovered the classified materials in the company’s cloud storage and deleted them without authorization, was found guilty of destroying criminal evidence. She was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for 3 years, placed under probation supervision, ordered to pay NT$1 million to the public treasury within one year after the judgment becomes final, and required to attend six legal education sessions.
As for Tokyo Electron Taiwan Co., Ltd., the court ruled that due to its employees’ crimes committed in the course of business under Articles 13-1, 13-2 of the Trade Secrets Act and Article 8(2) of the National Security Act, the company received multiple fines totaling NT$150 million and a 3-year suspended sentence. It was also ordered to pay NT$100 million to TSMC and NT$50 million to the public treasury within one year after the judgment becomes final.
