The Samsung Foundry branch could be the victim of industrial espionage targeting its chips. Only a handful of companies are able to manufacture advanced semiconductors in the world.
Semiconductors are absolutely essential chips in the manufacture of Samsung smartphones, but also contained in other products such as computers, cars, televisions…
A spy employee
A Samsung employee allegedly photographed documents containing confidential information about chip manufacturing processes. He was also accused of having photographed his screen while teleworking. Since then, the Korean press has assumed that hundreds of documents have leaked.
Losing control over this information could have extremely negative consequences for Samsung. These chips are the result of years of research and development, and their complex manufacture requires special expertise.
Samsung Foundry did not disclose the precise nature of the stolen information or the chips involved. Spying is likely to target the very latest 3 and 5 nm semiconductors. These new technologies are particularly advanced and are only developed by Samsung, Intel and TSMC.
The competition is more intense than ever: Samsung should start manufacturing 3nm by the end of the year, at the same time as TSMC. Nevertheless, the two organizations are encountering problems that could worsen for Samsung if these leaks continue.
On the same subject :
TSMC: very good yields on the 3 nm “N3E”, an early release?
Source: WCCFTech
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