The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court has sentenced a former Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing engineer to 10 years in prison for his role in
leaking trade secrets.

The court said it found Chen Li-ming guilty of violating the National
Security Act and of other offenses related to the unauthorized acquisition
and use of Taiwan's "national core key technologies."

The leaked information involved the company's advanced 2-nanometer process...
the case is the first involving a corporate entity under the National
Security Act, which is related to national core key technologies.

Prosecutors say the information included trade secrets related to etching
equipment used in 2-nanometer production and was photographed and reproduced
to allow Tokyo Electron to evaluate and improve its equipment performance.

Two other T-S-M-C engineers were sentenced to three and two years in prison,
respectively, another employee received a six-year sentence.

While a fourth defendant, who is an employee of Tokyo Electron Taiwan,
received a 10-month suspended sentence and fined 1-million N-T

The rulings can be appealed.