Can you guess where an ex-ASML employee, accused of stealing chip-making IP, ended up? (not jail)،
Here’s a report that’s sure to annoy US officials and lawmakers, especially in light of the controversy over the 7nm Huawei Kirin 9000s 5G chip used to power the recently launched Huawei Mate 60 line. It remains unclear how or even if SMIC, China’s largest foundry, was able to produce such a chipset despite current US sanctions against Huawei in particular and against China in general. A worrying story was published by the Dutch newspaper.
NRC.
Keep in mind that Dutch manufacturer ASML is the only company in the world selling an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine that etches circuit patterns finer than a human hair onto a silicon wafer. These patterns must be extremely fine to position the billions of transistors placed inside a single chip. For example, each A17 Pro chip that powers an
iPhone 15 Pro series model contains 19 billion transistors.
Dutch and American regulations prevent ASML from selling this equipment to Chinese companies. However, citing the aforementioned story seen in NRC,
Bloomberg reports that a former ASML employee, whom the company previously accused of stealing corporate data from ASML machines, has reportedly left ASML to find a job at Huawei. The employee apparently left ASML abruptly, which adds to the suspicious nature of his actions. It is unclear whether this person is still employed by
Huawei.
It appears that the employee left ASML in 2022 since the company’s annual report for that year mentions that he was the victim of what it calls “unauthorized embezzlement.” However, ASML CEO Peter Wennink downplayed the significance of the stolen intellectual property, saying it was limited and “a piece of a puzzle that you don’t have the box for.” The executive says ASML has strengthened its security and a similar theft cannot happen again.
By
Tom’s materiala previous Bloomberg report from February revealed that a former ASML employee had stolen information related to ASML’s chipmaking tools, although it was not known at the time that the author had ended up working for Huawei.
Overall, then, there is a lot of unease among US officials because Huawei was able to launch a 5G phone for the first time since 2020’s Mate 40 line. While ASML’s CEO says the amount of information stolen by the employee would not be enough to help Huawei produce the Kirin 9000, Huawei itself is planning next year’s flagship P70 and Mate 70 lines.
