Taiwan is investigating whether China’s leading chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) illegally poached local engineers as part of an effort to access the island’s cutting-edge chip technology.
SMIC set up a branch in Taiwan posing as a Samoa-based company and tried to hire local talent, prosecutors from Taiwan’s Investigation Bureau said Friday in a statement.
Local investigators raided 34 locations and conducted 90 interrogations this month as part of a large-scale probe into 11 Chinese tech companies including SMIC, according to the bureau, which is part of the justice ministry. A SMIC representative did not respond to requests for comment.
SMIC rose to global fame in 2023 when it worked with Huawei Technologies to produce an advanced 7-nanometere chip despite facing a myriad of US-led curbs that continue to prevent China from securing the most advanced chipmaking equipment. However, the two companies now have hit a snag with technology development as they cannot secure ASML Holding’s extreme ultraviolet lithography systems required to make the most cutting-edge chips.
As China faces growing restrictions on its access to advanced foreign technologies, it has aggressively tried to obtain know-how in cutting-edge segments including semiconductors by ramping up efforts to recruit engineers from Taiwan and elsewhere.
