Former Samsung executives indicted for leaking 10nm DRAM technology to China
South Korean authorities have announced that they have indicted 10 former Samsung executives on suspicion of stealing information from the company and leaking it to a Chinese company.
10명, 10나노급 D램 공정 유출 혐의 기소 ELEC)
Samsung executives and employees indicted over leaking 10nm DRAM technology to China - Neowin
On December 23, 2025, the Information Technology Crimes Investigation Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office announced that it had arrested and indicted the person in charge of 10nm-class DRAM technology development at Chinese company ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and four other developers, and indicted five other development department managers without detention.
According to prosecutors, one of the indicted individuals is a former Samsung principal researcher who was poached from CXMT in 2016 and hand-copied and leaked information about 10nm-class DRAM technology. Prosecutors believe that CXMT used this information to build the foundation of its DRAM technology.
Another individual is suspected of leaking key technology from the South Korean company SK Hynix through a subsidiary of the company.
'CXMT is the first and only Chinese DRAM semiconductor company to receive 2.6 trillion won (US$2.5 billion) in investment from the Chinese government. The company misappropriated core Korean semiconductor technology to secure the world's top-level DRAM process technology and establish a foothold for the development of high-bandwidth memory (HBM),' the prosecutors said. 'The damage to the domestic semiconductor industry, including Samsung, is expected to amount to at least tens of trillions of won (US$1.5 billion),' they added.
As of January 2025, CXMT was known to have further advanced its semiconductor manufacturing technology despite US export restrictions. According to Bloomberg, the DDR5 memory developed by CXMT uses advanced manufacturing techniques not previously seen in the Chinese domestic market. TechInsights, which provided the information to Bloomberg, said, 'CXMT has found a unique approach to designing and manufacturing DDR5 DRAM on a commercial scale. We are surprised by this discovery.'
DRAM prices are expected to double in just one month from May 2025 and remain high, leading some to speculate that China's CXMT may stop producing DDR4 and focus on DDR5 and HBM.
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