Tokyo Electron said Thursday it’s fired an employee at its Taipei unit, making its first public statement since the island’s government arrested six people suspected of stealing trade secrets from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
The Japanese chip gear maker said in a statement it’s cooperating with the ongoing investigation, though it remains unclear if any data had been shared with third parties.
Taiwan prosecutors arrested the six suspected of intellectual property theft at TSMC this week, including an individual that local media identified as a former Tokyo Electron staffer. The Japanese company is one of the largest suppliers of semiconductor-fabrication tools and gear to TSMC, which in turn uses the equipment to make Nvidia AI accelerators and Apple iPhone processors.
Investigators haven’t disclosed many more details of the case, which coincides with a quickening race by the likes of Meta and DeepSeek to develop artificial intelligence in the post-ChatGPT era.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.