Samsung's former employees are quickly turning into a technological sieve by allowing China's CXMT to gain access to critical semiconductor tech via a series of well-timed intellectual property-related leaks.
As a case in point, just months after a former Samsung employee faced “highest-ever” criminal sentence for leaking 18nm DRAM secrets to China, a number of former Samsung executives and employees have now been implicated in leaking 10nm DRAM technology to China's CXMT.
A number of former Samsung executives and employees have now been charged with illegally equipping China's CXMT with trade secrets related to the 10nm DRAM tech
As per the reporting by South Korea's The Elec, the Information Technology Crime Investigation Department of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office has now arrested a current director of China's Changshin Memory Technology (CXMT) for violating the country's rules under the Industrial Technology Protection Act.
Critically, the CXMT director is a former Samsung employee who is said to have played a critical role in developing CXMT's 10nm DRAM technology. The department has also arrested 4 other persons who currently work at CXMT.
The prosecutors allege that CXMT had formed an elaborate plan to jumpstart its 10nm DRAM process by hiring key talent. Do note that, unlike the 10nm node used in traditional chip fabrication, the 10nm DRAM process is very competitive, with SK hynix only starting the mass production under its sixth-gen 10nm DRAM process by the end of 2024. Samsung itself invested 1.6 trillion won ($1.08 billion) over 5 years to develop its 10nm DRAM tech.
The South Korean prosecutors took pains to note:
"CXMT, China's first and only DRAM semiconductor company in which China's local government invested 2.6 trillion won, fraudulently used the world's best domestic semiconductor core technology throughout the entire development process".
During the course of their investigation, the prosecutors discovered that a single former Samsung employee had "leaked hundreds of steps of process information, corrected and verified the information," leading to China's first successfully mass-produced DRAM in 2023. The investigation further revealed that CXMT used a front company to lure and hire former Samsung employees.
Another former Samsung employee, who moved to CXMT in 2016, leaked voluminous, handwritten information on DRAM tech to the Chinese memory giant, as per the prosecutors' recent statement.
Finally, the prosecutors estimate that the damages to South Korea's competitive position now run in the trillions of won (billions of dollars) as a result of these high-profile leaks.
This comes as South Korea's Central District Court sentenced Samsung's former team manager to 7 years in prison for leaking trade secrets related to the 18nm DRAM tech to China's CXMT back in February 2025.
Do note that CXMT is China's biggest manufacturer of memory semiconductors, which includes cutting-edge products such as DDR5 and HBM3. As of late 2025, the company could produce up to 280,000 wafers per month, which corresponds to around 15 percent of the global DRAM production.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
