Crime China's IP Thievery: UMC pleads guilty for stealing $9 Billion worth of trade secrets from Micron

[NoDak]

This one gonna focus on China's long list of tech IP theft, which actually knows no boundaries

Ah, excellent and yeah it deserves it's own thread.

 

[NoDak]

 

[NoDak]

America's Total R&D for 2018 is estimated to be approximately $552.9 billion. That is including all types of work (fundamental, applied, development) across all sectors (academia, government, industry, ngo/npo). Here are the top 20 high quality - not just total article count - science producing countries in the world per Nature Index that keeps a 12-month rolling window.

@JDragon

 

[NoDak]

UMC Dismisses US Charges Against It And Fujian Jinhua

With the US unsealing a criminal indictment against United Microelectronics (UMC) and its China-based partner of stealing trade secrets from Micron Technology, the Taiwan-based foundry has issued a statement dismissing the allegations.

"The allegations in the indictment and complaint are virtually the same as allegations in a civil complaint previously filed against UMC by Micron," the Taiwan-based company said in its statement issued by the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE). "UMC regrets that the US Attorney's Office brought these charges without first notifying UMC and giving it an opportunity to discuss the matter."

UMC claimed it has been developing ICs and other chip technologies for four decades, and has devoted vast resources to its technology R&D and owns a portfolio of patents worldwide. "UMC takes seriously any allegation that it may have violated any laws and fully intends to respond to these allegations accordingly," the company noted.

The US Department of Justice announced on November 1 that a federal grand jury indicted China's state-owned Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit, Taiwan-based UMC and three Taiwan individuals, charging them with crimes related to a conspiracy to steal, convey and possess stolen trade secrets of Micron. The US also filed a civil lawsuit seeking to enjoin the further transfer of the stolen trade secrets and to enjoin certain defendants from exporting to the US any products manufactured by UMC or Jinhua that were created using the trade secrets at issue.

"As this and other recent cases have shown, Chinese economic espionage against the United States has been increasing - and it has been increasing rapidly," said US Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a statement. "I am here to say that enough is enough."

Micron is the only US-based company that manufactures DRAM. According to the indictment, Micron maintains a significant competitive advantage in this field due in large part from its IP including its trade secrets that include detailed and confidential information pertaining to the design, development and manufacturing of advanced DRAM products.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Does China have anything worth stealing?

 

[Arkain2K]

Does China have anything worth stealing?

Ming vases, plus pieces of the Great Wall for souvenir.

 

[NoDak]

True story, since half your classmates are Asian when you grew up in Vancouver.

One of my classmates back in university is a CBC, meaning Canadian born Chinese. She worked in jewellery industry after graduation and dated a wealthy kid from China. They got engaged last year so she moved to China despite growing up in Canada, and her fiancee used his connections to hook her up with a job at an auction company specializing in ancient artifacts and gems in Beijing. Because she held certificate in gemmology and jewellery design, she got put in charge of assessment and authentication. She quit her job less than a month later, and told her friends back in Canada how much a cesspool Chinese corporate world was. The auction company, supposedly one of the most reputable in China, regularly cooks its books and sell fakes to its customers. She was told to look the other way or even participate in forging "proof" for these fake artifacts.

If you grew up in an environment where you were taught laws and regulations were to be respected, China is the wrong place for you to be. I trust Chinese corporations as much I trust Gypsies with keeping my wallet safe.

I like your new signature.

 

[NoDak]

Does China have anything worth stealing?

Not really, but it would be preposterous to sit here and claim that they don't have any impressive or consequential advances to their name. Xi is opening a state of the art $10 billion R&D center in 2020 dedicated solely to quantum information systems (computing and cryptography) and China already has the biggest achievement in the field to date, with a paper in Nature I've linked on here before. They seem to be betting the house that this is the most consequential area of technology for the future of national security and I think they're right.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23655

Quantum key distribution (QKD) uses individual light quanta in quantum superposition states to guarantee unconditional communication security between distant parties. However, the distance over which QKD is achievable has been limited to a few hundred kilometres, owing to the channel loss that occurs when using optical fibres or terrestrial free space that exponentially reduces the photon transmission rate.

Satellite-based QKD has the potential to help to establish a global-scale quantum network, owing to the negligible photon loss and decoherence experienced in empty space. Here we report the development and launch of a low-Earth-orbit satellite for implementing decoy-state QKD—a form of QKD that uses weak coherent pulses at high channel loss and is secure because photon-number-splitting eavesdropping can be detected. We achieve a kilohertz key rate from the satellite to the ground over a distance of up to 1,200 kilometres.

This key rate is around 20 orders of magnitudes greater than that expected using an optical fibre of the same length. The establishment of a reliable and efficient space-to-ground link for quantum-state transmission paves the way to global-scale quantum networks.

It's Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in play. Any measurement or detection of a quantum system - such as a photon of light - changes the system. It's the property that will allow those engaged in secret communications to know if they are being spied on: the eavesdropper's efforts would disrupt the connection. A nice application of 1920s physics.

 

[NoDak]

Why people still do business with the Chinese is not understandable to me. They have no ethics.

They were really doing business with a company in Taiwan (yeah, I know), who then turned around and sold them out to the mainland. It should be noted - and was in the Bloomberg article - that along with South Korea and Japan, it's a 'province' the US greatly assisted in getting a domestic semiconductor industry off the ground in the first place.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Not really, but it would be preposterous to sit here and claim that they don't have any impressive or consequential advances to their name. Xi is opening a state of the art $10 billion R&D center in 2020 dedicated solely to quantum information systems (computing and cryptography) and China already has the biggest achievement in the field to date, with a paper in Nature I've linked on here before. They seem to be betting the house that this is the most consequential area of technology for the future of national security and I think they're right.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23655

Quantum key distribution (QKD) uses individual light quanta in quantum superposition states to guarantee unconditional communication security between distant parties. However, the distance over which QKD is achievable has been limited to a few hundred kilometres, owing to the channel loss that occurs when using optical fibres or terrestrial free space that exponentially reduces the photon transmission rate.

Satellite-based QKD has the potential to help to establish a global-scale quantum network, owing to the negligible photon loss and decoherence experienced in empty space. Here we report the development and launch of a low-Earth-orbit satellite for implementing decoy-state QKD—a form of QKD that uses weak coherent pulses at high channel loss and is secure because photon-number-splitting eavesdropping can be detected. We achieve a kilohertz key rate from the satellite to the ground over a distance of up to 1,200 kilometres.

This key rate is around 20 orders of magnitudes greater than that expected using an optical fibre of the same length. The establishment of a reliable and efficient space-to-ground link for quantum-state transmission paves the way to global-scale quantum networks.

It's Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in play. Any measurement or detection of a quantum system - such as a photon of light - changes the system. It's the property that will allow those engaged in secret communications to know if they are being spied on: the eavesdropper's efforts would disrupt the connection. A nice application of 1920s physics.

Thanks. That shit's way over my head.

 

[NoDak]

Thanks. That shit's way over my head.

I'm worried that I made this thread kind of inaccessible from the start as it is lol. And condensed matter physics (semiconductors) definitely isn't my fucking field of study; it's just the epitome of high-level technology, an invaluable US industry and primary driver of American innovation.

The metro-area I live probably doesn't hurt. Intel has a massive presence with three separate fabrication plants (plus an assembly site) and is the largest manufacturing employer in the state, and one of the five largest outright. ON Semiconductor and Microchip - both top 20 in the sector in global revenue - are headquartered here. I got a buddy from school who's a process technician at Microchip.

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix...sting-7-billion-in-chandler-facility.amp.html

Intel Corp. announced plans today to invest more than $7 billion to complete the most advanced semiconductor factory in the world in Chandler.

The completion of the high-volume factory, known as Fab 42, will take three to four years and create 3,000 high-tech, high-wage Intel jobs for process engineers, equipment technicians and facilities support engineers and technicians.

Fab 42 is expected to create more than 10,000 long-term jobs in Arizona combined with the indirect impact on businesses that will support the factory’s operations.

Gov. Doug Ducey said Intel's expansion is "huge news" for the state.

"With thousands of jobs and a $7 billion investment, Fab 42 will create a ripple effect throughout our economy," Ducey said in a statement. "This means jobs for Arizonans, and a historic investment in our state. Intel's commitment to Arizona speaks volumes about our workforce, advanced educational infrastructure, business environment and commitment to technology and innovation. This represents a core area of Arizona expertise, advanced engineering and manufacturing."

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I'm worried that I made this thread kind of inaccessible from the start as it is lol. And condensed matter physics (semiconductors) definitely isn't my fucking field of study; it's just the epitome of high-level technology, an invaluable US industry and primary driver of American innovation.

The metro-area I live probably doesn't hurt. Intel has a massive presence with three separate fabrication plants (plus an assembly site) and is the largest manufacturing employer in the state, and one of the five largest outright. ON Semiconductor and Microchip - both top 20 in the sector in global revenue - are headquartered here. I got a buddy from school who's a process technician at Microchip.

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix...sting-7-billion-in-chandler-facility.amp.html

Intel Corp. announced plans today to invest more than $7 billion to complete the most advanced semiconductor factory in the world in Chandler.

The completion of the high-volume factory, known as Fab 42, will take three to four years and create 3,000 high-tech, high-wage Intel jobs for process engineers, equipment technicians and facilities support engineers and technicians.

Fab 42 is expected to create more than 10,000 long-term jobs in Arizona combined with the indirect impact on businesses that will support the factory’s operations.

Gov. Doug Ducey said Intel's expansion is "huge news" for the state.

"With thousands of jobs and a $7 billion investment, Fab 42 will create a ripple effect throughout our economy," Ducey said in a statement. "This means jobs for Arizonans, and a historic investment in our state. Intel's commitment to Arizona speaks volumes about our workforce, advanced educational infrastructure, business environment and commitment to technology and innovation. This represents a core area of Arizona expertise, advanced engineering and manufacturing."

You seem to know quite a bit about this stuff. Never took a physics class in my life.

 

[JonesBones]

Has China tapped out yet? My semiconductor stocks are getting shit kicked lately.

I was gonna say. Micron has been through enough. Fuckin chip stocks been getting shellacked. Micron is undervalued imo.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

My department uses drones for some things (searches, major traffic collisions or crime scenes, etc) and just figured out that all video taken by the drone cameras ends up being sent to China by the company that retains it.

 

[JonesBones]

True story, since half your classmates are Asian when you grew up in Vancouver.

One of my classmates back in university is a CBC, meaning Canadian born Chinese. She worked in jewellery industry after graduation and dated a wealthy kid from China. They got engaged last year so she moved to China despite growing up in Canada, and her fiancee used his connections to hook her up with a job at an auction company specializing in ancient artifacts and gems in Beijing. Because she held certificate in gemmology and jewellery design, she got put in charge of assessment and authentication. She quit her job less than a month later, and told her friends back in Canada how much a cesspool Chinese corporate world was. The auction company, supposedly one of the most reputable in China, regularly cooks its books and sell fakes to its customers. She was told to look the other way or even participate in forging "proof" for these fake artifacts.

If you grew up in an environment where you were taught laws and regulations were to be respected, China is the wrong place for you to be. I trust Chinese corporations as much I trust Gypsies with keeping my wallet safe.

China is importing a tech bubble to the US. Like refugees on rafts showing up on the shore. Chinese IPOs. lol.


A raft of tech IPOs have arrived on U.S. shores from China, with minimal operating histories and convoluted corporate structures


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-current-tech-bubble-is-a-chinese-import-2018-09-06

 

[NoDak]

You seem to know quite a bit about this stuff. Never took a physics class in my life.

I'm just a humble little bio-chem student with an oversized passion for STEM subjects and history in general. I have taken mechanics and electromagnetism. As far as semiconductors go, they are explained by the laws of quantum and statistical mechanics so that is out of reach for me, at least as far as in-depth understanding. It's been out of reach for China on an applied level in terms of engineering and technology.

 

[JonesBones]

I'm worried that I made this thread kind of inaccessible from the start as it is lol. And condensed matter physics (semiconductors) definitely isn't my fucking field of study; it's just the epitome of high-level technology, an invaluable US industry and primary driver of American innovation.

The metro-area I live probably doesn't hurt. Intel has a massive presence with three separate fabrication plants (plus an assembly site) and is the largest manufacturing employer in the state, and one of the five largest outright. ON Semiconductor and Microchip - both top 20 in the sector in global revenue - are headquartered here. I got a buddy from school who's a process technician at Microchip.

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix...sting-7-billion-in-chandler-facility.amp.html

Intel Corp. announced plans today to invest more than $7 billion to complete the most advanced semiconductor factory in the world in Chandler.

The completion of the high-volume factory, known as Fab 42, will take three to four years and create 3,000 high-tech, high-wage Intel jobs for process engineers, equipment technicians and facilities support engineers and technicians.

Fab 42 is expected to create more than 10,000 long-term jobs in Arizona combined with the indirect impact on businesses that will support the factory’s operations.

Gov. Doug Ducey said Intel's expansion is "huge news" for the state.

"With thousands of jobs and a $7 billion investment, Fab 42 will create a ripple effect throughout our economy," Ducey said in a statement. "This means jobs for Arizonans, and a historic investment in our state. Intel's commitment to Arizona speaks volumes about our workforce, advanced educational infrastructure, business environment and commitment to technology and innovation. This represents a core area of Arizona expertise, advanced engineering and manufacturing."

Sounds like what Steve Jobs called the beehive affect. He was very lucky to grow up where and when he did. It sounds like what is happening in Arizona now. When you have all these companies around a small area it creates a beehive affect. In the old days, picking up your family and moving to a place like AZ for a new job could be risky because it is the only game in town. WIthin a beehive like Silicon Valley. A software engineer for example can switch companies without even moving or having his kids change schools.

I mean Jobs grew up in a time when he could literally find Bill Hewlett's number in the local phone book and call him. And he did. There were opportunities all around there if you just tried. He called Hewlett at home and Hewlett actually answered. lol. Jobs asked if he had some spare parts he could have. Hewlett laughed and said sure, and also gave Jobs a job on the assembly line making those parts. That could not happen in the vast majority of the country.

 

[NoDak]

I was gonna say. Micron has been through enough. Fuckin chip stocks been getting shellacked. Micron is undervalued imo.

I'm glad you found your way in here, I can't always tag you. Only somewhat related to the discussion, but Jeff Bezos has gone fucking ballistic with Amazon's R&D investment lately (see up top of this page), from $16.1 to $22.6 billion in a single year according to PwC which just updated their study recently. The top seven global spenders for the last fiscal year have been Amazon, Alphabet, Volkswagen, Samsung, Intel, Microsoft and Apple.

 

[NoDak]

@Gandhi

 

[mrsenor]

They are chinese. They don't believe in intellectual property.

fixed