Massachusetts Couple, Company Charged With Stealing Semiconductor Trade Secrets
Two Massachusetts residents and their semiconductor company were charged with stealing proprietary information from another U.S. semiconductor company, the Justice Department said Oct. 1. Husband and wife Haoyang Yu and Yanzhi Chen and their company, Tricon MMIC LLC, allegedly stole hundreds of files belonging to Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). Yu and Chen face potential prison sentences and fines for their charges, which include smuggling, transporting stolen goods and possession of a trade secret.
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A Chinese immigrant, Yu worked for ADI as a design engineer from 2014 to 2017, Justice said. At ADI, Yu allegedly downloaded “millions of dollars” worth of the company’s “confidential schematic design and modeling files” and uploaded them to his Google Drive account. Five months before he resigned from ADI, Yu and Chen created Tricon, and he later signed an agreement that said Yu had surrendered all of ADI’s information and data. But Yu used his new company to market and sell about 20 ADI designs and used ADI’s same Taiwanese manufacturer to make Tricon’s monolithic microwave integrated circuits parts, Justice alleges. Yu and Tricon allegedly also smuggled export-controlled technology from the U.S. to Taiwan without a license from the Commerce Department.