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Three Arrested as Taiwan Probes Theft of TSMC’s 2nm Chip Secrets

Prosecutors have invoked Taiwan’s amended National Security Act to detain three staffers following searches of Japan’s Tokyo Electron.

The compute tile in Intel's Lunar Lake chips are made on TSMC's N3 process node.
The logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company, in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on April 16, 2025.
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Overview

  • Three current and former TSMC employees were arrested on suspicion of stealing proprietary information about the company’s next-generation 2-nanometer process.
  • Authorities executed court-approved searches of the suspects’ homes and Tokyo Electron’s Taiwan office after TSMC detected unusual access to core technology files.
  • This marks the first use of Taiwan’s 2022 National Security Act revisions, which classify sub-14nm semiconductor processes as protected national assets.
  • Investigators are examining whether the stolen 2nm data was transmitted to external parties, including Japanese chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron.
  • TSMC’s 2nm node, slated for mass production in late 2025, is central to future chips for clients such as Apple and Nvidia and a focal point in global tech competition.