UMC’s confidential case involving Micron finally ushered in key progress. On the morning of November 26, UMC announced that the company had reached an out-of-court settlement agreement with Micron .
UMC could not disclose how much it would pay in settlement, but said there would be no financial impact. However, on October 28 last year, UMC pleaded guilty to stealing Micron's trade secrets and was fined US$60 million by the US Department of Justice. UMC pointed out at the time that in the settlement agreement, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to drop charges against UMC, including conspiracy to commit economic espionage and conspiracy to steal multiple Micron business secrets and patents. UMC admitted to infringing a trade secret and agreed to pay a $60 million fine to the U.S. government and to cooperate with the Department of Justice during three years of self-administered probation.
A year later, UMC reached an out-of-court settlement agreement with Micron today, which means that the company will completely withdraw from this crisis.
This case originated from May 2016, when UMC signed a cooperation agreement with Fujian Jinhua to jointly develop two generations of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) processes. The DRAM process developed under the agreement is not the latest technology, but an old technology similar to mass production technology in 2012.
However, it was reported by Micron in 2017. Micron said that UMC was suspected of stealing trade secrets in its cooperation with Fujian Jinhua. Micron believes that three former employees of Micron in Taiwan who participated in the DRAM cooperation case violated the employment contracts and declarations signed with UMC. They brought their former company information to UMC for reference when working, and then transferred confidential information to Jinhua. Micron in Taiwan therefore A lawsuit was filed against UMC. In the same year, a lawsuit was filed against UMC and Jinhua in the United States, and the U.S. Department of Justice began an investigation.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice also filed criminal charges against UMC and certain employees in November 2018 on the grounds that they violated federal trade secret protection laws. At the end of 2018, UMC terminated its cooperation with Jinhua due to pressure from the United States.
