Peter Clarke EE Times (03/12/2010 7:28 AM EST)

LONDON — Nineteen semiconductor engineers and managers indicted for stealing process technology and market planning details from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and passing them to Hynix Semiconductor Inc. have all pleaded not guilty in court in Seoul, according to a Yonhap report.

The 19, which consists of 10 employees from chipmaking equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc., four from Samsung and five from Hynix, have claimed the Samsung information was never offered to other chipmakers, the report said. The information stolen allegedly included manufacturing process technology details for DRAMs and NAND flash memory as well as investment plans for chip production, The information was passed to Hynix between March 2005 and December 2009 the law suit alleges.

Among the arguments thrown up by defense lawyers, the report said, were that Hynix did not make use of the manufacturing technology information and that information already in the public domain cannot be considered a trade secret.

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