TSMC has opened an internal investigation to find out if its former employee Lo Wen-jen had taken trade secrets with him to Intel without the company’s consent. According to a Bloomberg report, Taiwanese newspapers spent the week reporting on the transition of Lo Wen-jen, 75, from his retirement at TSMC earlier this year to joining Intel recently.
“The government is concerned with national security implications,” Taiwan’s Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin told reporters, without giving any further details. Minister Wu Cheng-wen of Taiwan’s National Science and Technology told reporters later in the day that TSMC is still looking at the situation, according to Taiwan’s official Central News Agency.
The 75-year-old Lo retired from TSMC in July after serving more than 20 years with the company. He was most recently the senior vice president of corporate strategy development for TSMC. He played a major role in developing some of TSMC’s advanced node technology. Intel hired Lo as vice president of research and development.
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Tan denied the allegations. “It’s rumor and speculation,” Tan said to Bloomberg during the Semiconductor Industry Association Awards in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday. “There’s nothing to it. We respect IP.”
Before he joined TSMC, Lo worked for Intel, focusing on advanced technology development, including running a chip factory in Santa Clara, California. He has a doctorate degree in solid state physics and surface chemistry from UC Berkeley.
There have been tensions between Intel and TSMC and the U.S. chipmaker tried to catch up in the technology race. Intel is both a customer and competitor to TSMC, which is now the sole maker of the most high-end chips for Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp.
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger frequently argued that it was too risky for the U.S. to depend heavily on TSMC for cutting-edge semiconductors due to growing geopolitical volatility in the Taiwan Strait, creating friction between the two companies.
There have been reports that Intel has been in the talks with companies such as AMD and Apple to manufacture chips in its Foundry. Earlier this week, it was reported Qualcomm was possibly evaluating Intel Foundry for its data center ASIC business.
Japan’s Southbank completed a $2 billion investment in Intel in late September. This followed Intel and Nvidia signing a deal that would see the duo co-develop PC and data center chips. Nvidia also said it would take a $5 billion stake in Intel. In August, the Trump Administration took an $11.1 billion, or 10%, stake in Intel.