Explainer

New testimony in Korea’s dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) technology leak trial could bolster a potential Samsung trade-secret challenge against China’s CXMT.

The logos of Samsung Electronics are seen on the top of a building at the company’s headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on May 22.
AP/YONHAP

As CXMT celebrated a blockbuster market debut in Shanghai, a long-running case against the Chinese memory chipmaker in Seoul gained fresh ammunition from key testimony.

The case began in 2024 when Korean prosecutors started investigating former Samsung employees who allegedly took the company’s DRAM technology to CXMT after joining the Chinese DRAM manufacturer. With testimony from one of the indicted employees pointing to an organized effort to obtain Samsung’s technology from CXMT’s inception, the question now is: Could Samsung and CXMT be headed for a trade secret dispute?

Testimony from a former Samsung researcher, revealed earlier this month by local reports, claims CXMT sought to steal Samsung’s core technologies to develop its own products from the time of its establishment in 2016. The allegedly affected trade secrets include manufacturing blueprints and detailed information related to around 600 chipmaking steps, a factor that could have contributed significantly to CXMT’s success in the mass production of 10-nanometer-class DRAM in 2023.

The ongoing trials are timely given reports raising the possibility that CXMT could supply chips to Apple, which is said to be heavily lobbying the U.S. government to secure chips for its devices amid a memory supply crunch. Even major PC makers including Dell, HP, ASUS and Acer are considering using CXMT chips due to tight supplies, according to a Nikkei Asia report. 

Depending on what the domestic trial establishes, Samsung could pursue the case against CXMT at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) over the alleged leak of trade secrets — and it wouldn’t be the first time the Korean company has done so.

Samsung Electronics has yet to announce any action regarding the matter.

So what happened?

Prosecutors believe CXMT shortened its DRAM development timeline by recruiting Samsung employees and obtaining core technology information through them.

From 2024 through the end of last year, prosecutors indicted 10 people connected to Samsung, SK hynix or the two chipmakers’ partner companies on charges of leaking and using national core technology overseas.

The case began with a discreet hire. Shortly after its founding in 2016, CXMT courted a former Samsung Electronics department head, surnamed Kim, as its head of development. Kim then set out to recruit the specific engineers CXMT needed to bring over Samsung’s proprietary 18-nanometer-class DRAM technology. Prosecutors say the recruitment effort ran like a secret operation: CXMT set up shell companies to mask its recruitment activities, and had staff rotate through different office locations rather than operate out of a single fixed base. The group also worked out a coded warning system — if any member was hit with a travel ban or arrest, they were to alert the others by sending four heart emoji.

The most damaging leak came from a Samsung researcher surnamed Jeon, who hand-copied Samsung’s Process Recipe Plan — the core document governing roughly 600 steps of the DRAM manufacturing process — across 12 pages of a notebook before leaving for CXMT. The technology represented the culmination of some 1.6 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in spending over five years.

A logo of China’s top memory chipmaker CXMT appears on the facade of company’s production facility, in Beijing, China, July 29.
AFP/YONHAP

CXMT didn’t stop there. It went on to recruit more Samsung employees and separately obtained SK hynix technology through a supplier that employed a number of former SK hynix staff — allegedly trading high-value equipment orders for access to detailed information about SK hynix’s chipmaking process.

Both Kim and Jeon were caught and indicted on charges of violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Act and the Industrial Technology Protection Act. Kim received a final sentence of six years and four months in prison, along with a 200 million won fine. Jeon, whose first sentence was seven years, is now appealing.

The claims go further still. In testimony given in a related trial, Jeon said CXMT’s chief executive and chief technology officer had set out to steal Samsung’s process technology from the company’s very founding — before CXMT had a research lab, production equipment, or any real plan to develop the technology on its own.

The technology assembled through these leaks is believed to have played a significant role in CXMT’s 2023 breakthrough — the first 10-nanometer-class DRAM mass-produced by a Chinese chipmaker.

Can Samsung take this to international court? What are the options?

Yes. Samsung could seek to ban CXMT’s DRAM from the markets to which it exports. In the United States, that would mean going through the ITC under Section 337 of the Tariff Act. Under that provision, Samsung can file a complaint alleging that products entering the U.S. — made using stolen trade secrets or infringing patents — violate Section 337. In CXMT’s case, either theory could apply.

“Under Section 337 of the Tariff Act, if a product that infringes U.S. intellectual property rights is imported into the United States, an exclusion order can be sought,” said a lawyer who requested anonymity citing sensitivity of the matter. “That can be based on either trade secret misappropriation or patent infringement.”

CXMT doesn’t export its chips directly to the United States, but that doesn’t rule out ITC action.

“Even if CXMT doesn’t export its chips to the United States directly, a product that enters as a component embedded in another product still counts as an import,” the lawyer added. “So I don’t think that would pose a major obstacle.”

Beyond the ITC, Samsung could also file a civil damages suit in U.S. federal district court, and additional suits could be possible in other markets if CXMT’s products are also exported there. But juggling multiple suits at once can be costly, and companies often prefer to secure a finding of infringement in one jurisdiction first and use that as leverage in negotiations.

Whether Samsung ultimately seeks an ITC case will depend on the outcome of the domestic trial and will be entirely the company’s own decision.

Will the domestic verdict affect an international court’s decision?

No. A Korean court’s ruling would not carry over to a U.S. proceeding. A U.S. court or the ITC would make its own independent determination, though evidentiary materials from the Korean trial — such as witness examination records or testimony transcripts — could be submitted and used as evidence in the U.S. case. That wouldn’t guarantee the same conclusion, however, since each jurisdiction conducts its own fact-finding from scratch.

Has there been a similar accusation or legal dispute involving Chinese companies over tech theft?

Yes. Samsung Display fought a similar battle with China’s BOE Technology Group over stolen display technology. Samsung Display filed a complaint with the ITC in December 2022 accusing BOE of infringing its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) patents, then followed with a separate case in October 2023 alleging BOE had stolen trade secrets by poaching Samsung employees to access confidential OLED manufacturing know-how — a pattern similar to what’s now alleged against CXMT.

The ITC largely sided with Samsung. In March 2025, it ruled that BOE had infringed three of Samsung Display’s OLED patents, and in a preliminary ruling in July, found that BOE had misappropriated Samsung’s OLED trade secrets — recommending a nearly 15-year ban on BOE exporting OLED panels to the United States. The commission found that BOE and seven of its subsidiaries had violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act: Despite Samsung’s rigorous security measures, BOE had still obtained and used the trade secrets improperly, causing substantial harm.

In the end, though, BOE wasn’t barred from the U.S. market. The two companies asked the ITC to end its investigation and settled in November 2025. Domestic reports indicate the settlement likely took the form of a licensing agreement favorable to Samsung — a result the company can count as a win, allowing it to collect meaningful royalty income and strengthen its position in the global OLED market.

This section draws on insight from an intellectual property attorney with knowledge of similar cross-border cases, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter and the ongoing trials.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]