[Edaily Reporter SOYEON KIM ] Cutting-edge strategic technologies cannot be dismissed as merely the property of a single company. They are core assets that determine the competitiveness of the national economy and shape the future growth engines of companies and industries. Particularly in industries like semiconductors, where technological competitiveness directly translates into national competitiveness, the value of technology extends beyond individual companies to the national level.

It takes a tremendous amount of time and money to bring a technology to fruition. Companies invest in research and development for years, repeatedly refining process conditions and improving yield rates through countless failures and trial-and-error. A company’s technological competitiveness lies not only in the technology itself but also in the experience and know-how accumulated in the process of developing it.

Moreover, no matter how talented an engineer may be, they cannot develop cutting-edge technology entirely on their own. Technology leakage amounts to handing over, in its entirety, the experience that embodies everyone’s efforts and hard work.

The true damage caused by technology leakage is that it allows competitors to completely bypass the years of trial and error and failure that leading companies had to endure. It enables them to narrow the technological gap—built through massive R&D expenditures and manpower—at a relatively lower cost and in less time.

In fact, the “hybrid bonding” technology—reportedly leaked by an SK hynix employee who defected to China’s Huawei—is a core technology essential for achieving high-layer stacking in next-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Given its critical role in enabling HBM’s high-layer stacking, this technology could have a direct impact on future semiconductor competitiveness.

It is no exaggeration to say that SamsungElectronics employees, by providing the Process Recipient Procedure (PRP)—the semiconductor manufacturing recipe for DRAM development—to China’s Changxin Memory (CXMT), laid the foundation for CXMT to grow into the world’s fourth-largest memory manufacturer. When a company has technology it has built through blood, sweat, and tears stolen from it, it is no different from losing a part of the nation’s competitiveness.

The temptation surrounding technology leaks is growing ever stronger. If the penalties and consequences for stealing technology are light compared to the potential profits, it will be difficult to eradicate technology theft.

Stealing technology is a serious crime that robs the nation of its future. If someone misappropriates technology—developed over many years in collaboration with colleagues—for personal gain and thereby accelerates the catch-up efforts of rival nations, they must be held accountable in proportion to the damage caused. Severe penalties for technology theft are necessary, if only to protect our technology and maintain our competitive edge.