Business & Economics
TSMC Lawsuit Spurs Taiwan Raids Over Alleged 2-nm Trade-Secret Leak to Intel
On 27 Nov 2025 Taiwanese prosecutors raided two homes of ex-TSMC vice-president Wei-Jen Lo after TSMC sued him for allegedly taking advanced-node secrets to his new employer Intel, which flatly denies any wrongdoing.
Focusing Facts
- During the 27 Nov 2025 searches, authorities seized computers, USB drives, and won court approval to freeze Lo’s shares and real estate under Article 133-2 of Taiwan’s criminal code.
- TSMC’s lawsuit, filed earlier that week in Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court, alleges Lo misused trade secrets from its 5-nm, 3-nm and 2-nm processes, invoking potential violations of the National Security Act.
- Lo retired from TSMC on 27 Jul 2025 and re-joined Intel in Oct 2025 after an 18-year earlier stint there, giving him 39 years across both rivals.
Context
Silicon IP battles are hardly new—Intel’s 1995 fight with DEC over Alpha chips and the 2020 UMC-Fujian Jinhua indictment for lifting TSMC files both showed how talent moves can trigger national-level reactions. What is new is the degree to which states now treat bleeding-edge process knowledge (2 nm and below) as strategic deterrence, folding routine employment shifts into security law. The raid reflects two converging long-term arcs: (1) the weaponization of semiconductor supply chains in the post-CHIPS, Sino-US techno-bloc era; and (2) the tightening grip on human capital once seen as the open circulatory system of Moore’s Law. On a century scale this moment may mark a pivot from the relatively free talent migration that powered the transistor revolution (Bell Labs’ diaspora in the 1950s) toward a regime where engineers cross borders under the shadow of state surveillance—a shift that could slow innovation yet also crystallize semiconductors as the oil of the 21st-century industrial order.
Perspectives
Investor-oriented financial and business media
MoneyControl, Yahoo! Finance, The Times of India — Emphasise Intel’s categorical denial, framing Lo’s move as routine talent mobility and stressing that there is ‘no evidence’ of wrongdoing. Primarily serve readers who hold or follow stocks, so they echo Intel’s reassuring statements and downplay the legal jeopardy in order to calm market nerves.
Taiwanese news outlets closely tied to local institutions
CNA, Focus Taiwan — Report the raids, prosecutor statements and National Security Act angle to underscore that Lo is under serious suspicion of leaking TSMC’s core technology. Protecting a national champion, they foreground allegations and law-enforcement action, implicitly presuming Lo’s guilt while giving Intel’s rebuttal little weight. ( CNA , Focus Taiwan (CNA English News) )
Tech-industry press highlighting the ‘Chip Wars’ narrative
Devdiscourse, EconoTimes, The Verge — Cast the lawsuit as another flash-point in the global semiconductor ‘chip war,’ portraying it as high-stakes drama between rival giants amid geopolitical tension. Sensationalizes the dispute to attract tech-savvy readers, leaning into conflict framing that can exaggerate the strategic stakes beyond what court evidence presently shows.