Ex-Samsung researcher faces charges for leaking OLED secrets to China

A former researcher at Samsung Display, the world’s largest OLED panel maker, has been arrested and indicted on charges of leaking the company’s proprietary OLED technologies to Chinese entities. The unnamed researcher, who is 49 years old, allegedly conspired with other researchers to transfer technologies worth up to $300 million to his own companies in China and South Korea, and then to China’s OLED industry.

The prosecution claims that the researcher worked at Samsung Display for ten years in fields related to the technologies that were attempted to be sold. Between 2018 and May 2020, they tried to sell technologies related to OLED excimer laser annealing (ELA) equipment and optically clean resin inkjet machinery. ELA is a heat treatment process that improves the performance and efficiency of OLED panels, while inkjet printing is a method of OLED production that reduces costs and increases yields.

The investigation into this matter was started after getting a tip from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). The researcher fled to China, and five of his co-researchers were found guilty by the court in November 2021. Now that the researcher has returned from China to South Korea voluntarily, he will face prosecution.

It is estimated that the value of the OLED technologies in question is around KRW 340 billion (around $300 million) and that Chinese companies that got access to the intellectual properties benefitted from the leak. Samsung Display has invested more than KRW 10 billion (around $8.5 million) over the last three years in developing the inkjet printing specification that is at the center of the controversy. The company is expected to implement inkjet printing techniques into its OLED production operations as early as October 2023 and become the first company to do so.

This is not the first case of Samsung tech theft allegations directed at Chinese companies. In August 2020, two Samsung Display researchers and one external partner official were arrested on charges of corporate espionage that benefitted China’s OLED panel industry. They leaked information related to OLED production using inkjet printing to a Chinese company, causing millions of dollars in damages to Samsung.