South Korean authorities have identified 107 cases of industrial technology leaked abroad over the past five years, and semiconductors account for roughly four in ten of them, Seoul Economic Daily reported.

The figure is stark. Nearly 40% of all confirmed outbound technology leaks in one of the world's most advanced manufacturing economies involved chip technology. That concentration says as much about where the commercial value sits in Korean industry as it does about the threat itself.

Semiconductors are South Korea's largest export item and the core of its national economic strategy. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together dominate global DRAM and NAND flash supply, and Samsung is one of only three companies in the world shipping leading-edge logic at 3nm-class nodes. The process recipes, equipment parameters, yield data and materials know-how behind those operations represent decades of accumulated investment. A single leak can hand a competitor years of catch-up work for free.

The Seoul Economic Daily tally covers 107 leak cases over five years. The chip sector's roughly 40% share means semiconductor-related thefts outnumber leaks in every other industry the authorities track. The report did not break out individual case values, target countries, or the specific technologies involved.

The pattern fits a broader reality of technology competition. Memory chipmaking in particular rewards process-edge secrecy: yields at advanced DRAM nodes depend on tightly held integration steps that rivals cannot easily reverse-engineer from shipped products. This is why process documentation, fab operation data and the movement of senior engineers have become recurring vectors in Korean technology-crime prosecutions.

It also explains the policy response. Seoul has progressively tightened its Industrial Technology Protection Act framework, designating semiconductor fabrication and design know-how as national core technology. That designation raises the criminal stakes for unauthorized transfer abroad and gives prosecutors stronger tools when engineers or executives attempt to carry technical data to foreign employers or sell it outright.

The commercial stakes run in both directions. For Samsung and SK Hynix, leaked process data can compress the technological lead that justifies their capital spending — a lead measured in months at advanced memory nodes, where each generation carries tens of trillions of won in fab investment. For buyers, a leveling of the playing field could eventually add suppliers at the cutting edge and soften pricing on advanced memory. Neither effect materializes from a single case; both compound if leakage persists.

Korean prosecutors have made these cases a priority, and the five-year tally of 107 incidents suggests enforcement is surfacing activity that once went undetected. The concentration in semiconductors means the chip industry will remain the primary battleground, and companies operating advanced fabs in Korea face continued pressure to harden controls on engineer mobility, data access and cross-border collaboration.