Six Chinese nationals charged with economic espionage in US

Six Chinese nationals, including a professor, were today charged with economic espionage and theft of US trade secrets for the benefit of universities and companies controlled by China, federal law enforcement agencies said.
Among those charged were Tianjin University Professor Hao Zhang who was arrested on May 16 upon entry into the US from China in connection with a recent superseding indictment in the Northern District of California.
The 32-count indictment charges Zhang and five other Chinese with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for their roles in a long-running effort to obtain US trade secrets for the benefit of universities and companies controlled by the Chinese government.

"According to the charges in the indictment, the defendants leveraged their access to and knowledge of sensitive US technologies to illegally obtain and share US trade secrets with China for economic advantage," said Assistant Attorney General John Carlin.
"As today's case demonstrates, sensitive technology developed by US companies in Silicon Valley and throughout California continues to be vulnerable to coordinated and complex efforts sponsored by foreign governments to steal that technology," said US Attorney Melinda Haag.
According to the indictment, Hao Zhang and co-conspirator Wei Pang met at a US university in Southern California during their doctoral studies in electrical engineering.

While there, Pang and Zhang conducted research and development on thin-film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) technology under funding from US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The stolen trade secrets alleged in the indictment belong to Avago or Skyworks, the companies Pang and Zhang worked for.
Pang worked for Avago which is a designer, developer and global supplier of FBAR technology, which is a specific type of radio frequency (RF) filter.
Zhang's employment, Skyworks, was also a designer and developer of FBAR technology which is used in mobile devices like cellular telephones, tablets and GPS devices.
FBAR technology filters incoming and outgoing wireless signals so that a user only receives and transmits the specific communications intended by the user.

Apart from consumer applications, FBAR technology has numerous applications for a variety of military and defense communications technologies.
According to the indictment, in 2006 and 2007, Pang, Zhang and other co-conspirators prepared a business plan and began soliciting Chinese universities and others, seeking opportunities to start manufacturing FBAR technology in China.
The indictment alleges that Pang, Zhang and other co-conspirators stole recipes, source code, specifications, presentations, design layouts and other documents marked as confidential and proprietary from the victim companies and shared the information with one another and with individuals working for Tianjin University.