Former Analog Devices Employee Convicted Of Stealing Microchip Design

BOSTON, MA — The U.S. Attorney General's Office convicted a Lexington man on May. 26, 2022, for possession of a stolen trade secret, the first-ever conviction following a criminal trial of this kind in the District of Massachusetts, according to the U.S Attorney General's Office.

Haoyang Yu, 43, was convicted following a month-long jury trial of possessing the prototype design of a microchip, known as the HMC1022A, which was owned and developed by Analog Devices, a semiconductor company headquartered in Wilmington. The chip is used for aerospace and defense applications. The jury acquitted Yu of the other counts of possessing stolen trade secrets, wire fraud, immigration fraud and the illegal export of controlled technology.

The charge of possessing stolen trade secrets carries a 1o year maximum sentence sentence, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250k. The sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 15, 2022.

From 2014 to 2017, Yu worked at Analog Devices, where he designed microchips used by the communications, defense and aerospace industries. As a result of his work, Yu had access to Analog Devices’s present and future microchip designs, including schematic files, design layout files and manufacturing files. As a result, Yu started a microchip design firm, Tricon, and used the stolen HMC1022A design to manufacture a knock-off version of the chip. Yu began selling his version of the stolen design before Analog Device released its chip.

Furthermore, according to the U.S Attorney General's Office, Yu was caught violating export controls with Taiwan and Spain and suspected of violating export controls to both Turkey and China.