US Attorney Drops Wife of Former ADI Engineer From Stolen Trade Secret Case

The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts dismissed charges of wire fraud against Yanzhi Chen, one of the defendants in a case involving semiconductor propriety information stolen from Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). Chen and her husband, Haoyang Yu, along with their company Tricon MMIC, were charged with stealing hundreds of files belonging to ADI (U.S. v. Haoyang Yu, D. Mass. #19-10195).

Yu is a Chinese immigrant who worked for ADI as a design engineer from 2014 to 2017. The U.S. accused him of downloading “millions of dollars” worth of the company’s “confidential schematic design and modeling files” and uploading them to his Google Drive account (see 2010020031). Five months before he resigned from ADI, Yu and Chen created Tricon, allegedly later signing an agreement that said Yu had surrendered all of ADI’s information and data. But DOJ claimed that Yu used his new company to market and sell about 20 ADI designs and used ADI’s same Taiwanese manufacturer to make Tricon’s monolithic microwave integrated circuits parts. Yu and Tricon allegedly also smuggled export-controlled technology from the U.S. to Taiwan without a license from the Commerce Department.

U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins dropped the four counts of wire fraud against Chen in a June 28 dismissal of indictment. The move comes after Yu, who was charged on 18 counts, was found guilty of only the count of unlawful possession of a trade secret. Yu filed for judgment of acquittal, or for a new trial, in a post-trial motion, arguing the prosecution failed to prove "each and every element of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt."