During the founding period of Chinese DRAM maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), there was reportedly a roadmap for acquiring Samsung Electronics' manufacturing technology and personnel in stages. South Korea's CBS NoCut News reported the details of "Project Hefei" on September 1, 2026, based on an indictment it had obtained.
However, the stage of the evidence must not be mistaken here. Project Hefei is not a fact established by a court; it is an allegation prosecutors are attempting to prove in a criminal trial. A former Samsung researcher connected to the case has already received a first-instance sentence of seven years in prison, but a separate trial dealing with the roadmap is still ongoing, and witness examinations have not yet concluded.
Even so, this document changes the conventional view that this was simply a case of "former engineers changing jobs." The document reportedly lays out technology acquisition, personnel hiring, R&D, and production on a month-by-month basis, and prosecutors are attempting to link individuals' removal of information to CXMT's development plan during its founding period.
What Does "Project Hefei" Show?
According to the indictment reported by NoCut News, CXMT's first-phase development chief and the person in charge of capital equipment investment joined the company in August 2016 and drew up a DRAM development plan. The goal was divided into four stages: by September, acquire core technology such as Samsung's Process Recipe Plan (PRP); by October, secure engineers responsible for Samsung's eight major processes; by July 2017, establish an R&D structure; and by August 2018, begin wafer production at a rate of 10,000 wafers per month.
This roadmap is not a document that lists development achievements after the fact. Prosecutors argue it is a document that positioned technology and personnel within the plan in advance. According to an April 2024 document from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, the first-phase development chief worked at Samsung's memory division from 1994 to 2015, then led CXMT's 17nm-class DRAM development from 2016 to 2020.
According to prosecutors, CXMT initially tried to create an 18nm-class DRAM process recipe plan relying on the memory of former Samsung engineers. However, it fell short of the precision needed for actual development. This was because the manufacturing process spanned approximately 620 steps, requiring not just the sequence of processes but also the materials used, processing conditions, and even the equipment maker and model numbers.
The situation changed in September 2016. According to the indictment, after specific Samsung process information was passed along, CXMT's process recipe plan was created between September 23 and 26, and on the 27th, a spreadsheet organizing the eight major processes was completed. Prosecutors believe this was distributed to personnel in charge of clean, etching, photo, and other processes, who each reviewed and supplemented the content.
A 620-Step Recipe Alone Doesn't Enable Mass Production
The process recipe plan is not merely a design drawing showing the external shape of a completed DRAM chip. It is a continuous manufacturing procedure detailing the order in which wafers are processed, which equipment and materials are used, and how conditions such as temperature and time are combined. Knowing only a single process step, without it fitting together with the processes before and after, will not produce a functioning chip.
At the same time, it would also be inaccurate to assume that obtaining the procedural document alone would allow the same product to be mass-produced as-is. According to a December 2025 document from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, CXMT hired a former Samsung executive as its second-phase development chief in February 2018. The second-phase team reportedly repeated reverse-engineering of Samsung products, removal and alteration of Samsung-specific terminology remaining in documents, and manufacturing tests until early 2023, revising and verifying process information to match the equipment used on the Chinese side.
In other words, the path prosecutors describe is not "obtain the documents and immediately mass-produce." Rather, after obtaining the foundational process system, a process followed of transplanting it onto local equipment and materials and refining conditions through trial production. This requires integrative technical capability to bridge the gap between acquired information and manufacturing capacity.
The same prosecutors' document states that the match rate between CXMT materials and Samsung materials confirmed during the investigation rose from 56.7% in the early development stage to 98.2%. This figure is a strong claim, but the files compared, the denominator, the unit of judgment, and the calculation method have not been disclosed. It should not be read as meaning that 98.2% of the technology was duplicated, or that product performance was 98.2% identical.
Samsung announced the start of mass production of 10nm-class 8Gb DDR4 on April 5, 2016. The company's "10nm-class" designation covers the 10–19nm range, which includes the 18nm-class technology at issue in this case. According to NoCut News, which reported on the indictment, more than 1,100 people were reportedly involved in development starting from April 2012. However, this figure comes from the indictment's account and should not be treated as a publicly disclosed figure from Samsung itself.
Overlaying the Plan With CXMT's Public Timeline
When the deadlines set out in Project Hefei are overlaid with CXMT's currently published corporate timeline, some milestones align closely with the plan while others were delayed.
| Period | Plan/prosecution claim per the indictment | Milestone in CXMT's official timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Aug–Oct 2016 | Development plan created; technology secured by September, core personnel secured by October | Company founded in 2016 |
| Mar–Jul 2017 | Goal of establishing R&D structure by July | Fab A construction began in Hefei in March |
| Jan–Aug 2018 | Goal of starting production of 10,000 wafers/month by August | Fab A1 completed in January; 8Gb DDR4 trial production began in July |
| May–Nov 2019 | After the disclosed plan schedule | Product testing succeeded in May; mass production announced in September; first orders received and sales began in November |
CXMT's 8Gb DDR4 trial production began one month earlier than the planned start of production. But trial production is not mass production. The company announced mass production in September 2019, 13 months after the target date. The first orders and start of sales came a further two months after that. No production figures corresponding to the target of 10,000 wafers per month can be confirmed from the official timeline.
This comparison shows that Project Hefei does not perfectly match the public timeline. While the period from factory completion to trial production is close to plan, testing, the mass-production announcement, and sales all shifted later. To begin with, the indictment describes targets, while CXMT's timeline consists of milestones the company itself chose to disclose — they are not two sides of the same document. The proximity of the schedules provides a clue for examining the prosecution's claims, but it does not prove a causal link that technology leakage directly caused CXMT's growth.
Separating What's Been Ruled On From What's Still Under Trial
The fact that multiple criminal proceedings involving CXMT are running in parallel also makes the situation harder to follow. In an official announcement on December 23, 2025, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office indicted 10 people involved in CXMT's first- and second-phase development teams. Five were indicted with detention, and five were indicted without detention. The document explicitly states at the outset that the criminal facts being disclosed have not been finalized by a court.
Meanwhile, a former researcher who moved to CXMT after 28 years at Samsung was charged with illegally acquiring and using 18nm-class DRAM process information, and received a first-instance sentence of seven years in prison in April 2026. According to NoCut News, this individual testified at a separate trial hearing on August 11 to the effect that CXMT's CEO and CTO had intended to develop DRAM using Samsung's process information from the company's founding.
There are three distinct states of affairs here: the first-instance ruling against the former researcher himself, testimony given in a current courtroom proceeding, and the indictment said to document Project Hefei. The existence of the first does not mean the court has established the full content of the latter two. This investigation likewise found no publicly available document showing that CXMT as a corporate entity has been convicted in this case.
The next trial hearing is scheduled for September 8, and witness examinations are set to continue through October. The focus is not the size of the company's global market share. Rather, it is who created the original roadmap document, and which records substantiate reports made to management. It is also what the files created between September 23 and 27 matched with Samsung's materials, and how that match rate was calculated. And it is how the defense will contest the authenticity of the documents and the scope of lawfully obtained knowledge. Only once the court makes findings on these points will Project Hefei move from a prosecutorial narrative to a judicial determination.