In December 2017, U.S. memory giant Micron Technology sued Taiwan's UMC and PRC state-backed Fujian Jinhua in the Northern District of California, alleging coordinated theft of DRAM trade secrets. What followed was a six-year, three-front campaign: a civil suit, a parallel DOJ criminal indictment, and Commerce Department export controls. UMC pleaded guilty in 2020 and paid a USD 60 million fine; Micron and Jinhua reached a global settlement in December 2023; and a federal judge acquitted Jinhua at a bench trial in February 2024. The case remains a landmark of the U.S.-China chip war and the China Initiative era.
Yangtze Memory's November 2023 patent suit against Micron in the Northern District of California marked the first time a major Entity-Listed Chinese semiconductor company went on the offensive in U.S. courts. Two years on, the case has spawned IPRs, a Federal Circuit mandamus battle over source-code discovery, parallel filings in the Eastern District of Texas, the UK High Court and the UPC, and a January 2026 USPTO Director decision turning on YMTC's refusal to disclose its real parties in interest.