Firm Suspected of Illegal High-Tech Sales to U.S.S.R. : Commerce: Agents searched the Irvine offices of Lasarray Corp. regarding the export of computer chip-making systems.
Federal agents have searched the offices of a small computer-equipment company here that is suspected of illegally shipping semiconductor-manufacturing equipment to the Soviet Union.
A search warrant issued by a U.S. District Court judge in Los Angeles did not specify the type of equipment or the dates of shipment, but a Commerce Department official said Swiss-owned Lasarray Corp. is suspected of exporting computer chip-making systems without a proper export license.
Lasarray officials have been quoted in published reports acknowledging the sale to the Soviet Union of several multimillion-dollar machines that are used to produce custom-designed semiconductors in just a few hours. There was no mention in the reports, however, that the sales might be illegal.
Efforts to reach Lasarray executives for comment were unsuccessful.
But Jon Hopper, a former marketing vice president at Lasarray, said he was not surprised by the government’s action. “One of the reasons and disagreements I had when I left the company (last October) was over the export policies of the parent company,” he said in a telephone interview Thursday.
“I think the allegations are not against the U.S. operation but against the Swiss operation,” he added. “The systems that went into the Soviet Union were shipped from Switzerland and not from the United States.”
The Irvine company is a subsidiary of Lasarray Holding Co. in Thundorf, Switzerland. The company also has an affiliate in Brier, Switzerland, Lasarray S.A..
The Lasarray machines, which cost $4.2 million, are similar to miniature laboratories that combine silicon-compiler technology with a self-contained wafer processor, assembly and testing facility. It takes only six designers and technicians to operate the system.
Despite a recent easing of high-tech export rules, Commerce Department officials said the laws governing chip-making technology have not been relaxed that much.
The court order authorized federal agents to seize the company’s financial, telephone, computer and travel records and technical-assistance agreements dated from July 25, 1985, to March 22, 1991, when the warrant was executed. The agents were also authorized to confiscate telex and facsimile communications between Lasarray and its Swiss parent company, as well as other export-related records.
Lasarray S.A. Chairman Ernst Uhlmann was quoted in a report in Electronic Engineering Times in July, 1989, as saying that his company has sold chip-fabrication systems to the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
He said the Soviets were using the systems primarily to produce designs for controller circuits.
The Lasarray system cannot produce chips in high volume, nor can it produce advanced designs that require extremely narrow circuit widths. But the transportable unit is good for making quick prototypes of custom chips that can later be produced in volume.
