A former employee of Intel has been accused of stealing top business secrets from the giant chipmaker when he was moving over to a rival company, a report said Friday.  (File Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    LOS ANGELES, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- A former employee of Intel has been accused of stealing top business secrets from the giant chipmaker when he was moving over to a rival company, a report said Friday.

    Biswahoman Pani, an ex-design engineer at an Intel plant in Boston, was accused of copying a lot of classified Intel design documents before leading the company and taking a new job at AMD, the Boston Globe newspaper's website reported.

    FBI officials, who filed the affidavit against Pani in a Bostoncourt, said that Pani might try to impress his new bosses at AMD by copying the materials.

    According to the filing, 13 files containing over 100 pages of top secret documentation and 19 drawings, including designs of future Intel processors, were found during a search of Pani's house in July.

    FBI was tipped off by another Intel employee who, on discovering Pani's planned move to the competition, ordered a log of his system access before he left.

    "Intellectual property is a critical asset for Intel," said company spokeswoman Claudine Mangano. "We basically asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate activities, and we are cooperating with that investigation."

    Pani was not taken into custody, but has been ordered to give up his passport and now no longer works at either AMD or Intel.

    However, FBI officials said the investigation had found no evidence that AMD had encouraged or even knew of Pani's alleged industrial espionage, and there is no evidence that it got its hands on the designs. AMD says it is cooperating fully with the investigation.

    Intel currently dominates the world's chip market, but has been facing aggressive competition in recent years from AMD, which is also based in Silicon Valley.