China's SMIC Shipping 7nm Chips, Reportedly Copied TSMC's Tech

Interesting, wonder what the backstory is here. Does China have spies in TSMC that then leaked the fab designs to SMIC?

> Taiwan-based TSMC has sued SMIC twice (in 2002 and 2006) for copying its process technology

What does that even mean? they copied a patent? no, then what have they copied?

Does that mean TSMC are reverse engineering/spying on their fabs to know what their process technology is? then TSMC should also be sued for spying