Judge sentences electrical engineer that stole military chip tech for China An electrical engineer and former adjunct professor at UCLA was sentenced to five years after being found guilty of stealing military chip technology from the U.S. and giving it to Chinese companies. A federal judge sentenced Yi-Chi Shih to 63 months in prison because he took semiconductor chips with military applications to China without proper authorization. (Image by marijana1 from Pixabay via Courthouse News) (CN) — A federal judge sentenced a Chinese electrical engineer to five years in prison for illegally exporting military technology from the United States to China.