Yin who was 60 at the time and thinking of retirement, was invited by a middle school classmate who was now a government official in China to come home.

[2][3][4] In 2007, Applied Materials filed a lawsuit against AMEC claiming that Yin and several other employees at the firm were all its former staff and were involved in patent problems.

AMEC launched a counterclaim against Lam Research in Shanghai alleging infringement of trade secrets related to plasma etching equipment.

It was speculated AMEC's victory would allow to clear intellectual property barriers that Lam Research enacted to prevent it entering the Taiwan Market.

The largest shareholders of AMEC include Shanghai Venture Capital Co., Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund.

On 7 October that year, the United States New Export Controls on Advanced Computing and Semiconductors to China came into effect and the first trading day afterwards, shares of AMEC dropped more than 19%.

However, despite speculations of insider trading, there was no evidence to suggest that AMEC's executives knew about the US government upcoming restriction controls when they sold their shares.