Man pleads guilty in computer crime

SAN FRANCISCO -- A former Intel Corp. employee pleaded guilty to copying vital trade secret information about a new computer chip that the company developed.

Say Lye Ow entered his plea Friday under the federal Economic Espionage Act for his role in illegally copying trade secret information.

Ow, 31, of Mountain View, copied computer files in 1998 about the design and testing of Intel's Merced microprocessor, now known as the Itanium processor, according to prosecutors. Merced was developed jointly by Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co. and was released to the market earlier this year.

Ow faces 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.