A jury for the US District Court for the Northern District of California awarded Comet Technologies $40 million in damages on Wednesday, finding that a rival company had misappropriated trade secrets on equipment used in the manufacturing of semiconductor chips.

That sum was split evenly between $20 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages, according to court filings. Comet had sought compensatory damages of $32.5 million and punitive damages of up to double that amount from rival XP Power. Jurors awarded compensatory damages on two of the four trade secrets.

The court documents announcing the damages were filed a few days following the end of the trial, which began on March 14 and lasted for six days. Comet originally filed the case in September 2020, claiming that XP Power had stolen trade secrets related to technology like radio frequency generators and matching networks, which Comet sells to customers in the semiconductor industry. The complaint alleged that XP Power began working on similar technology in 2017, hiring away key personnel from Comet who had access to the company’s trade secrets.

Comet had originally filed suit against the employees in 2018, but dropped the suit without prejudice and refiled the case with only XP Power as a defendant.