US semiconductor firm Marvell to open new facility in Vietnam

U.S. semiconductor giant Marvell Technology plans to open a new facility in Vietnam by end-2024, CEO and chairman Matt Murphy said Monday.

The executive made the statement at the U.S.-Vietnam Innovation and Investment Summit, a roundtable discussion chaired by U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken and Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung.

The summit was attended by visiting U.S. President Joe Biden and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

Murphy’s statement reaffirmed the company’s plan, unveiled in May, that it would expand its physical footprint in Vietnam. Accordingly, Marvell will establish a world-class design center in Ho Chi Minh City and develop the Marvell Excellence Scholarship Program – Vietnam to support talents in engineering and computer science.

The semiconductor giant said it would strive to enlarge its Vietnamese workforce by 50% in the next three years, and in the process, double the funding for its scholarship program.

"Engineering talent is one of the major challenges facing the industry," Murphy said.

“To succeed, we need to invest worldwide. Vietnam is growing as a center of semiconductor innovation. With our design center and scholarship program, we are committed to growing high-value semiconductor jobs in the country that will further help Marvell pursue its mission of optimizing the world's data infrastructure," he added.

Vietnam is facing a critical shortage of skilled engineers for the semiconductor industry. Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said September 6 that less than 20% of Vietnam’s yearly need for 20,000 semiconductor engineers was being met.

Several U.S. chip companies have announced plans to invest or expand operations in Vietnam. Among them, Arizona-based Amkor Technology will start operations of a $1.6-billion factory in the northern province of Bac Ninh next month.

On September 6, the Saigon Hi-tech Park (SHTP) in HCMC inaugurated its Electronics and Semiconductor Center (ESC) - a merger of the SHTP Chip Design Center (SCDC) and the International Electronics Training Center (IETC), both located in SHTP. The SCDC is a collaboration between SHTP and the U.S.-based chip software firm Synopsys; while the IETC is a cooperation project between the SHTP training center and HCMC-based electronics manufacturing services (EMS) firm Sun Electronics JSC.