Vietnam information ministry, Belgian agency to cooperate in chip production

Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications and Belgium’s Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) will cooperate in training personnel for chip design and production, heard a workshop.

At the workshop in Hanoi Wednesday, Nguyen Thien Nghia from the Vietnamese ministry said international cooperation is essential in the chip industry, and Vietnam is joining this cooperation.

He said Vietnam is set to participate in tasks like testing, packaging, and providing chip design services for global giants, per the IMEC’s recommendations. After that, Vietnam will consider advanced tasks of production or further testing and packaging.

Lode Lauwers, IMEC senior vice president, business development and sales, said the IMEC is willing to cooperate in training workers in the chip design sector, in order to build a strong workforce in Vietnam. He proposed the two sides collaborate in exchanging students and building a research & development center for training Vietnamese learners.

Besides, Lauwers shared experiences in the chip industry with Vietnamese businesses, including FPT and Viettel, and some Vietnamese universities.

Founded in 1984, IMEC is a leading research hub for the semiconductor industry with over 5,500 experts from over 96 countries. Its major partners include Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek, TSMC, UMC, Samsung, and others.

Vietnam strives to become a part of the global supply chain in the semiconductor sector in various tasks like designing, developing, and integrating into hardware, said Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Huy Dung.

Revenue from information and communications services in Vietnam reached $47.6 billion in the first four months of 2023, according to the ministry. In the information and communications technology sector, Vietnam has accounted for more than 10% of U.S. chip imports for seven straight months until now. It ranked third in Asia in terms of revenue from exporting chips to the U.S., following Malaysia and Taiwan. Vietnam exported chips worth $562.5 million to America in February.

Vietnam has been attracting foreign investments in chip design and production. At the inauguration of Samsung's $220-million research and development center in Hanoi on December 23 last year, PM Pham Minh Chinh urged the electronics giant to start producing chips in Vietnam from July 2023.

In October 2022, Saigon Hi-Tech Park in Ho Chi Minh City debuted a chip design center to cash in on demand for semiconductors. The center, including a chip design lab, is a key step in developing the semiconductor industry in the country, the SHTP management board said.

In August 2022, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Pham Duc Long told Oh Hyung Kwon, Qualcomm senior vice president and president of Asia-Pacific, that Vietnam was willing to create the best conditions for the U.S. wireless technology giant to build chip research, development and testing facilities in the country.

Intel has received an investment certificate for $1.2 billion to manufacture chips in HCMC. The HCMC unit is Intel’s third chip factory in the world, besides those in Scotland and Israel, and is set to supply 20% of the global demand for chips, according to Vietnam’s Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises chairman Prof. Nguyen Mai.

U.S.-based Amkor Technology Inc., a global semiconductor product packaging and test services provider, expects its Vietnam mega facility to begin first-phase manufacturing in the fourth quarter of this year.