Meanwhile, Synopsys and Marvell are cooperating with partners in semiconductor circuit design training for Vietnam.

In January 2006, Intel announced a US$300 million project to build a chip test, design and assembly facility at the Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park, becoming the first American corporation to invest in the semiconductor chip industry in Vietnam.

In November 2006, Intel expanded the area of its factory from 14,000 to 46,000 square meters and increased investment to USD 1 billion. In mid-2010, the factory began producing Intel's latest mobile chipsets for laptops and mobile devices and will likely produce microprocessors in the future.

On October 29, 2012, Intel’s largest chip assembly and testing factory and also the first semiconductor chip factory in Vietnam was officially inaugurated. Assembly and testing are a particularly important final stage in the closed production process of Intel's semiconductor products. To prepare for the factory's launch, more than 150 employees of Intel Vietnam, including engineers and technicians, were sent to training courses in Malaysia, China and the US for two years.

After 17 years, the number of employees at Intel's chip factory in Vietnam has reached more than 4,000. Mr. Kim Huat Ooi, Vice President in charge of production, supply chain and operations, and General Director of Intel Products Vietnam, recently told the media that by 2021, Intel had invested USD 1.5 billion into the factory. 

The Vietnamese factory produces 13th generation Raptor Lake processors and the next generation Meteor Lake processors. Intel will continue to invest in the factory in Vietnam and will continue to focus on chip assembly and testing.

Intel is the only US firm investing in a chip factory in Vietnam. However, in the semiconductor chip industry, other American corporations and businesses have come to Vietnam, such as Synopsys, Marvell and Ampere.

Synopsys is the world’s leading provider of copyright tools for chip design and manufacturing. It is supporting the training of chip design human resources in Vietnam. On August 26, 2022, Synopsys and the HCM City High-Tech Park signed a cooperation agreement to establish the SHTP Chip Design Center (SCDC). 

The center went into operation in October 2022, providing initial services such as: licenses for Synopsys design software via virtual private network (VPN) to schools under National University Ho Chi Minh City and joining Synopsys to organize training courses on IC design.

Entering Vietnam in October 2013, Marvell Technology Group specializes in developing and producing semiconductors and related technology. In Vietnam, it invests in two areas: cloud datacenter and artificial intelligence (AI). Marvell Vietnam has two offices in HCM City, employing 300 engineers.

On May 16, 2023, Marvell established its Microchip Design Center in Ho Chi Minh City. Dr. Loi Nguyen, Senior Vice President of Marvell, said the center will be a place to research and develop the most advanced IC technologies, as well as an ideal workplace for Vietnamese engineers in the IC and semiconductor fields.

Ampere Computing Vietnam was established in 2008, operating in the field of edge computing and cloud computing. It currently focuses on developing new semiconductor designs and building the first software ecosystem for Arm-based server processors.

Recently, at the launch of the Electronics and Semiconductor Circuit (ESC) Training Center in the Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park, Mr. Trinh Thanh Lam, Synopsys Sales Director for South Asia, said that Vietnam does well in the field of chip design and has abundant human resources to develop the industry. Many chip companies in the US, Germany, Japan, Korea and Taiwan (China) have invested in Vietnam.

For IC design, Vietnam has an estimated workforce of about 5,000 engineers who can undertake work in all aspects of the design stage. The semiconductor human resources are mostly concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City (85%), followed by Hanoi (8%) and Da Nang (7%).

Vietnamese circuit design engineers mainly work at 30 foreign companies, from Japan, USA, China, and Korea. As for domestic enterprises, there are two big names, Viettel High Technology Industry Corporation (VHT) and FPT Semiconductor Joint Stock Company, with about 200 employees.

Le My