The potential transfer, which one supply stated could possibly be price about $1 billion, would sign a rising function for Vietnam within the international provide chain for semiconductors, as corporations push to chop reliance on China and Taiwan due to political dangers and commerce stress with the United States.
One of the sources stated the funding was prone to be made “over the future years” and could possibly be even larger than $1 billion, whereas the second individual stated Intel was additionally weighing different funding in Singapore and Malaysia, which can be most popular to Vietnam.
Both sources sought anonymity because the plan was not but public.
Asked concerning the potential funding plan, Intel advised Reuters, “Vietnam is an important part of our global manufacturing network, but we have not announced any new investments.”
Officials of Vietnam’s funding and planning ministry and the provincial authorities of Ho Chi Minh City, the place Intel has an present plant, weren’t instantly out there for a remark.
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An announcement on the Vietnam authorities’s official portal was amended on Wednesday to take away a reference to an effort by Ho Chi Minh City to draw $3.3 billion in further funding from Intel. The chip packaging and testing manufacturing unit in Vietnam’s southern industrial hub is Intel’s largest worldwide. The firm is estimated to have invested about $1.5 billion in it to this point.
The U.S. chip large already has additional land the place its plant is predicated and an growth in Vietnam would assist it higher handle provide disruptions stemming from relying closely on a single nation or a plant, one of many sources advised Reuters, citing inside talks.
One of the sources stated Intel was pondering the Vietnam funding whereas ensuring an extra growth overseas wouldn’t be seen as a hostile transfer by Washington, which is pushing to spice up manufacturing of chips at residence.
Aggressive push
Vietnam is aggressively pushing to increase its chipmaking business, courting overseas corporations in all of the three major segments of assembling, testing and packaging; manufacturing with fabs; and designing, officers stated.
A U.S. business govt advised Reuters the nation had massive potential to develop rapidly within the space of chip assembling and designing, whereas he noticed growing chip-manufacturing fabs as a distant risk, excluding cheaper-to-build fabs for much less refined, larger chips which are nonetheless in excessive demand, akin to people who go into vehicles.
The govt stated Vietnam’s largest alternative was within the chip assembling sector to fulfill business demand to cut back “over-concentration” of manufacturing capability in China and Taiwan, which collectively account for 60% of world capability in that section.
Designing chips requires much less capital and extra extremely expert employees, and Vietnam was making inroads there too, the chief stated, with U.S large Synopsys having operations there and with native corporations increasing quick, together with FPT and state-owned Viettel.
Chips and electronics large Samsung opened a analysis facility in Hanoi late final yr and has a semiconductors packaging plant within the nation.
Following a worldwide scarcity of semiconductors within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Intel introduced a plan in late 2021 to speculate greater than $7 billion to construct a brand new chip packaging and testing manufacturing unit in Malaysia.
That facility is anticipated to start manufacturing in 2024. Intel additionally has testing and packaging amenities in China and the United States.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com