HO CHI MINH CITY — Amkor of the U.S. debuted a $1.6 billion chip factory in Vietnam for packaging and testing on Wednesday, the latest in a string of foreign semiconductor investments in the Southeast Asian country.
The Nasdaq-listed company said the plant will use its most advanced technology and focus on memory, design and electrical testing services for automotive, communications and advanced computing clients.
Amkor is a market leader for systems-in-package (SiP) technology, in which several chips are placed in a single carrier package, though Luxshare and Goertek across the border in China are catching up. It said SiP will be a priority in the factory, in Bac Ninh, a Vietnamese province that Samsung has turned into an electronics epicenter since arriving more than a decade ago.
U.S. President Joe Biden hailed Amkor and other chip players expanding in Vietnam when he visited the country in September. The Arizona-based company made its launch just over a week after Hana Micron of South Korea told Nikkei Asia its $1 billion chip packaging and memory factory is getting underway next door in Bac Giang province. U.S. company Marvell is slated to open a chip design center in Ho Chi Minh City but told Nikkei it doesn’t “have the details for that yet.”
These investments are helping the U.S. and others to diversify tech manufacturing locations to guard against geopolitical and economic disruption, though increased security generally means higher costs.
“This state-of-the-art factory in Vietnam will help Amkor provide an unrivaled geographic footprint to our customers, supporting global but also enabling regional supply chains,” Amkor President Giel Rutten said. “It’s the kind of secure and reliable supply chain our customers need.”
Vietnam has sought to woo such investors. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh last month visited the U.S., where he hobnobbed with Nvidia’s leather-clad CEO Jensen Huang and had lunch with leaders of Cadence Design Systems and Intel, though the latter chose nearby Malaysia for a major recent expansion. Meanwhile, Vietnam estimates it needs 50,000 new people trained for the semiconductor sector.
Amkor began as a South Korean company in 1968 before expanding to America — its name combines America and Korea — as well as expanding into audio and other electronics. A factory under the affiliate Anam company exports sound systems for LG and Yamaha out of Ha Nam province, two hours south of the chip plant.