Samsung Plans $1.5bn Vietnam Chip Testing Plant

Samsung Electronics plans to invest around $1.5bn in Vietnam to build a new semiconductor testing plant, according to documents seen by Reuters.

The facility is to be built in an industrial park about 60 km north of Hanoi and is expected to begin operations in November 2027. It would be Samsung’s first chip testing plant in Vietnam.

Amid a growing shortage of memory chips, manufacturers have recently been shifting much of their capacity towards production linked to artificial intelligence.

The new plant is expected to focus mainly on older generations of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and NAND flash memory chips. Under the proposal, it would have annual capacity of more than 153 billion gigabits of DRAM chips and more than 255 billion gigabits of NAND memory. Samsung has not officially commented on the details.

The documents also indicate that the South Korean company is considering a further expansion of up to $2.5bn through a possible second factory. Hundreds of employees have been working on the project since April, and extensive earthmoving work has been carried out at the site.

Vietnam has emerged as a major center for the semiconductor industry in recent years, particularly in chip assembly, packaging and testing. Intel, Amkor and Hana Micron operate in the country. Samsung is also Vietnam’s largest foreign investor, having already invested more than $23bn there, mainly in smartphone and electronics production.

(reuters, max)