Samsung Electronics (005930) will build a semiconductor test fab in Vietnam, targeting the start of operations in the second half of next year. The move is seen as a strategy to stabilize its global supply chain by building final memory chip inspection lines outside South Korea, where they are currently concentrated. Samsung is turning Vietnam, where it has built up manufacturing and logistics infrastructure and a skilled workforce through smartphone production, into a new hub for back-end chip operations.
According to industry sources on the 5th, Samsung Electronics will build two memory test fabs at the Yen Binh Industrial Park in Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam, and will bring the first-floor production line (V1) of the first plant online in the fourth quarter of next year. The company submitted a plan to the Thai Nguyen provincial government to start up the second-floor line (V2) of the first plant in the first quarter of 2028 and to begin construction of a second plant that same year. The plan specifies an investment of about 2 trillion won in the first plant, with total investment through the second plant reaching 105.7944 trillion dong (about 5.48 trillion won).
The Vietnam fab will handle final inspection of DRAM and NAND flash products before shipment. Memory chips that have completed packaging at the Cheonan campus in South Korea will be brought to Vietnam, where their electrical performance will be checked to confirm they read and write data correctly and whether they operate normally under high temperatures and high voltage, screening out defective units. The arrangement extends overseas the memory test process that has until now been carried out at the Cheonan and Onyang campuses.
Samsung Electronics aims to diversify the bases from which it ships and exports finished products, reducing the risk that the entire supply chain is disrupted if logistics are hampered by changes in national trade policies or geopolitical conflict. Thai Nguyen, where the chip fab will be located, has hosted Samsung Electronics' smartphone manufacturing unit (SEVT) for more than a decade, giving it stable air and land logistics networks. Samsung Electro-Mechanics (009150) also decided last month to invest 2.51 trillion won to expand a plant in the same area producing chip components for artificial intelligence servers.
The company is also putting effort into training staff to operate its first chip fab in Vietnam. Samsung Electronics has dispatched about 100 Vietnamese engineers to its Cheonan and Onyang campuses for hands-on training. Through Samsung's new engineer development program (SEED), it is passing on expertise in memory test processes, equipment operation and quality control.
