Samsung Electronics is building a semiconductor testing facility in Vietnam at a cost of 39 trillion dong ($1.5 billion), according to a proposal document the company sent to local authorities in April and reviewed by Reuters.
The plant, being built north of Hanoi, would test DRAM and NAND memory chips and is scheduled to open in late 2027
JUNG YEON-JE / Getty Images
Samsung Electronics is building a semiconductor testing facility in Vietnam at a cost of 39 trillion dong ($1.5 billion), according to a proposal document the company sent to local authorities in April and reviewed by Reuters.
Situated within a Thai Nguyen province industrial park roughly 60 kilometers outside Hanoi, the facility is expected to come online in November 2027, Reuters reported. No Samsung chip testing operation currently exists in the country. Workers are already breaking ground on the project, which sits alongside a sprawling Samsung campus dedicated to smartphone and tablet manufacturing.
Rather than cutting-edge AI chips, the factory's focus will be on legacy DRAM and NAND memory, Reuters reported. On an annual basis, the plant is projected to handle 153.3 billion gigabits of DRAM and 255.6 billion gigabits of NAND output, according to the proposal document. The squeeze on conventional memory supplies has intensified because leading chipmakers have redirected much of their manufacturing bandwidth toward AI-oriented products, Reuters noted.
Approval from Vietnamese authorities came through in March. The proposal document also revealed that any profits generated — phrased as "if any" — could be channeled back into the venture, with up to roughly $2.5 billion earmarked for a possible follow-on factory, Reuters reported. Questions remain about the status of environmental permitting; it is common practice among businesses operating in Vietnam to break ground before regulators have issued all necessary approvals, Reuters noted.
A source familiar with the project, who asked not to be named, told Reuters that upward of 200 Samsung engineers and employees have been present at the location since at least April. During a site visit this week, Reuters journalists could see earthmoving equipment and crews at work, and a guard on duty acknowledged the compound was destined to become a Samsung chip facility. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
No other foreign company has poured as much money into Vietnam as Samsung, whose cumulative investment there stretches to over $23 billion across multiple sites built up over many years, Reuters noted. The country has emerged as a significant hub for the back-end portion of the global chip industry, with multinationals such as Intel $INTC, Amkor Technology, and Hana Micron $MU all running assembly, packaging, or testing operations there.
Before chips leave the factory for customers, they go through testing — the last stage of chipmaking — where assembled and packaged semiconductors are screened for flaws, Reuters explained. With this facility, Samsung deepens its presence in the back-end layers of the chip supply chain, a segment that demands more manual labor than the fabrication end of the industry.
Samsung has been navigating significant pressures across its chip business. The company recently reached a tentative agreement with its labor union on a 10-year bonus program tied to operating profit, ending a standoff that had threatened to disrupt chip production.
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