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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.
