Vietnam turns chip sector magnet with affordable and quality talent pool

Alchip Technologies, a leading Taiwanese provider of AI chip design services, is expanding its R&D team into the Vietnamese market where it is planning to open its first office this year. The company is likely to increase its headcount to up to 100 engineering staff over two to three years, Daniel Wang, chief financial officer of Alchip Technologies, said.

"After evaluating several Asian destinations for R&D team expansion, we realized that attracting talent in established tech economies like Japan might be challenging for Alchip's size and scale, though we are also expanding there," according to Johnny Shen, president & CEO of Alchip Technologies.

"Vietnam's promising pool of engineering talent and their strong work ethic make it a highly attractive option for us. We've been impressed by the dedication and commitment of Vietnamese engineers, who are eager to learn and contribute," he added.

Also venturing into the Vietnamese market in search of young engineers are GUC and Faraday Technology, affiliate chip design service providers for TSMC and UMC.

Likewise, several RoK companies are turning to the nation, partly to offset a brain drain in their home market. The RoK's BOS Semiconductors entered Ho Chi Minh City in 2022 to set up a support team. But as executives jetted between both nations to compare the two sets of staff, the quality of Vietnamese engineering convinced them to upgrade the team.

"They realised this could be a main R&D centre," Lim Hyung Jun, country manager of BOS Semiconductors, said in an interview. "That was really unexpected," he noted.

BOS designs AI chips, including for autonomous driving, for automotive clients like Hyundai. Lim said reaching one goal, that of having a system on a chip (SoC) designed in Vietnam, would serve to demonstrate local ingenuity.

Meanwhile, Marvell Technology Inc of the US describes Vietnam as a "strategic location for the development of engineering talent".

Industry veteran Le Quang Dam helped to build the US company's first office in the country. Growing from only a few dozen engineers in the first few years, his team now numbers more than 400, up from 300 last year.

"Vietnam will become Marvell's third-largest chip design hub, just after its headquarters in the US and India," Dam, general manager of Marvell Vietnam, told Nikkei Asia.

Marvell aims to increase its local headcount to about 500 by 2026. The hiring plan includes not only staff for the offices in Ho Chi Minh City, but also a new location in Da Nang in central Vietnam.