Comments by "tooltalk" (@tooltalk) on "How Vietnam Became A Manufacturing Powerhouse" video.

@alice_agogo : Japan's semi industry has been in a steady decline for much of the past 20 years -- they really just have Kioxia and not much else. The US only accounts for 12% of all chips produced globally -- vs. 8% for China. Most chips these days are made in Taiwan (logic) and South Korea (memory).
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@markn6941 : Samsung is one of the largest chip companies in the world, but there is no high-tech, high-value semi manufacturing in Vietnam. Vietnam for now is mostly for low-tech supply-chain -- ie, assembly/packaging. The semi manufacturing is very capital-intensive, not necessarily resource intensive -- ie, sillicon is one of the most abundant elements in this planet and wafer are often built whereas chips are produced and most electrochemicals come from Japan -- and relies on extensive upstream supply-chain (ie, advanced toolings/equipments) from all over the world.
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@HaTran-32nhukm : I heard similar stories from small foreign businesses in Vietnam. They complain about male employees not showing up for work; or disappearing for good without any notice.
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@theforrestbelow : the Korean companies's investment in Vietnam started much earlier as indicated in the video. Samsung started pulling out of China in early 2010's and closed the last Chinese smartphone factory in 2019. TSMC has no investment in Vietnam.
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@markn6941 >> The Vietnamese are taking a different routes then China on how to acquires high-tech know how. << Vietnam has Intel's assembly/packaging/testing facility which is not quite same as "fabs." I'd say Vietnam is where China was 5-7 years ago. China's chip industry likewise mostly dominates the assembly/packaging/testing part of the chip supply and lacks more advanced design / equipment / tooling / manufacturing associated with high-tech chip manufacturing. China has some manufacturing, but they are mostly a decade or older processing nodes making chips for toaster and refrigerators, etc.. China's SMIC is mass-producing 14nm, but they really don't have any ability to go beyond that without equipments from the West or without any indigenous know-how -- there is hardly any local chip know-how in China and much of what they now have is made possible by Taiwanese expats (ie, TSMC engineers). I think the entry of barrier to the chip industry was a lot lower back in the 70's and 80's, which was why Japan was able to accel so fast. And in those days, you did everything from design to manufacturing to packaging -- these days everything has become so specialized. I guess there is enough room for Vietnam to start with packaging; then move up the chain (or has already started), but it's going to take significantly longer, if at all, to move up the chain.
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