Intel Is Planning Vietnamese Chip Plant, Says ReportIntel Is Planning Vietnamese Chip Plant, Says Report

LONDON — Intel Corp. has applied for planning permission to build a chip plant close to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, according to an Associated Press report, which referenced a government official as its source.

The plant is expected to cost $605 million, the report said. The report did not make clear whether the plant would include a wafer fab or would be used for packaging.

This sum is relatively low for a wafer fab and as the cost of wafer fabs — between $3 billion for a state of the art fab to $5 billion to $10 billion for some "megafabs" under discussion — is mainly due to the cost of equipment it would seem that the Vietnamese plant is unlikely to be constructed as a full-blown wafer fab. It is possibly that it could operate as a backend facility working at non-critical dimensions making miulti-chip modules or packaging die.

The report quoted Vietnam’s Youth newspaper as saying the plant would "produce microchips and computer parts," would be built on 46.7 hectare (115 acres) lot of land in an industrial park in southern commercial center of Ho Chi Minh City and would employ 2,000 people.

No timetable for construction of the plant was reported.

“We received the application Wednesday and are considering it,” the report quoted an official at the Ministry of Planning and Investment's Foreign Investment Department as saying. The project would be considered by multiple government ministries and the prime minister would have the final decision, the report said. A license could be issued within 45 days the report quoted the official as saying.