INTEL TO BUILD CHIP PLANT IN VIETNAM
SANTA CLARA - 03/04/06 - The Intel Corp. has unveiled plans to build a $300 million semiconductor assembly plant and testing facility in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The company's chairman and former CEO Craig Barrett  unveiled the plans at a ceremony in the Vietnamese capital where he formally accepted the business license from the Vietnamese government.
Construction on the facility will start "immediately" and the facility will employ about 1,200 workers.
The investment is part of a $6 billion planned expansion of Intel's chip making capacity this year.
Assembly plants package silicon to form actual chips after they have been etched out at a "fab" - a facility that produces silicon wafers.
While all Intel's fabs are located in the US, Ireland, and Israel, its assembly plants are found in low-wage countries such as China, Costa Rica, and Malaysia.
Vietnamese officials disclosed recently that the nation had approved a license allowing Intel to build a $300 million plant. The company declined to comment on the report at the time and would not confirm whether it planned to use the license.
The investment is politically and historically significant because it represents the first investment by a semiconductor manufacturer since the US lifted its trade embargo against Vietnam in 1995.
The deal "also demonstrates the progress that the nation has made in creating a high tech workforce," said an official statement issued by the government with officials stating that they expect the Intel investment to work as "a seal of approval that will attract other foreign investors."
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