More than two decades of Vietnamese learning to make chips

"Recruiting semiconductor design engineers" - a matchbox-sized advertisement in the middle of a daily newspaper immediately caught the attention of young engineer Tran Dac Khoa. Below the tiny headline was a brief introduction about Renesas - a Japanese company in the world's top 10 in the field of semiconductor chips.

It was October 2004 when Renesas announced the opening of an office in Ho Chi Minh City. At that time, the number of world-class technology corporations present in Vietnam could be counted on the fingers of one hand. "It was a dream job for technical people like me," said Mr. Tran Dac Khoa. In the early 2000s, semiconductors were an emerging high-tech industry in Vietnam. Industry insiders like Mr. Khoa understood the "power" of this super-small silicon plate. Each nanometer-sized transistor - less than one thousandth of a hair, in the chip is like a "switch" that turns on and off the electric current of all electronic devices - whether small like phones, computers, or large like refrigerators, cars... As the most important component in all products, the semiconductor industry has become the backbone for the development of the technology era. After Renesas, the heat of the industry increased when Intel - the world's largest chip manufacturing corporation by revenue - announced the opening of a $1 billion packaging and testing factory in Ho Chi Minh City in 2006. The appearance of two leading enterprises was considered a milestone bringing Vietnam back to the global chip industry "playground" after Z181, the first semiconductor factory, stopped production in the early 1990s. Many foreign enterprises followed suit to open offices in Vietnam, coordinating with schools to train personnel. In the country, the first Microchip Design Research Center (microchip - semiconductor chip containing electronic circuit) was also established at Ho Chi Minh City National University in 2005. "The atmosphere in the industry at that time was as exciting as it is today," recalled Mr. Nguyen Thanh Yen, 40 years old, Technical Director of CoAsia Semi and co-founder of the Vietnam Microchip Community. The development process of Vietnam's semiconductor industry

After nearly 20 years, Vietnam is preparing for a new wave of semiconductor investment by establishing a comprehensive strategic partnership with the US - the world's leading country in high technology. In the context that many Asian countries are also determined to master this "backbone" technology, Vietnam needs at least 50,000 engineers by 2030, 10 times the current number, to have a place on the world semiconductor map, according to calculations by the Ministry of Information and Communications .

The first chip samples

Tran Dac Khoa passed three rounds of selection with a ratio of one to 10. He and the first 19 Vietnamese engineers of Renesas had to spend more than three months taking a basic training course from Japanese experts, before starting the actual project. And it took another half a decade for the Vietnamese engineering team at Renesas to fully participate in the design steps of a complete chip to read optical drives. In 2012, his team was first assigned to carry out the entire design stage of the company's most important product: automotive chips. "That was a glorious milestone for us," Mr. Khoa recalled.

An engineer works at the semiconductor chip design company Renesas in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Quynh Tran

Joining the chip design industry during the boom period like Mr. Khoa, engineer Nguyen Thanh Yen has not forgotten his failure on the first try. In 2004, when he was about to graduate, Mr. Yen worked at the chip design company Active-Semi. After more than a year, including the apprenticeship, the first chip he participated in was produced, but it did not work. The company lost 200,000 USD (nearly 5 billion VND), and the implementation team spent another six months finding out the reason for the failure. They started over. 9 months later, the second chip was successfully produced, bringing in large sales, making up for the previous project. "Making chips is a painful process. We only breathed a sigh of relief when the child was born, without any errors," he recalled of the time when he first entered this field. Project life cycles are measured in years, and a small mistake can destroy the achievements of a team of hundreds of people, which is why semiconductor design companies always value the practical experience of engineers, according to Mr. Yen. But it is not easy to hunt for such veterans. As one of the Vietnamese engineers holding a key management position at Renesas Vietnam, Mr. Khoa has had a headache for many months because he has not found enough experienced personnel to supplement next year's big project, even though Ho Chi Minh City is where an estimated 75% of the country's microchip engineers are concentrated. "Fresh graduates are not capable of making high-level chips. And there are not many skilled people available, so companies have to compete with each other to attract them," he explained.

20 years of slow growth

Over 10 years of observing the microchip community, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Yen noticed that most graduates spend an additional 3-6 months of basic training at the company. After that, they start with simulation work and feature testing. After 2-3 years in this position, with 1-1 support from seniors, new employees can participate in the main stage of chip design. "To master a step in microchip design, young people have to spend several years. Patience is a must if they want to pursue this industry," the expert with 20 years of experience concluded. For comparison, software programmers after two years can hold a management position with a higher salary than microchip engineers with the same starting point. Therefore, the semiconductor industry does not attract as many students as the information technology sector. From the perspective of a trainer, Professor Tran Xuan Tu, Director of the Institute of Information Technology at Hanoi National University, said that in the past, microchips were not a "hot" field chosen by students when entering university. According to preliminary statistics, out of 100 students graduating from the electronics and telecommunications major at Hanoi National University, only 10-15 people chose to study microchip design. The two most important reasons are the high requirements of this industry and the treatment in the labor market in the previous period was not attractive enough. In addition, Professor Tu assessed that over the years, the training of human resources for microchip design and semiconductor technology has largely been based on the self-efforts of each unit and individual, without a long-term overall strategy of national stature. One of the obvious factors is the lack of investment in facilities in training this industry. Human resources in Vietnam's semiconductor industry over the years

After 20 years since the modern microchip design industry was formed, investing in laboratories, equipment, and training tools is still a luxury for many establishments. The cost of purchasing copyrights for popular chip design software in the world alone is up to several hundred thousand, even millions of USD a year - a level that universities find difficult to reach. Without access to modern tools, graduates find it difficult to immediately meet the needs of businesses. Investors see that human resources are not ready, but do not want to choose Vietnam. Mr. Tu recalls that 10 years ago, many large chip companies in the world also came to Hanoi to survey. However, in the end, they decided not to open a company because they assessed that human resources were not ready. "Without an output market, of course universities do not dare to invest in large-scale training. This is a chicken-egg problem for many years," said Professor Tu. As a result, the scale of Vietnam's semiconductor engineering team is developing slowly.

A chip model designed by Ho Chi Minh City National University, displayed at an innovation event in Hoa Lac in October 2023. Photo: Luu Quy

Faced with that reality, pioneering businesses must find their own solutions if they want to expand. From the early days in Vietnam until now, Renesas has cooperated with many universities, supported additional training in microchip design, and recruited students right from the graduation preparation stage. Currently, with more than 1,000 engineers, Vietnam is the largest design center of this group outside of Japan. "We did not make a mistake with our choice 20 years ago," said Dr. Noriaki Sakamoto, General Director of Renesas Vietnam. He said that at that time, the number of engineers and universities training in semiconductors was very small, but Renesas saw the potential of young Vietnamese personnel - hard-working, diligent, willing to learn and quickly absorb new technology. The model of cooperation between schools and businesses, focusing on short training courses, is increasingly popular in the semiconductor field. But to develop the industry fundamentally and sustainably, such programs are not enough for Vietnam, according to Professor Dang Luong Mo - special advisor to the Microchip Design Research Center (ICDREC). Design is considered the stage that creates the highest added value, accounting for about 50-60% of the entire chip production chain, while manufacturing is 30-40%, while packaging contributes the smallest, less than 10%. Design, with low investment capital but high value, is therefore a priority area for Vietnam. However, Professor Mo said that currently, Vietnam actually only accounts for a small part of the value in chip design. The root of semiconductors is the overall architecture research and development (R&D). Considered the foundation of a house, this is the foundation for engineers to rely on, designing complete chips according to customer requirements. "If we only focus on the surface design stages without going into the core, we won't make much money," he said. But to have people in the position of chief architect or general engineer, Vietnam must train experts who are capable of in-depth research at the postgraduate level. Human resources training for Vietnam's semiconductor industry

Sharing the same view, Mr. Sakamoto assessed that Vietnam has a potential team of young engineers, but there are still too few high-level research experts in design. In Japan, engineers who want to work in Renesas' chip design department must have a master's degree or higher. In Vietnam, the number of postgraduate staff working at the company accounts for just over 10%. Mr. Trinh Khac Hue, Director of the Vietnam branch of the international semiconductor company Qorvo, also commented that most domestic engineers are still performing processing steps. "Vietnam especially lacks general engineers - people who fully master the design technology to develop new chips," Mr. Hue stated at a technology business development forum in December 2023. After two decades, Vietnam once again has the opportunity to accelerate in the race. During diplomatic visits in 2023, the US and Japan both raised the issue of cooperation and support for Vietnam in semiconductor chip production. In just the first half of December 2023, John Neffeur, President of the US Semiconductor Industry Association, and then Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia - the world's largest chip company by market capitalization, visited Hanoi with the same assessment of Vietnam's potential. "Recently, when the chip industry is facing a global labor shortage, many businesses are returning to Vietnam," said Associate Professor Tran Xuan Tu.

The race to make chips

Not only Vietnam, many countries in Southeast Asia such as Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines also focus on developing semiconductors - the "hottest" industry in the world today. "To surpass them, Vietnam must find a way to go faster," said Professor Dang Luong Mo, emphasizing the fact that the domestic university rankings are still significantly lower than many ASEAN countries. To achieve the plan of 50,000 semiconductor engineers, universities must increase their staff size 10 times compared to the total achievements of the past 20 years (more than 5,000 people). This is a challenging but feasible number, according to experts and managers. According to Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son, Vietnam currently has 35 universities training in majors related to semiconductors. Next year, schools plan to enroll over 1,000 students in chip design alone, and about 7,000 in related majors. This figure is estimated to increase by 20-30% each year.

Some chip products designed by Qorvo Vietnam engineers were displayed at the Vietnam International Innovation Exhibition in October 2023 in Hoa Lac. Photo: Luu Quy

From practical experience, Professor Tran Xuan Tu said that students graduating from electronics, computer engineering, physics, and mathematics are fully capable of working in the field of microchip design and semiconductor technology, if they supplement some knowledge in 3-6 months. This is consistent with the orientation of training additional skills on-site to convert 20,000-30,000 IT and telecommunications engineers to the semiconductor field in the draft strategy for developing Vietnam's microchip industry. Training must therefore be linked to the actual needs of businesses, avoiding the risk of both surplus and shortage. For example, in chip design, each position has its own requirements. Stages focusing on a number of specific modules, requiring proficient use of specialized software skills, can be trained quickly. However, to nurture a general engineer with a good understanding of system architecture requires a long and complicated process. According to this expert, in the world, there are few universities that open a separate major in microchips. Instead, he suggested that the State assign a focal unit to preside over and coordinate technical schools nationwide in training semiconductor microchips. Each facility will focus on a number of stages that are suitable to its existing advantages. In addition, the focal school will establish a modern center with the latest equipment and tools so that other facilities can use them together, saving costs. "Investment in training in the semiconductor industry is extremely expensive and complicated, especially in the manufacturing stage. Therefore, we should not invest widely, each school should do it in its own way," he suggested. From the business side, Dr. Noriaki Sakamoto said that if the Government has more incentive mechanisms such as financial support, the cooperation between businesses and schools will be stronger. "Vietnam has many good students who are proficient in semiconductor design, we also benefit because we will save time and training costs when recruiting," said Mr. Sakamoto. As Vietnam moves up the semiconductor supply chain map, the same design solution providers that once offered millions of dollars in licensing fees are now willing to support training facilities with free access. According to experts, this is how these companies are getting ahead of the future: the more students are familiar with their software, the more businesses in Vietnam will prioritize using this product. Vietnam in the semiconductor industry value chain

Semiconductors are an increasingly complex technology industry. Engineers with nearly 20 years of experience like Mr. Khoa therefore continue to learn to be ready for projects with exponentially increasing difficulty. Along with the process of improving chip performance, most of Renesas's new technology application products have the participation of Vietnamese engineers. But not only stopping at receiving projects assigned by the group, Mr. Khoa said that the Vietnamese team also proactively contributes their own solutions to improve the process. The most recent is the initiative to apply artificial intelligence to help shorten the time to test features in the design process by 30%. This improvement has been introduced by the parent company to other design centers around the world. Nearly twenty years of conquering many milestones from zero helps Mr. Khoa and his colleagues dare to nurture bigger and bigger dreams. "In the next few years, I believe there will be Vietnamese engineers participating in developing the core part of the overall architecture. If we can do it, we will completely master chip design technology," Mr. Khoa hopes. Content: Viet Duc - Luu Quy Graphics: Dang Hieu - Khanh Hoang

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