Samsung Affiliates Split $9.15 Billion Chip Expansion Between Korea and Vietnam

Samsung affiliates are preparing 12.26 trillion won ($9.15 billion) in semiconductor-related investment across South Korea and Vietnam, pairing a major expansion of overseas production capacity with additional spending on higher-value operations at home.

Samsung Electronics plans to invest 105.79 trillion Vietnamese dong, equivalent to about $4.09 billion, in memory-chip testing facilities at Yen Binh Industrial Park in Thai Nguyen, northern Vietnam. The first line is scheduled to begin operating in the fourth quarter of 2027, followed by another line in 2028.

The Vietnamese facilities are designed to conduct final testing of DRAM and NAND flash chips that have been packaged at Samsung’s Cheonan plant in South Korea. They will not fabricate wafers. The structure therefore expands Samsung’s overseas testing capacity rather than transferring its chip-fabrication process abroad.

The arrangement could allow the company’s Korean facilities to devote more room to advanced memory products, including high-bandwidth memory. However, Samsung has not disclosed how testing volumes will ultimately be divided between its Korean and Vietnamese operations.

Financing for the Vietnam project will rely substantially on profits generated in the country. About 66.64 trillion dong, or roughly 63 percent of the proposed investment, is expected to come from reinvested earnings at Samsung’s Vietnamese operations, making part of the expansion dependent on future business performance.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is pursuing a related but separate capacity increase for flip-chip ball grid array substrates, which connect high-performance processors to circuit boards. Demand for these components is rising as artificial intelligence servers use larger and more complex chip packages.

The component maker announced plans in late September to invest 6.78 trillion won in substrate capacity. It allocated 4.27 trillion won to Sejong in South Korea and 2.51 trillion won to Vietnam. Mass production at the expanded Sejong site is scheduled for September 2028, while completion and operation of the Vietnam expansion are targeted for June 2030.

Sejong is expected to concentrate on technically demanding, high-value products, while the Vietnamese operation handles expanding global orders. Samsung already produces advanced substrates in Vietnam, so the division will not be absolute. The expansion is also supported by customer funding and medium- to long-term purchase commitments intended to reduce investment risk and secure demand.

Samsung has operated a large manufacturing base in Thai Nguyen for years. The latest plans would deepen that footprint while keeping important advanced production capabilities in Korea. The cross-border structure could improve resilience, although shipping packaged chips to Vietnam for testing would add logistics costs and require close coordination between the two countries.