Intel's $475m assembly plant investment may pave way to more complex chips

Intel Products Vietnam facility
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel Products Vietnam has, as of some time last year, been granted a half billion dollar boost to funding. This pushes up Intel's total investment in the chip assembly and testing facility, first announced in 2006, to $1.5 billion. 

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The plant is the blue team's largest chip assembly and test manufacturing facility across the whole of Intel's assembly and test network. Based in Saigon Hi-Tech Park, Vietnam, it's one of 10 manufacturing sites Intel has dotted around the world. 

The site's primary function is assembling Intel's chips, which is about to get a whole lot more complex as the company starts producing hybrid designs, GPUs, and utilises advanced packaging technologies. Intel's also roping in the help of external foundries, which will need bringing together in a single Intel-shaped package.

Nguyen Anh Thi, president of Saigon Hi-Tech Park is grateful for the investment, noting that the move "proves Intel’s great confidence in the local workforce and the stable investment environment in Vietnam."

Though it's unclear exactly how this will impact the market, it certainly bodes well for the company as a whole. Intel makes it clear that the investment should help carry it through as it "redefines its position in the industry from a CPU to a multi-architecture XPU company." 

Its true, Intel is expanding its horizons, moving into the production of "more complex technologies and new products." GPUs not least of these proposed directions, with Asus and Colorful having already shipped the first Intel AIB cards.

Alrighty then, looks like Intel aren't giving up on manufacturing just yet.

Katie Wickens
Hardware Writer

Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessed with computers and graphics for three long decades, she took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni, and has been rambling about games, tech and science—rather sarcastically—for four years since. She can be found admiring technological advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi projects, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. Right now she's waiting patiently for her chance to upload her consciousness into the cloud.

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