We find and qualify packaging and assembly materials in China for back-end lines in Vietnam and Korea — specification, origin documents and the import route worked through with you.
Send us the material, grade, monthly quantity and the plant it ships to. We come back with candidate producers, the documents to demand, and a landed cost. → Request a sourcing review
Vietnam has no operating wafer fab. The state-owned group Viettel broke ground on what it and the Prime Minister call the country's first chip manufacturing plant on January 16, 2026, with trial production targeted for the end of 2027. Every silicon chip that leaves a Vietnamese plant today began as a wafer made elsewhere, and on the US customs rulings we found, it keeps that wafer's origin. What Vietnam does at scale is the back end: assembly, test and packaging (ATP, or OSAT when an outside contractor does it), and, increasingly, the substrates those packages are built on.
Nami Tech Solutions (NTS) works on packaging and assembly materials case by case, against a plant's bill of materials: we find and qualify producers in China, write the specification and certificate-of-analysis (COA) requirements into the order, and coordinate the shipment and the Vietnamese or Korean import through the buyer's customs broker or licensed partners. This market analysis maps the supply chain and the rules we work to.
Disclaimer: This article is general information, not legal, customs, tax or investment advice. Our reading of Vietnamese and US rules and of trade statistics is analysis; confirm classification, duty treatment and chemical declarations with a licensed customs broker and the competent Vietnamese authority before an order. Status as of October 29, 2026.
What Vietnam's Semiconductor Sector Is Today
The operating sites are back-end plants run by foreign manufacturers, with substrate plants now following them. Investment figures are on different bases, so the table gives status rather than totals.
Intel did not leave in 2023. Reuters reported in November 2023 that Intel had shelved an expansion that could have nearly doubled the site, citing a person who mentioned power stability and bureaucracy; Intel gave no reason, and in 2026 it moved more work into the site, not out of it.
Substrates are arriving; Chinese assembly plants are not. LG Innotek said it chose Hai Phong for its proximity to packaging and testing companies. Chinese PCB makers have announced plants in northern Vietnam; the disclosures we read describe printed circuit boards, including HDI, not IC substrates. We found no Chinese OSAT operating in Vietnam.
Design firms are the other segment; we found no count we could trace. Tia Sáng, a Vietnamese science journal, estimated in May 2026 that domestic value added is 5–15%, concentrated in ATP.
The Policy Targets, as Written
The numbers below are targets, not forecasts. We read the strategy's figures from government-site and press summaries; we could not open the decision's full text.
- Quyết định 1018/QĐ-TTg (Decision 1018, 21 September 2024), the semiconductor industry strategy to 2030 with a vision to 2050. For 2024–2030 the strategy sets a target of at least 100 design companies, one small-scale chip fab, 10 packaging and testing plants, semiconductor revenue above US$25 billion a year and domestic value added of 10–15%.
- Quyết định 1017/QĐ-TTg (Decision 1017, 21 September 2024) sets a target of training at least 50,000 university graduates for the industry by 2030, at least 35,000 of them for manufacturing, packaging, testing and other stages. It is a training target, not a count of engineers in jobs.
- Luật Công nghiệp công nghệ số, số 71/2025/QH15 (Law on Digital Technology Industry), effective January 1, 2026, provides tax incentives and local-budget support for chip projects, including packaging and testing, according to summaries; the summary we read states no import-duty exemption on materials.
- Nghị định 182/2024/NĐ-CP (Decree 182, 31 December 2024) created an investment support fund that can cover up to 50% of initial investment costs for qualifying high-tech projects, per law-firm summaries.
What the Trade Data Actually Measure
US$18.23 billion is revenue, not exports. It was the Minister of Information and Communications' estimate of the industry's 2024 revenue, given in December 2024.
Vietnam's customs-reported exports measure something else, and include solar panels. In UN Comtrade, where Vietnam's latest reported year is 2023, Vietnam exported US$12.25 billion of integrated circuits (HS 8542) and US$8.67 billion under HS 8541. About 91% of the 8541 figure is 8541.43, photovoltaic modules. US$10.63 billion of the IC exports were processors and controllers.
IC imports are about four times IC exports. Vietnam reported US$48.09 billion of 8542 imports in 2023: Korea 30.5%, Taiwan and China roughly 18.5% each, Japan 8.6%. On our reading, most are finished chips for electronics assembly, not packaging-material demand.
Value is not volume: memory and gold prices move these figures, and we convert none of them into tonnes.
What a Back-End Line Consumes, and Where It Comes From
Our working list, not a published standard, covers organic package substrates and leadframes; bonding wire (gold, copper, silver, palladium-coated copper); epoxy mould compound (EMC); die-attach film or paste and underfill; solder balls, paste and flux; dicing tape and blades; plating and cleaning chemicals, process gases and deionised water; and test consumables such as probe cards and sockets.
SEMI put the 2025 global packaging-materials market at US$27.4 billion, up 9.3%, about 37% of a US$73.2 billion materials market. It attributed the growth mainly to gold prices lifting the value of wire-bonding materials and to demand for advanced substrates, so part of that growth is price. SEMI publishes no Vietnam figure.
Where Vietnamese sites buy these today is not public. We found no company-level statement for any plant. The nearest proxy is Vietnam's import record by origin, and every line in it is mixed end-use: epoxy resins also go into coatings, solder into all electronics, fine copper wire into cables. These are 2023 figures, before Amkor's ramp.
No single country leads every line. Korea leads epoxide resins, gold semi-manufactures and soldering pastes; China leads tin and solder; Taiwan leads parts of ICs.
The reference grades sit abroad, and the local base is thin. EMC and bonding wire are commonly qualified against Japanese, Korean or European grades; we do not name makers because the only share figures we found come from market-research marketing pages. Chinese makers appear in bonding-wire and leadframe vendor lists without a sourced share. We found no EMC, bonding-wire, leadframe or die-attach plant in Vietnam. Why a reference written as a brand grade blocks a second source is set out in our Japanese materials landscape.
Vietnam's Own Gate: Duty Exemption, EPE Status and Chemicals
Duty exemption for export production is conditional. Luật Thuế xuất khẩu, thuế nhập khẩu số 107/2016/QH13 (Law on Export and Import Duties), Article 16, and Nghị định 134/2016/NĐ-CP (Decree 134, 2016), Article 12, exempt materials, components and packing materials imported to make exports. The conditions: a production facility in Vietnam, suitable machinery, notification to customs, actual export of the products, and an exempt quantity fixed at quyết toán, the customs settlement on actual use. Materials diverted to domestic sale become liable for duty and VAT. We could not see how Decree 134 reads after its 2021 amendment; confirm the current text with your broker.
An EPE is not simply tax-free. A doanh nghiệp chế xuất (export processing enterprise, EPE) is treated as a non-tariff zone and, under the established regime, has not paid import VAT on goods from abroad. But goods it sells into Vietnam are taxable, and Luật Thuế giá trị gia tăng số 48/2024/QH15 (Law on Value-Added Tax), effective July 1, 2025, keeps goods traded between abroad and non-tariff zones non-taxable (Article 5, clause 20), per tax-press summaries; we could not open the law's text.
We quote no Vietnamese duty rate. The third-party tariff sites we checked conflict and we could not open the official annex. Your broker should confirm MFN and preferential rates (ACFTA for China, VKFTA for Korea, RCEP) for the exact line.
Chemicals need a declaration before clearance. Luật Hóa chất số 69/2025/QH15 (Law on Chemicals), effective January 1, 2026, requires importers to declare chemicals. Under Nghị định 26/2026/NĐ-CP (Decree 26, 17 January 2026), Article 6, as summarised by Vietnamese sources, chemicals in HS Chapters 28 and 29 are declared through the Cổng thông tin một cửa quốc gia (National Single Window) before clearance, with a phiếu an toàn hóa chất (safety data sheet). Summaries list exemptions for quantities under 10 kilograms, on a basis we could not confirm, and for mixtures classified outside those chapters. Our inference, not a ruling: plating salts, acids and solvents need the declaration; formulated EMC, flux and underfill in Chapters 38 or 39 appear not to. Classification decides.
Origin, and the US Tariff Layer
Packaging in Vietnam does not, on the rulings we found, make a chip Vietnamese. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rulings N352561 (September 10, 2025) and N354283 (October 20, 2025) held that integrated circuits are substantially transformed at wafer fabrication, and that back-end work in a second country does not confer origin. An older ruling went the other way, rulings are fact-specific, and we found none on Vietnam. On the current line, a chip packaged in Vietnam from a Korean wafer is Korean, whatever the origin of its packaging materials.
The rates have moved. The 20% and 40% rates set for Vietnam in July 2025 ended when the US Supreme Court held on February 20, 2026 that the statute used did not authorise them. From July 24, 2026 a Section 301 action adds 12.5% on Vietnamese products, with exclusions. Trade-press readings of the USTR annex list HS 8542.31–8542.90 among the exclusions; we have not read the annex itself, and for HS 8541 we found no report. Check the rate for your line at entry.
Structural Constraints: Power and Engineers
Power. In May and June 2023 drought cut northern hydropower, and outages hit industrial parks in Bac Ninh and Bac Giang. Quyết định 768/QĐ-TTg (Decision 768, 15 April 2025) approved the adjusted Power Development Plan VIII; northern peak demand reached a record 28,187 MW in early August 2025, per the Electricity Authority (Cục Điện lực) via Tạp chí Công Thương, and new capacity is targeted for 2027–28 against a risk of localized shortages. We found no reports of load-shedding in 2025 or 2026.
Engineers. Figures reported from an August 2025 steering-committee meeting put the workforce at about 7,000 design engineers and 7,000–8,000 in packaging, testing, materials and equipment. Decision 1017's 50,000 is often misquoted against that as a hiring number; it is a training target.
What a Buyer or Supplier Should Settle
Write the specification as measured properties. Put the composition and every property your package depends on into the order as numbers, each with its test method, instead of a maker's grade code. Without it, no second source can be qualified and no COA can be checked.
Qualify on your own package, in lots. A packaging material passes or fails in reliability testing on your package, not on a certificate. Decide what the lots must show before the first sample ships, as in our sample-evaluation protocol, and check what a supplier's documents prove with our vendor audit checklist.
Settle the import regime first. Know whether the plant imports as an EPE or under the export-production exemption, that the material will be recorded for quyết toán, and which items need a chemicals declaration. Give your broker the supplier's SDS and the expected HS code before the goods ship.
Know the wafer's origin, and document the materials'. For chips sold into the US, the front-end country counts. For materials, get the declared country of manufacture in writing, with supporting documents.
Map Chinese exposure under a non-Chinese purchase. Tin and solder came mainly from China in 2023. Antimony, used in some solder alloys and flame retardants, has been under Chinese export licensing since 2024, as listed in our China export controls timeline; we found no source linking it to packaging supply.
Put the delivery term and claim window in the contract. See our Incoterms guide on who holds the transport document and policy, and our quality-claim guide on notice deadlines.
For Korean Readers: Vietnam as a Market
Korea is Vietnam's largest foreign investor: more than US$92 billion registered across 10,128 projects, as the Deputy Prime Minister stated in May 2025 (Vietnam Government News).
Korea Customs Service data put Korea's IC exports to Vietnam at US$16.60 billion in 2024, US$22.21 billion in 2025 and US$38.60 billion in January–September 2026, mostly memory in 2026 while memory prices rose; we have not separated price from volume, and these are finished chips. In mixed-end-use material lines, Korea's 2025 exports to Vietnam included US$61.1 million of soldering and fluxing preparations.
What This Page Does Not Say
Some of what makes a second source work we discuss with buyers directly:
- which producers in China have real manufacturing depth for a given packaging material, and which are traders;
- current lead times, minimum order quantities and landed costs to plants in Vietnam or Korea;
- which qualification documents and reliability data to request, and in what order;
- how classification, chemicals declarations and origin documents have been handled in practice.
Ask us — we answer for your material, your package and your site.
Need a qualified second source for packaging materials without running the whole search yourself? NTS finds and qualifies candidate producers in China, reviews the specification and COA against your package, advises on the origin and route documentation, and coordinates the shipment and import with your customs broker or licensed partners. If you already have a supplier, we can audit its qualification package or take over the logistics coordination. Write to [email protected] or use the inquiry form with the material and grade, monthly or annual quantity, the destination plant, and the package or process it serves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Vietnam make semiconductor chips?
Not at the wafer level, as of October 2026. Viettel's first fab broke ground in January 2026, targeting trial production by the end of 2027. Today Vietnam assembles, tests and packages chips from imported wafers, and designs chips.
Does Vietnam export US$18 billion of semiconductors a year?
US$18.23 billion was the government's estimate of 2024 industry revenue, not exports. Customs-reported 2023 exports were US$12.25 billion of ICs and US$8.67 billion under HS 8541, about 91% of it solar modules.
Do export processing enterprises pay duty and VAT on imported materials?
Under the established regime, materials for export production are exempt from import duty, and an EPE has not paid import VAT on goods from abroad, subject to export use, quyết toán and no domestic diversion. The 2025 VAT law kept that item on the non-taxable list, per summaries; confirm current treatment with a broker.
Does a chip packaged in Vietnam count as Vietnamese for US tariffs?
On CBP's 2025 rulings, no: the wafer-fabrication country confers origin. We found no Vietnam-specific ruling, and rulings are fact-specific.
Do packaging materials need a chemicals declaration in Vietnam?
Pure chemicals in HS Chapters 28 and 29 do, through the National Single Window with an SDS, under Decree 26/2026. Mixtures classified elsewhere, such as many EMCs and fluxes, appear to be exempt; classification decides.
References (Public Sources)
- Decisions 1018/QĐ-TTg and 1017/QĐ-TTg (21 September 2024), as summarised on Vietnamese government sites and by Tuổi Trẻ and VnEconomy (September 2024).
- LuatVietnam on Law 71/2025/QH15 (July 18, 2025); KPMG Vietnam and GV Lawyers on Decree 182/2024/NĐ-CP (January 2025).
- Decree 134/2016/NĐ-CP, Article 12; EY Vietnam tax alert on Decree 18/2021 (August 2021); tax-authority dispatches on Law 48/2024/QH15 (2025–2026).
- Vietnam Chemicals Agency (Cục Hóa chất) listing of Law 69/2025/QH15; summaries of Decree 26/2026/NĐ-CP, Article 6 (2026).
- Amkor Technology, Form 10-K for fiscal 2025 (February 2026).
- The Investor on Intel Products Vietnam (May 5, 2026) and on Reuters' report of Intel's shelved expansion (November 2023); VIR on Viettel's chip plant (January 16, 2026) and Samsung Electro-Mechanics (October 2026); The Investor and Korea Times on LG Innotek (June–July 2026); VnEconomy on Coherent (July 29, 2025); Tuổi Trẻ News on Hana Micron (October 3, 2023) and The Investor (September–October 2023); TrendForce on Vietnam's packaging and testing industry (May 16, 2025).
- Tia Sáng on value added (May 13, 2026); Sở hữu trí tuệ on 2024 industry revenue (December 17, 2024); VnExpress on engineer numbers (November 2025).
- UN Comtrade, Vietnam-reported 2023 trade, and Korea Customs Service statistics by item and country, both queried October 29, 2026.
- SEMI on 2025 semiconductor materials (May 2026).
- US CBP rulings N352561 and N354283 (2025); American Bar Association and BDO on the February 2026 Supreme Court ruling; Global Trade Alert and EY on the Section 301 action of July 24, 2026.
- AFP and Reuters on power cuts (June 2023); Tuổi Trẻ and Lao Động on Power Development Plan VIII (2025–2026); Tạp chí Công Thương on northern peak demand (August 2025); Vietnam Government News on Korean investment (May 2025).
What we could not confirm: the full texts of Decision 1018, Law 71/2025 and Decrees 182/2024 and 26/2026; Vietnamese HS-level trade data for 2024–2025; where any Vietnamese plant buys its materials; any packaging-materials plant in Vietnam; any Vietnamese duty rate on these lines; the 2025 VAT law's treatment of non-tariff zones; whether the Section 301 annex excludes HS 8541 (HS 8542: press readings only); and any CBP ruling on chips assembled in Vietnam.
