In March 2024, VDL ETG, the high-tech cluster of VDL Groep, ratified cooperation with Frasers Property for the construction of a new facility in Vietnam to make semiconductor manufacturing components.
The construction of the new VDL factory in the northeast of Vietnam is expected to start soon. The schedule is for the first modules to leave the new plant to supply international customers by the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter of 2025.
VDL Groep’s overall growth strategy is spanning on 3 continents Europe, America, and Asia, as its global customers are demanding for better global coverage. These investments are aimed at maintaining and strengthening employment in the current plants. VDL ETG also has locations in Asia in Singapore and Suzhou (China).
Vietnam is currently home to Intel’s biggest chip packaging and testing factory, and is drawing attention from other chipmakers as they wish to diversify their Asian operations to minimize the impact of US-China trade tensions over semiconductors.
Netherlands-based VDL is a critical supplier to Europe’s largest tech company ASML, making its wafer handling systems, though the Vietnam factory is not scheduled to supply ASML.
The investment decision follows several visits by Dutch giants to the region, including a scouting mission by ASML suppliers in 2024, and a visit by Prime Minister Mark Rutte in November 2023 that led to an investment by Dutch chip packaging equipment maker BE Semiconductor Industries.
(Source: VDL, Reuters)
