Vietnam’s pivot to the IC design world

Vietnam has scored another victory in its bid to move beyond back-end assembly and packaging and establish an IC design and testing presence. Mixel, an analog and mixed-signal IP developer, is opening a design shop in Da Nang, Vietnam.

The San Jose, California-based design house provides interface IP solutions for MIPI, LVDS, and other multi-standard SerDes. It was the first IP provider to demonstrate silicon for MIPI D-PHY, MIPI C-PHY, and MIPI M-PHY. Mixel’s new design office in Vietnam—the first in Asia—will contribute to its IP development work.

Figure 1 A design house serving high-speed mixed-signal IP market will help develop engineering talent in Vietnam. Source: Mixel

It follows Vietnam’s inking of strategic pacts with two large EDA houses—Cadence and Synopsys—to advance design talent and cultivate a culture of semiconductor startups. Vietnam National Innovation Center (NIC), currently setting up the infrastructure for an IC design incubation center at Hoa Lac High-Tech Park in Hanoi, has joined hands with Cadence to accelerate IC design activities.

As part of this program, Cadence provides access to its design tools to academic institutes selected by NIC. University students and professors can use the Cadence tools and online training suites to gain real-world IC design expertise. Cadence is also introducing internships and job opportunities to Vietnamese engineers who are trained at NIC.

Next, Synopsys provides training licenses and educational resources to help NIC set up the chip design incubation center. Here, NIC investes in prototyping and emulation infrastructure to cultivate the IC design workforce in collaboration with Synopsys. The Sunnyvale, California-based EDA house also provides prototyping and emulation tools for software and hardware co-design in system-on-chip (SoC) devices.

Figure 2 Chip designers at NIC’s incubation center will be trained on the latest IC design tools. Source: Synopsys

Vietnam is striving to seize the moment amid trade tensions between China and the United States. In the so-called “China+1” investment strategy, Vietnam is emerging as a major beneficiary, so it wants to complement IC design with the existing back-end manufacturing, testing, and packaging businesses.

If Vietnam is successful in its bid to develop a vibrant IC design industry, it will also integrate the country into the global semiconductor ecosystem.

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