You Won’t Believe Where They’re Building 80% of the World’s PC Chips

TMO ^ | 1-17-2015 | Money morning

[blam]

January 17, 2015
Money Morning

Michael A. Robinson writes: This year, 80% of the chips for new PCs will be produced in Silicon Valley… Taiwan… China‘s Shenzhen Province… South Korea…

Wrong on all counts.

More and more of today’s chipmakers locating their manufacturing facilities a bit off the beaten path these days – in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies… and a nation that some of you may find controversial.

But my job is to take you wherever the biggest innovations are being made so that we can find the biggest opportunities. So, today I’m going to show you exactly where so many of world’s top tech companies are headed.

Intel Inside… Vietnam

Many investors might be tempted to steer clear of Vietnam because of the way the U.S. conflict ended there and the political upheaval it caused back home.

As someone who’s kept an eye on this controversial nation for more than 40 years, I believe that’s a lot of noise. And you know what Rule No. 2 says about that – “separate the signal from the noise.”

Vietnam is an economy that boasts impressive economic growth, and that offers tech investors many hefty and growing opportunities.

Gross domestic product in 2014′s third quarter grew 6.19% from a year earlier. And for the first nine months of last year, industrial output grew 6.7%, and exports rose 14.1% from a year earlier to $109.6 billion.

As I said above, 80% of this year’s central processing units (CPU) for PCs will be made not just in Vietnam, but in a single location – Saigon Hi-Tech Park.The sprawling facility sits just off Hanoi Highway less than 10 miles from Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s capital.

(snip)

[blam]

I was working down the street at National Semiconductor making chips when Intel started up in Mt View in 1968.

Things have really changed.

I often went drinking with this guy in those early days.

[kearnyirish2]

BJ Clinton buried the hatchet with North Vietnam for exactly this access to cheap labor. Since then, I don’t understand how people enlist in the military outside of the purely economic reasons. We don’t even pretend these conflicts have any purpose beyond a decade or two.

[NewHampshireDuo]

What was the place? - the Wagon Wheel?

[blam]

"BJ Clinton buried the hatchet with North Vietnam for exactly this access to cheap labor. Since then, I don’t understand how people enlist in the military outside of the purely economic reasons. We don’t even pretend these conflicts have any purpose beyond a decade or two."

Yup. Since the US government is now Communist it does not seem to matter much.

[9thLife]

very soon squeezed his nominal boss out of the company.[25]

I could never bring myself to do that.

[blam]

"What was the place? - the Wagon Wheel?"

YUP! Walkers Wagon Wheel.

[central_va]

Slap a tariff on all foreign made electronics. Bring it home.

[WellyP]

After all these years Vietnam and the US are natural allies opposing China’s expansion and acquisition. Today’s Vietnamese people overwhelmingly want much closer relations with the US.

[billorites]

I noticed that my recently purchased computer printer was manufactured in Vietnam. Brother is a Japanese firm, but manufacture in Vietnam.

[Aria]

It’s pretty much always about who gets the money....except when it’s insane muzzies.

[billorites]

A decade is a long time I suppose in terms of world affairs. We now have an agreement with Vietnam giving our military access to airfields and port facilities in their country.

As someone famous said, “Nations have no permanent friends or enemies, they only have permanent interests.”

[NorthMountain]

We don’t even pretend these conflicts have any purpose beyond a decade or two.

Please comment on our economic, diplomatic, military, and political relationships with Japan, the Italian Republic, and the Federal Republic of Germany.

[Squantos]

Did he create the triple nickel chip.....? aka 555 ?

...rendered safe a load of IED’s that used that 555 chip. Always wondered who designed it.

[DuncanWaring]

Less than 20 years before John Kennedy said “Ich bin ein Berliner” we were doing our absolute best to burn the entire country of Germany to the ground.

[Boogieman]

It is a bit different when you win the war and can force your former enemy to change.

We didn’t really do that with Vietnam.

[Zathras]

First of all, none of these chips are being fab’d in Vietnam.
Intel’s fabs are in OR, AZ, NM, Israel and Ireland.
The biggest is in Phoenix, the most advanced in Portland.
I suspect they are being packaged in Vietnam.

Second, I don’t think 80% is in Vietnam.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Manufacturing always follows cheap labor...

[Pearls Before Swine]

Aren’t those Vietnam plants assembly plants, where the chips—manufactured somewhere else, are sealed into their housings?

[Lorianne]

Vietnam has be a go-to place for all kinds of outsourcing for over 10 years at least. Anything that can be done remotely via computers can and is outsourced there. Engineering and architectural design, medical imaging analysis and all sorts of medical/dental imaging work, manufacturing of small components to myriad machines, etc.

This is not news to many of us in the design field. There are plenty of very smart educated and talented people in Vietnam willing for work for $100/month or less.

[Lorianne]

Vietnam has be a go-to place for all kinds of outsourcing for over 10 years at least. Anything that can be done remotely via computers can and is outsourced there. Engineering and architectural design, medical imaging analysis and all sorts of medical/dental imaging work, manufacturing of small components to myriad machines, etc.

This is not news to many of us in the design field. There are plenty of very smart educated and talented people in Vietnam willing for work for $100/month or less.