Da Nang needs to research and develop a number of mechanisms and policies to develop human resources for its semiconductor industry, with a focus on three subjects of lecturers, graduated engineers and students.

Director of the Department of Information and Communications Nguyen Quang Thanh made the remarks at the recent session of the municipal Party Committee's Executive Board.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Thanh, Director of the Da Nang Department of Information and Communications speaking at the event. Photo: NGOC PHU

3 important factors to develop semiconductor industry

According to Director Thanh, it is possible for Da Nang to identify a three-phase roadmap in the development of the semiconductor industry.

The short-term period from now until 2030 will concentrate on designing, packaging and testing activities.

The mid-term period lasting from 2030 to 2045 will pay attention to implementing production stages.

The long-term period after 2045 will be to master a number of core technologies.

The short-term orientation and focus issues for the development of the city's semiconductor industry are determined by three important factors.

As for human resources issues, according to Mr. Thanh, Da Nang's approach to participating in the global semiconductor and microchip production chain is based on human resources as the decisive factor for the human resource development for the designing and testing stage.

Therefore, he stressed the need for the city to identify additional training and retraining as tasks that need attention in addition to new training. Importance should be attached to three groups of human resources: short-term training of lecturers through support from companies to form long-term core human resources to serve skills training; training recently graduated engineers to use advanced tools according to international standards from companies (Synopsys, Candence, Mentor Graphic...); and attracting experienced and successful experts, especially overseas Vietnamese, to the city to work and transfer knowledge, he added.

With regard to the issue of policies and mechanisms to encourage human resource training activities for the semiconductor industry, heed should be on stipulating a minimum allocation rate of 3 - 5% from the total annual State budget revenue to carry out training activities for semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) industries.

In addition, Mr. Quang underlined a must-do for Da Nang to propose to the central government to develop specific and outstanding policies to attract more investment flows in the semiconductor and AI industries.

At the same time, heed should be on reviewing and having a policy to reduce personal income tax for experts in these fields; as well as proposing the development of a policy to prioritise the use of semiconductor- microchip and AI products designed and manufactured by Vietnamese enterprises.

Regarding technology, in the short term, priority should be given to segments of popular technology; and specialised semiconductor microchips in such fields as telecommunications, electric vehicles, edge computing, energy and IoT. At the same time, the "Quick win" ideas, initially based on simple chips providing for domestic manufacturers, should be implemented.

Established a research and training unit for microchip design

According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Thanh, to implement the abovementioned orientation, the city needs to prioritise researching and developing a number of mechanisms and policies to promote the development of semiconductor human resources, with a focus on 3 subjects of lecturers, graduated engineers and students through loan mechanisms from funds to create skilled human resources with output according to international standards.

He underlined a necessity for the city to build a High Performance Computing Center at the Data Center located in the Software Park No. 2 to operate the infrastructure for training and designing semiconductor chips and microchips.

Especially, a research and training unit for IC design and AI should be established in Da Nang. For this issue, Mr. Thanh proposed 3 options.

Option 1 is to establish a new Da Nang IC and AI research and training center, a public service unit under the Department of Information and Communications.

Option 2 proposes to integrate and add functions and tasks related to IC research, training and design for the Da Nang Information Technology Infrastructure Development Center.

Option 3 is to establish a new research and training company for IC design and AI in the city under the model of joint cooperation and business capital contribution.

Reporting by NGOC PHU - Translating by M.DUNG