The South Korean giant is now testing ball grid array products and intends to mass produce them at the Samsung Electro-Mechanics Vietnam factory in northern Thai Nguyen Province, according to a post that showed up late yesterday on Vietnam’s official government website. Much of the post was shared verbatim on Samsung’s site.

A ball grid array is a sophisticated type of chip substrate.

With a China-US chip rivalry triggering a tectonic supply chain shift, Samsung also plans to open a US$17 billion foundry chip plant in Texas. It is also reconsidering its Chinese operations, according to a Financial Times report.

Vietnam has been a less-noticed player in the race to attract chip production – a competition that also includes Japan and Europe. The communist country hosts Intel’s biggest test-and-assembly site but has not moved far beyond those services since the US semiconductor company arrived in 2006.

Rivals from Marvell Technology to Seoul Semiconductor also operate in the country.

Semiconductors would mark a third business for Samsung in Vietnam, where the company makes home appliances and half of its smartphones. Samsung Vietnam did not immediately reply to a Nikkei Asia email or phone call seeking comment this afternoon.