Viettel's VGC v1.0: Vietnam's 28nm Security Chip Built on RISC-V

Vietnam has designed its first security chip entirely with its own engineers. On November 3, Viettel and the Viet Nam Government Information Security Commission officially launched the VGC v1.0 — a 10 × 10mm packaged device containing 300 million transistors, fabricated on 28nm CMOS technology, with encryption and decryption speeds roughly 15 times faster than a purely software-based solution running the same tasks, according to the project's test results.

The launch marks Vietnam's shift from mastering a single product to mastering chip design as a capability. And the people behind it are explicit that the chip itself is almost beside the point.

What did Viettel actually build?

The project started with a narrower brief: a security chip development task assigned by the Ministry of National Defence. But Viettel and the Government Information Security Commission aimed at something larger — a reusable technology platform that can carry not just VGC v1.0 but multiple subsequent generations of security chips.

The logic is practical. Every security product needs its own chip, yet those chips share the same basic building blocks: processors, encryption modules, key generation modules, and secure boot mechanisms. Develop each chip separately, and engineering teams rebuild everything from the ground up every time. Build the foundation once, and later designs inherit it.

The automotive industry works this way already. A carmaker uses the same chassis across different models — each model looks different, but the underlying structure is already tested and refined.

The platform comprises three parts:

• a master design;
• a repository of reusable security functional blocks;
• a standardised testing process, with chip design protection now an established step.

VGC v1.0 is the first product built on it. The development team says subsequent chip generations won't start from scratch, which should cut development time. That claim has industry grounding: Professor Don Bouldin of the University of Tennessee once estimated that preparing a component for reuse costs roughly 50% more initial effort but reduces the effort for subsequent designs by around 70%. The platform investment, in other words, pays for itself from the second chip onwards.

Why RISC-V?

For long-term control, the platform had to rest on an architecture Vietnam has full rights to use and modify. The engineering team chose RISC-V, the processor design standard developed at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010.

RISC-V works like a shared set of grammatical rules. Anyone can use the grammar; what story you write is up to you. On top of those rules, Viettel engineers designed their own processor to meet specific requirements and integrated the Government Information Security Commission's cryptographic algorithms directly into the silicon. For a security product, that matters: developers can understand every internal detail, verify operation, and modify the chip whenever necessary.

Europe offers the strongest precedent for this platform-first approach, where the ability to develop platforms matters as much as chip manufacturing. Since 2013, ETH Zurich and the University of Bologna have jointly developed the PULP platform on RISC-V, completing more than 70 chip fabrication runs and moving from 65nm down to 7nm technology using reusable design blocks and templates — develop once, use many times.

The approach has spread. The €240 million DARE project, coordinated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre with 38 partners from 13 countries, also runs on RISC-V, aiming to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign hardware and software — particularly proprietary processors from the US and Asia. Bosch, Infineon, NXP, and STMicroelectronics have invested in a joint venture pursuing the same model. The common thread is technological self-reliance: open design lets engineers inspect a chip's internal workings and loosens the grip of suppliers.

What happens next?

The first batch of chips passed technical testing and received certification for use in socio-economic activities in the first quarter of 2026, confirming the platform works. The next stage is already under contract. At the launch ceremony, the Government Information Security Commission and Viettel signed a cooperation agreement covering mass production of VGC v1.0 and development of a multi-core security integrated circuit platform — multiple processors working together on a single chip, paired with dedicated cryptographic components, for large-scale applications.

Planned targets include:

• the national digital signature authentication system, with more than 2 million digital certificates in circulation;
• records, contracts, and customer data in finance and banking;
• connected devices such as surveillance cameras, environmental sensors, and monitoring stations;
• information systems for critical infrastructure — electricity, water, oil and gas, and telecommunications.

Each application presents a distinct challenge, but all can start from the same foundation.

Can Vietnam close the gap?

Lieutenant General Tao Duc Thang, Member of the Party Central Committee and President and General Director of Viettel Group, was candid about the difficulty: “Researching, designing, and developing security semiconductor chips is an extremely challenging field, requiring the long-term accumulation of knowledge, technology, and high-quality human resources.”

“However, we believe that starting later does not mean accepting dependence,” he continued. “With the right strategy, focused resources, and persistent pursuit of our goals, we can gradually narrow the gap and move towards mastering the country's strategic technologies.”

General Phan Van Giang, Politburo member, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence, went further at the launch: “We may have started later, but we will not move slowly; we are moving forward to overtake others.”

The distinction the project draws is between producing a single product and mastering an entire capability. The engineers have established a master design, a repository of functional blocks, and a process that all subsequent chips can build upon — and all of those technological assets sit entirely under Vietnam's control. VGC v1.0 proves the design foundation for Vietnam's semiconductor security industry exists; the real measure of success will be the chips, and the multi-core platform, that follow from it.