The webinars, in book form 7 / 9 published

Semiconductor Minibooks

You don't need a physics degree to follow how a chip gets made. Each book turns one Demystifying Semiconductors episode into short chapters, with the figures from the original slides, worked examples, and a glossary of the technical terms.

Start reading Watch the webinars they came from

Where our speakers work 29 semiconductor experts

29 speakers from 24 companies and institutions across 8 countries

Organized by VISEMI Foundation

The VISEMI Approach Fig.

A mysterious map — now decoded.

  1. 01

    The semiconductor industry can feel like a “mysterious map” — and VISEMI is here to help you navigate it.

  2. 02

    Through this minibook series, each book reveals a new part of the global semiconductor landscape — delivered by world-class experts with deep knowledge and real-world experience.

  3. 03

    Piece by piece, readers connect the dots, uncover how each part of the industry fits together, and discover exciting, global career opportunities.

Chip Design AI Photonics Foundry CPU / GPU Career Memory / Storage Packaging
Fig. A connected ecosystem — from design to delivery

Who reads these 7 groups

Built for an entire generation

  • Semiconductor professionals
  • University students
  • High-school students
  • Educators
  • Parents
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Tech enthusiasts

What you'll explore 5 themes

Five themes in 10 episodes

  1. 01 The Industry Core technologies and global development opportunities, explained clearly.
  2. 02 The Ecosystem Key components — and how they work together.
  3. 03 The Roles What semiconductor engineers and professionals actually do.
  4. 04 The Careers Pathways and professional growth in the field.
  5. 05 The Future Challenges and opportunities on the horizon.

Library 7 books

From Chips to AI

Illustration for From Chips to AI
Plate I 9 chapters, about 1 hour of reading.
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Modern AI runs on chips built from billions of tiny switches, and it took off only when those chips, GPUs above all, grew fast enough for big models and huge datasets.

  1. 01 Chips everywhere, and the switch that makes them work 6 min
  2. 02 Why AI took off now 5 min
  3. 03 What an AI application runs on 5 min
  4. 04 CPU vs GPU 7 min
  5. 05 Why GPUs won AI 8 min
  6. 06 How a chip is built 7 min
  7. 07 Why a fab costs a fortune 7 min
  8. 08 Where the chip industry goes next 8 min
  9. 09 Starting a career in chips 6 min

The Semiconductor Ecosystem: From Sand to a Billion-Dollar Industry

Illustration for The Semiconductor Ecosystem: From Sand to a Billion-Dollar Industry
Plate I 10 chapters, about 1½ hours of reading.
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One iPhone chip passes through a chain of specialist companies that keep very different shares of each dollar, and four ways into that chain are open to Vietnam.

  1. 01 From sand to a phone 7 min
  2. 02 Four ways to be a chip company 7 min
  3. 03 Stop 1: the idea and the design 8 min
  4. 04 Stop 2: from sand to wafer 4 min
  5. 05 Stop 3: the fab and its machines 8 min
  6. 06 Stop 4: packaging and test 8 min
  7. 07 Stop 5: into the phone 7 min
  8. 08 Why some keep 90% and others 15% 7 min
  9. 09 Which door for Vietnam 14 min
  10. 10 Building the people 9 min

Photonics Technology: Following the Light

Illustration for Photonics Technology: Following the Light
Plate I 10 chapters, about 1½ hours of reading.
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Light already carries the internet under the oceans and links the racks of AI data centers, and the chips that work with it leave room for a newcomer like Vietnam.

  1. 01 Why light? 6 min
  2. 02 A chip that works with light 7 min
  3. 03 Designing a chip for an imagined blood-sugar watch 7 min
  4. 04 Making a photonic chip 10 min
  5. 05 Optical fiber, the internet's spine 9 min
  6. 06 The cables under the ocean 5 min
  7. 07 Inside the data center 6 min
  8. 08 Light meets the switch chip 8 min
  9. 09 Beyond communication 9 min
  10. 10 How Vietnam gets into photonics 8 min

Semiconductor Careers: Growing in the Semiconductor Era

Illustration for Semiconductor Careers: Growing in the Semiconductor Era
Plate I 11 chapters, about 1½ hours of reading.
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The chip industry has many jobs besides design, and what gets a beginner hired, from solid basics to honesty and working English, is built up year by year at university.

  1. 01 One engineer's path, from Huế to Marvell 6 min
  2. 02 The chip industry is more than design 7 min
  3. 03 What each job does, and who it suits 17 min
  4. 04 What employers look for in a beginner 8 min
  5. 05 Planning the university years 10 min
  6. 06 A master's, a PhD, or a job first? 11 min
  7. 07 Pay over the years 6 min
  8. 08 Coming in from another field 8 min
  9. 09 AI at school and at work 7 min
  10. 10 Jobs in Vietnam and beyond 6 min
  11. 11 What keeps people in the chip trade 5 min

Chip Design: Building the "Heart" of Technology

Illustration for Chip Design: Building the "Heart" of Technology
Plate I 10 chapters, about 1½ hours of reading.
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Three real designs, from a power chip for AI to a glucose-sensing chip, show what chip designers do on the way from a written spec to mass production.

  1. 01 Chips around us 9 min
  2. 02 From idea to layout: the design flow 10 min
  3. 03 Digital design: from code to billions of transistors 9 min
  4. 04 Powering an AI processor 11 min
  5. 05 Building the power chip: from transistors to a test board 9 min
  6. 06 The chips inside a digital stethoscope 9 min
  7. 07 Designing a glucose-sensing chip 9 min
  8. 08 Taking the glucose chip to mass production 9 min
  9. 09 Why Vietnam has few chip companies of its own 10 min
  10. 10 Becoming a chip designer 11 min

Foundry: The Backbone of the Semiconductor Industry

Illustration for Foundry: The Backbone of the Semiconductor Industry
Plate I 9 chapters, about 1 hour of reading.
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Foundries make most of the world's advanced logic chips, building them layer by layer in fabs so costly that only three companies remain at the leading edge.

  1. 01 The semiconductor value chain 5 min
  2. 02 Moore's Law and the evolution of the transistor 7 min
  3. 03 How a chip is made 6 min
  4. 04 Inside the fab 5 min
  5. 05 Lithography: printing at the atomic scale 6 min
  6. 06 Plasma in chipmaking 5 min
  7. 07 Thin-film deposition 6 min
  8. 08 Etching and cleaning 7 min
  9. 09 The global foundry landscape, and Vietnam's way in 7 min

Packaging: The New Game Shaping the Future of Semiconductors

Illustration for Packaging: The New Game Shaping the Future of Semiconductors
Plate I 10 chapters, about 1½ hours of reading.
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More and more big chips are split into chiplets, so the package that joins them now decides how well they work, and packaging is a trade Vietnam can enter.

  1. 01 Why packaging became the new game 9 min
  2. 02 What a package does, and how it is made 6 min
  3. 03 From pins to solder balls: sixty years of chip packages 8 min
  4. 04 Flip chip: connecting across the whole face 11 min
  5. 05 Packaging an RF filter without touching its surface 11 min
  6. 06 Side by side: chips on interposers and bridges 11 min
  7. 07 Stacking chips: memory towers and copper bonds 10 min
  8. 08 Many chips working as one system 13 min
  9. 09 Who packages the world's chips 7 min
  10. 10 Where Vietnam can enter, and who does the work 10 min

In preparation 2 titles

Every book starts as a live webinar

Demystifying Semiconductors runs free and in Vietnamese, with engineers and researchers who work in the industry. We turn each in-depth episode into a minibook that students and professionals can come back to while they explore a field, so semiconductor knowledge is within reach of more Vietnamese readers.

See the webinar series Watch past episodes on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Demystifying Semiconductors · Webinar Archive

Vietnamese Watch on YouTube