Intel and TSMC to announce collaboration on Monday

Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip foundry are set to make an announcement of collaboration on Monday at Intel headquarters in Santa Clara.

Intel sales chief Sean Maloney and general manager of Ultra Mobility Anand Chandrashekar will announce details alongside TSMC CEO Rick Tsai in Santa Clara, California on March 2.

They have worked together in the past with TSMC  making WiMax chips for Intel. TSMC makes chips for a bevy of Intel competitors including Nvidia (NVDA) and Qualcomm (QCOM) as well.

The financial meltdown that the world is witnessing has also hit Intel when it shut plants in Malaysia and the Phillippines. This has led to terminating 6000 jobs. However the company plans to spend $7 billion over two years to build next-generation, 32-nanometer chip manufacturing capacity.

Intel has been coping up with the recession relatively well as compared to its rivals including graphics chip-maker Nvidia. Nvidia has resorted to fabless or “fab-lite” strategies. Intel on the other hand has maintained its forte of manufacturing its own microprocessors but had also outsourced some processes, including chipsets and wireless devices, to TSMC and other foundries in the recent past.

The details have been kept quiet till now. However experts belive that TSMC needed this collaboration more than Intel.