Unlikely bedfellows?
We have received notification from Intel that it will play host for a joint strategic announcement with chip manufacturer TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).
Intel isn't offering any more information other than it will take place at the Intel executive briefing centre in Santa Clara and that it will be hosted by Intel execs Anand Chandrashekar and Sean Maloney and TSMC execs Rick Tsai and Jason Chen.
The good old Wall Street Journal has dug up its ‘person familiar with the situation' to speculate that the collaboration will allow TSMC to make chips which combine the circuitry inside the Atom processor with other circuitry to make some kind of hybrid processor.
Alternatively this could point to the long awaited arrival, in some form, of Intel's next generation graphics proposition. This could be as simple as outsourcing chipset manufacture or could also involve Intel's long anticipated discrete graphics proposition, codenamed Larrabee.
Another possibility is that it will concern Intel's next generation of processors, which will integrate a GPU on the same die as the CPU. Click here to read an analysis of Intel's latest processor roadmap on HEXUS.net.
