Taipei  - The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, is expected to announce that it has won an import contract from Intel Corp, a Taiwan newspaper reported.

According to the United Daily News, TSMC has won an Intel contract to supply mobile Internet device (MID) and the Intel Atom processors to Intel.

Intel and TSMC are scheduled to announce a "strategic alliance" in a joint news conference at 1700 GMT in Santa Clara, California, the paper quoted an unnamed industry source as saying.

The news conference will be held by Intel executive vice president Sean Maloney and TSMC global sales and marketing vice president Jason Chen. TSMC chief executive Rick Tsai will also attend, the paper said.

By outsourcing chip production to TSMC, Intel can focus on manufacturing high-profit products, the News said.

According to the Taipei Times, this not only marks the first time that Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, has outsourced its processor manufacturing but is an important contract for TSMC for entering the contract manufacturing market for processors.

The move could help Intel cut costs and help boost TSMC's capacity utilization rate, the Taipei Times said. (dpa)