Intel's manufacturing problems have been hurting the company's competitive behavior, and thus it had to think out of the box about how it plans to remain a market leader. Just a few days ago, we have posted an article about Intel fixing its 7 nm node , with the incoming company CEO stating that outsourcing chip production is still a possibility. Today, according to DigiTimes sources, Intel has reached an agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to manufacture its designs at Taiwanese facilities. Specifically, Intel has reportedly agreed with TSMC to use a 3 nm node to manufacture a part of Intel's CPU portfolio.

In the past, Intel has used TSMC as a manufacturer for just some of its chipsets and lower-end CPUs. The top-end designs were all historically manufactured at Intel's fabs. However, it seems like the situation is about to take a full U-turn, and the Santa Clara headquartered company is about to tap TSMC for the production of the latest designs on 3 nm node. According to the DigiTimes source, all of that will happen as soon as the next year, 2022, arrives. The source claims that the deal is already processed and that high volume production (HVM) is starting in the second half of 2022. What products are supposed to be manufactured at TSMC remains a mystery, however, we should be getting more information in the coming months.