The scoop came from the Korea Times though neither company has made an official announcement. It quotes Lee Hee-sung, country manager at Intel Korea as its source. The deal with Cisco looks significant. If Intel successfully produces chips with designs offered by Cisco, then it will get additional momentum to effectively grow its foundry business.
Intel has been expanding its foundry businesss on a relatively small scale, with customers like Netronome, Achronix, Tabula, and most recently Altera.
The deals so far revolve mostly around FPGAs or field-programmable gate arrays. However this Intel is looking for new ways to make cash until its main PC business picks up. It also has a lot of half used Fabs needing something to do.
However the Koreans have stolen a march on the rest of the world as the Intel in the US has declined to comment and Cisco has not said anything yet.