During the company’s Intel Foundry Direct Connect event, Intel shared plans to partner with Microsoft to manufacture custom chips and to take on its largest international rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Microsoft eyed up Intel’s 18A process for its custom chip order and other parties are getting in on the action, including Synopsys, Cadence, Siemens, and Ansys. Intel Foundry is the company’s new contract manufacturing program to better position itself against TSMC, which provides the means for chip rival AMD to make its advanced Ryzen processors.