On October 23, Chinese leading chipmaker SMIC and US-based chipmaker Spansion announced that they have signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding in a bid to form a chip partnership in China.

Pursuant to the statement, Spansion will transfer 65nm and 90nm MirrorBit process technologies to SMIC; the technology will be used in SMIC's 12-inch fab. Spansion has also approved SMIC to manufacture and sell products based on the technology in China, Xinhua PR Newswire reported.

Financial details of this deal, however, were not disclosed.

To date, Spansion has a chip manufacturing plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province of China, with an annual capacity of 200 million units in China. In addition, the company also has R&D centers in Suzhou and Beijing.