According to the related sources, NEC Electronics Corp. with fellow chipmaker Renesas Technology Corp is planning to sign a contract with either Toshiba or Panasonic for developing an advanced semi conductor system.

The announcement was made after inking an integration contract with its fellow chip maker. NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology will sign the contract for integrating their operations by April 1, 2010.

The deal between both the giants will make both of them combined as number three chip maker after Intel and Samsung.

To develop the state-of-the-art LSI system, NEC Electronics has Toshiba as its partner, while Renesas, a joint venture between Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp., has teamed up with Panasonic, as reported.

No details have been leaked as of now for this integration and entity’s integration ratio.

Amid the global recession and decline in chip prices, the company had posted a group net loss of 82.6 billion yen for the business year that ended in March, which is larger than the previous year’s group net loss of about 16 billion yen.

Renu Singh/ITVoir Network