A post to SemiWiki.com by industry author and blogger Dan Nenni says that IBM and GlobalFoundries have a “handshake deal” in place to take over IBM’s chip manufacturing.

The article, posted here, says that IBM will fork over more than $2 billion to GlobalFoundries. Talks had previously broken down after GlobalFoundries wouldn’t accept $1 billion for the unit.

And yes, IBM would pay GlobalFoundries under the deal because of the expense associated with manufacturing computer chips.

The article does not say what the fate will be of IBM’s East Fishkill chip fab, which went into production around 2001 with subsidies from New York state.

As with most news that breaks in the semiconductor industry, there was no attribution as to the source of the news. In this case it was “on pretty good authority.”

Nenni is well-known in the industry and an expert on “fabless” semiconductor manufacturing and is the founder of the SemiWiki site. He has also worked as a consultant with companies to help them develop relationships with foundry companies like GlobalFoundries.

IBM is looking to become fabless by outsourcing its manufacturing to GlobalFoundries, which is known as a “foundry” that does contract manufacturing for others.

Nenni says in the story that an official announcement won’t come until early October, however.

Nenni says that the deal would have a ripple effect in the industry by providing an ample competitor to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest chip foundry, while offering what she says is a better alternative to companies like Intel and Samsung that have tried to get into the foundry businesses themselves.

“We desperately need two leading edge pure-play foundries to keep our industry growing,” Nenni wrote. The IDM (stands for integrated devices manufacturer) foundries (Intel and Samsung) do not have our collective best interests at heart, believe me.”