Intel gets cracking on 45nm chips

With that projected street date of November 12th just around the corner, it's about time that Intel got started on churning out 45nm CPUs on a mass scale. The company just cut the ribbon on their brand new, $3 billion "Fab 32" fabrication plant in Chandler, Arizona and announced that production for its forthcoming Penryn processors had begun on Thursday. People are pinning some pretty high expectations on Penryn and Intel has been pretty aggressive about its production schedule, so let's hope they don't hit any snags between now and last month. After all, as we saw yesterday, churning out top-bin CPUs isn't quite as easy as one might think.

For more on Penryn and Fab 32:
- see this press release