Just when you thought we were nearing the end of Moores Law Intel kicks it up a notch.

The new Penryn series microprocessors are essentially a shrink of the current Core architecture that brought Intel back out of the woods in 2006. These are also the first chips to use Intel’s 45-nanometer manufacturing technology, leading the first change to the basic properties of the transistor since the 1960s.

Intel Corp will start production this week at a new $3 billion factory in Arizona called Fab 32 for the Penryn series chips. Shrinking dies, of course are the heart of Intel’s mission to relentlessly put more transistors on smaller dies until the end of time or Moore’s law, whichever comes first.

While cutting down on power usage, Penryn processors jump to higher clock rates and feature cache and design improvements that improve the processors’ overall performance compared with earlier 65-nm chips. Apparently the processors will deliver a 40 to 60 percent improvement in video and imaging performance.

Intels Official Press Release