PlayStation fans, start your drooling--Toshiba and Sony have come one step closer to their vaunted Cell processor, which is expected to be at the core of Sony's PlayStation 3. In a joint statement, the two companies announced that they have successfully tested the production process to create a 65-nanometer chip. The new chips are nearly one-third smaller than the recently imposed 90nm standard and are half the size of the 130nm processors found in many computers today. Sony has stated that the Cell will use 300-millimeter wafers and 65-nanometre circuitry.

　　For laymen, the reason size matters when it comes to chips is that the smaller a chip's components, the faster its processing speed and the smaller its power demands. Low energy consumption and high processing speed are two things the Cell chip will need in spades.

　　Toshiba said it will send out the first sample 65nm chips next March for testing, before ramping up mass production in summer 2005. "We expect to start mass production of Cell in the second-half of 2005," said Sony Computer Entertainment's chief technology officer Kenshi Manabe at an October conference in Japan. Sony has put its money where its mouth is and plans to invest 200 billion yen ($1.86 billion) in Cell-chip production over the next three years.

　　The chip announcement also thickens the plot surrounding Toshiba's alliance with IBM and Sony to create the Cell. In fact, Toshiba's announcement specifically mentioned that it has achieved the 65nm production process "one year" ahead of IBM. "This is significant. As a start date, 2005 is competitive if they pull it off," HSBC electronics analyst Steve Myers told Reuters. However, Myers also felt Toshiba's announcement was not as explosive as some publications have portrayed it. "The production time-line is not necessarily wildly different from that of other [chip] makers. And between now and then there could be surprises both for Toshiba and for others."