When Intel began its transition to a 45nm manufacturing process and managed to crank out a few Penryn CPUs this year, everyone was pretty amazed. 45nm is pretty darn small and turning out chips that use such cutting-edge manufacturing techniques is no small feat. If Toshiba, IBM, AMD, Samsung, Infineon, Freescale, and Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing have their way, however, 45nm CPUs could start looking a little long in the tooth sooner than you might think. That’s because the aforementioned companies have formed an alliance to develop CPUs using 32nm technology. The alliance, which extends to 2010, covers the development, design and production of 32nm microprocessors. No word yet on when we can expect to see 32nm chips though it’s probably best that these guys get cracking–it looks like Intel already has a head start.

For more on the alliance:
– see this Engadget article