CPU market leader Intel Corp. has announced it kicked off production of its 45-nanometer Penryn PC processors at its brand new 'Fab 32' in Chandler, Arizona, a facility which cost the chipmaker around $3 billion. Penryn will launch Nov 12.

"The opening of this fab means that we've now moved into high-volume production of our 45nm chips," said Kari Aakre, an Intel spokeswoman.

Previously, Intel has built CPUs with its 45nm process technology only within a pilot program of around 5,000 wafers a month at another location. The Fab 32 will boost production to 25,000 to 30,000 wafers a month, according to estimates. Intel did not provide production data. More than 1,000 employees will work at the Chandler factory, Intel said.

Its previous mass production was using 65-nm technology, the same used by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Next year Intel will add factories in Kiryat Gal, Israel and Rio Rancho, New Mexico, to produce 45nm chips, ready to produce the next-generation 45-nm 'Nehalem' processor.

Apart from the more advanced 45-nm process, Penryn uses new fabrication materials, most significantly a hafnium-based dielectric to reduce capacitance but minimize leakage current. The new 45-nm Penryn CPU will launch on desktops with a high-end quad-core model, the Core 2 Extreme QX9650. Intel's CPU will feature a large 12MB of L2 cache and run at least 3GHz. The Penryns also feature a new, faster divide technique called Radix 16.

The next shrink in the manufacturing process is expected to be adopted by Intel in 2009 (32-nm).