Toshiba, IBM, Samsung and others in pact with the 32-nm devil

Toshiba just announced its membership in an alliance to develop system chips using 32-nm circuitry. That's well below the existing 45-nm processes used in manufacturing Intel's Penryn, for example. The alliance includes IBM, AMD, Samsung (already pushing 30-nm NAND), Infineon, Freescale, and Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing. No surprise really, what with Tosh already in bed with IBM to develop chips using 32-nm processes. The agreement is good until 2010 and covers design, development, and the production of the itty bitty circuitry. A move which should reduce manufacturing costs for the alliance with the savings passed along to us consumers.