A slimmer PlayStation 3 could hit the shops this summer, because Sony’s finally said when it’ll begin replacing the console’s 65nm Cell chip.

David Reeves, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, told The Guardian that Sony is looking to replace the console’s current 65nm chip – produced by Toshiba – with a 45nm one “probably in middle of year”.

The new chip would enable Sony to slim down the bulky and heavy PS3, because the 45nm chip doesn’t consume as much power as the current one. In turn, this would allow Sony to scale down the PS3’s power brick and cooling system.

Crucially, the 45nm chip would be just as powerful as its predecessor.

In September 2008, Toshiba said it had inked plans to begin mass-production of the 45nm Cell chip in early 2009. Toshiba will also use the 45nm Cell chip in its TVs.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/06/ps3_45nm_chip_start_date/

I guess its good news for ps3.

Finally good news! And a price cut (hopefully)

According to Sony's CFO they're already using it in production. Does this mean they have enough PS3s stocked to last half a year?

It's alright.

But how about bringing back backwards compatibility!

nice

45nm Cell will bring costs and power consumption down, and that's very good, but I don't know if they'll wait to shrink the GPU too to release a Slim PS3...

good news. i heard they were working to downsize the blu-ray chip thingy too. is that true?.

Thats good news for sony hopefully that will bring them back to the top (more like second place)

nvm

it will still be a while till we see a PS3-Slim. Weight lose for the console would be the smaller cooler, power supply, and plastic for the motherboard. Sony probably wouldnt want to screw up the media hub look quite yet.