is it possible to get smaller than 45nm?

Sure, 32nm is next, then 22nm.

possible, yes. Easy, not for a few years.

Good to hear it. I suspect that Sony will want to wait until 3 months after this transition to price cut, so September seems likely

-That means by reducing parts like the PSU, Cooling fans and CPU its fair enough to say to add back the emotion engine, card readers slots and the rest of the USB ports..

Now that it will be cheaper to make why not?

Looking at 2.5" 5400 RPM HDD prices on Newegg.com, 80GB HDDs are now generally more expensive than 120GB and 160GB HDDs. Depending on manufacturer some 160GB models are equal in price to the equivalent 120GB model.

I think we're quite likely to see an increase in standard HDD size to 120GB or 160GB when the 45nm SKU gets released. This would fit well with what Reeves had to say in December:

Link

@ NJ5 )

usually in the first months of chip production with new transistor sizes the yields are awful, so I think they need the time to have enough 45nm cells to make a pretty fast switch to 45nm in all SKUs

Sure Intel is getting to 32nm somewhere at end of year or early next year.

Ati/nvidia are testing 40nm process for gpus

Samsung is trying to produce 40nm ram chips.

Not together with a big cut, it would add too much cost to the entry-level model that thay'll want to price as low as possible without losing too much even during its first months, but maybe they could put them back in the high-end models even cutting their prices, a PS3 with 160GB HD, BC, card readers and more USB ports would be less than $100 more expensive to build than a 80GB, no-BC, few USB ports entry-level, so, if priced at $400-450, it would lose less than the latter priced at $300-350, or even make profits, while the entry level, if priced at $300 during Spring would certaily lose some tens of $ per unit for a few months.