45nm is not an option

At least one graphics camp will go directly from 55nm GPUs to 40 nanometer and not to 45nm, as many have expected. The graphics guys are working hard to introduce this new process in 2009, simply as getting chips smaller means more transistors per die, better thermal specs and more chips per wafer.

It is quite unusual that graphics guys would go directly for 40nm, as Intel and AMD have chosen 45nm as its manufacturing size and their next step is actually 32nm.

As 55nm is a half-node or optical shrink of the 65nm process, you can imagine that 40nm will be a physical shrink, but this is something that we need to confirm at a later date.