Sony and IBM have renewed their processor development partnership and agreed to co-operate on work to take the PS3's Cell chip into the 45nm era.

The deal, which Sony said would yield "a lower power and lower cost processor" for its next-gen games console, appeared as a footnote to Sony's agreement to sell its Nagasaki processor production plant to Toshiba and form a joint-venture to manufacture Cell and the PS3's RSX graphics chip.

IBM will manufacture the 45nm Cell at its East Fishkill, New York fab. Sony and Toshiba said the as-yet-unnamed JV will also work to migrate Cell production to 45nm, though the Nagasaki fab will "focus on 65nm process semiconductors".

That gives IBM the lead on 45nm Cell production, though it may not be working on RSX.

The announcement came on the same day that Sony knocked $100 off the US' 80GB PS3 and said it will ship the 40GB model there on 2 November.