TSMC Masters 40 nm-engraving Process

Reported as a rumor last week, it is now official as Mark Liu, vice-president of TSMC, announced it: TSMC now fully master 40 nm engraving process. The yield of validated chips is now equal to the one recorded for 65 nm engraving process. So, mass production with such thinner process can now start. this will be especially interesting for graphic card from ATI/AMD and the future generation of GPU from NVIDIA. This is the only way to keep adding transistors on a more or less size-defined and reduced die. thinner engraving also allow lower power consumption, as well as higher frequencies. Other chips manufacturers, as such found in mobile phones or handhelds could also make good use of such thinner engraving as it will offer higher performance for the same or even lower power consumption.
As some sources indicate that the forthcoming Apple Tablet is powered by an in-house CPU developed by engineers from PA Semi acquired by Cupertino few months go. So, Apple could also make ask TSMC to manufacture such chips/CPU.