During the first day of CES 2008 Intel announced the introduction of a new line of processors, spearheaded by the company’s first 45nm technology-built CPU for laptops.

The new manufacturing circuit allows Intel to produce eco-friendly, energy-efficient chips that are both fast and non-toxic. Moreover, the scaled-down CPUs (but packing more transistors) will permit hardware manufacturers to come up with lighter, slimmer portable devices, among which laptops are the first to benefit. With the introduction of the new processors, Intel will be offering a total of 32 desktop, laptop and server processors based on these technological breakthroughs.

Intel also unveiled its plans to include its recent line of processors into the next-generation of desktops, laptops and UMPCs (ultra mobile PCs), all of which will be focused on portability and sleek design. Among the 16 new products, 12 are designed for new laptops and desktops products and four are for servers. All are now lead-free and, starting this year, halogen-free, making the processors more eco-friendly.

Five CPUs out of the 12 unleashed at CES will be destined to laptops. Intel has also included in its Core 2 microarchitecture (which sits at the basis of the new chips) a new feature called Deep Power Down technology, that reduces the power of the processor when it's not running data or sending instructions to the laptop.

Moreover, the Santa Clara, CA-based behemoth boosted the HD capabilities of its laptop processors by including HD DVD and Blu Ray support, with an optional third-party decoder.

Notebooks built around the advanced Centrino technology will arrive with the Mobile 965 Express Chipset and wireless networking, including the optional support for 802.11n networks with Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N. Intel has also added new video and graphics capabilities with Intel HD Boost that includes Intel Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 (SSE4) for speeding up workloads including video encoding for high-definition and photo manipulation.