Intel announced new chips yesterday, incorporating a new three-dimensional manufacturing process to fit more processing capability into a smaller space whilst consuming less power and costing less to manufacture. GigaOM’s Stacey Higginbotham described the announcement as “significant, but not as big of a breakthrough as I hoped for,” and Arik Hesseldahl at the Wall Street Journal‘s All Things Digital notes that the concept was first announced way back in 2002… and may not result in shipping chips until the end of 2011 or early 2012. Over at InfoWorld, Ted Samson flags the concern that processors optimised for mobile devices may be much further off. Chips need to consume less power as we use more of them, more often. Apparently, we also have an insatiable demand for more powerful processors. Intel’s announcement meets both those requirements, and keeps things moving nicely along the path predicted by Gordon Moore almost 50 years ago.