Actually, that's incorrect. Although you're right, Penryn is not a chipset, neither is Nehalem! In fact, neither is Santa Rosa!
Santa Rosa = Centrino Platform with Crestline Chipset
Processors supported: Merom 800MT/s (Socket P), and Penryn (Socket P)
Santa Rosa Refresh = around beginning of 2008- for Penryn stuff
Montevina = Next Centrino Platform after Santa Rosa. Cantiga Chipset, Socket P, improved Penryn support with faster FSB (1066MT/s), improved integrated graphics, DDR3 memory likely.
Penryn= Next generation chip of Intel Core Microarchitecture, 45nm, SSE4, Socket P for mobile variants.
Nehalem = Successor to Penryn, New Architecture. Due date is around 2008, and will likely be the architecutre that sees the next die shrink to 32nm.
I doubt it'll be that late, really. Recent reports indicated that Penryn was on track for an earlier release than expected. Apple could afford to wait on the Core 2 mobile chips, but they offered only a mild improvement and they had to milk the Core Duos for what they were worth. Penryn, however, provides just as much incentive as Santa Rosa, if not more to update the lineup when the time comes. First of all, it'll probably be near the end of the year, coinciding with the next likely update of the MBPs after the imminent Santa Rosa update. Penryn's advanced SSE4 instructions, 45nm design, and larger cache make it more attractive than just the FSB boost of the Merom-800MT/s from a processor standpoint... especially at some tasks Macs are quite often tasked to accomplish.
I may settle for Santa Rosa for my next portable, or I may hold out for Penryn refreshes or even Montevina penryns, but I know that from the pure processor capability POV, I'll be waiting for Penryn Mac Pros for sure.