Friday morning, analyst Matt Thornton at AVI Securities made the bold claim that Apple’s fabled Tablet device is now “in full production.” According to CNET’s Brooke Crothers, “a research note stated that Apple “NAND” flash chip requirements may be increasing because of the tablet.”

Reportedly, Thornton’s information comes directly from “a maker of components going into the Apple tablet.” Thornton went on to say:

“It’s been in the supply chain for a while and entered full production this month. A couple of suppliers actually had weaker Decembers than they would have expected because production was pushed back a little bit.”

Once out in the wild, the Apple Tablet is expected to sell upwards of ten million units per year. And while many hundreds of Asian works likely get a glimpse of the device on a daily basis, we in America (and Europe) seemingly know nothing about the tablet — except what we’ve heard in rumors.

Even rumors had noted that the debut of the device would be either on January 26th or 27th. But strangely, we haven’t heard one official word about the event. We’re closing in on T-minus one week until the target date, and Apple has not yet sent invitations to the press.

But if in fact the event is to be held as rumored, we’ll likely be hearing official word in the coming days.