Project collaborator Joël Perras has announced the release of Lithium 0.6, which brings a large number of changes to the fledgling PHP framework.

Among the improvement introduced with the new release are a completely revamped template layer, improved caching and support for a more granular bootstrap process.

The Lithium project was started by Nate Abele and Joël Perras in late 2009 after they quit the development team of CakePHP—a framework that has recently seen its share of controversy when the CakePHP was accused of failing to pay venue fees for CakeFest Berlin.

Litium 0.6 can be downloaded directly from the project’s website, while a working copy can be cloned from its Git repository.

[Updated 2010-02-18 to correct Joël’s title]