Around this time last month, the online tech press began covering news of a new Xeon processor based platform from chip giant Intel, which included the unveiling of the new IOP80332 XScale processor, codenamed Dobson.The 80332 is software compatible with the 600MHz IOP80321 XScale processor used in the Castle Iyonix and features a core processor speed of up to 800MHz and support for 2GB of DDR-333Mhz RAM (like the IOP80331). Importantly, the 80332 also includes support for PCI-Express, which is set to become the new backplane standard in PCs.
According to Intel, the IOP332 is "a highly integrated I/O system on a chip for RAID on Motherboard and I/O-intensive storage, networking and communications applications." However, due to the history of the XScale, it's ARM compatible and therefore favoured by Castle for RISC OS as it provides PCI support, which is in turn used to power sub-systems in the Iyonix like video and USB.
Links
Intel IOP XScale website