The move will see Intel's PXA family of chips taken over by the telecomms equipment company. The PXA processors can be found lurking inside PDAs including the RIM Blackberry (right), which is the prefered gadget of the rich, famous and almost famous. The PXA line of chips are used in other trendy mobile devices too.The Castle Iyonix, meanwhile, uses a 600MHz Xscale IOP321 for its CPU - mainly for its PCI bus and StrongARM-compatibility. There's no official word on the fate of the IOP range of processors, although sources have alleged that it is not included in the deal between Intel and Marvell.
Marvell's CEO and chairman said: "This transaction presents Marvell with a tremendous opportunity to become a long-term leading supplier in the cell phone and consumer electronics market segments."
While development for cell phone markets will fly in the opposite direction to what a desktop market processor will need, the mention of interest in the consumer electronics segment is encouraging; it could signal new desktop-suitable chipsets beyond the current beleaguered and neglected IOP family.
Intel is now expected to push ahead with tearing down the power requirements of its x86 processor range, allowing it to attempt to challenge ARM directly in the PDA market. The hand over of the Xscale technology to Marvell will complete in four months.
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Intel sells Xscale business from The Register