This week Intel has announced its control-plane processors based on Intel Xscale architecture and also Intel Xeon chips for low-power consuming servers. Both CPUs are intended for the communications market and will bring there certain new and interesting features, as well as performance heights.

The first newcomer from Intel is a system-on-a-chip Xscale IXC1100 with Intel Xscale processing core functioning at 533MHz. The solution provides efficient processing of control, management, terminations and certain other tasks within a very tight power budget specifically for line cards that act as the high traffic connectivity and termination points within a networking platform. These control-plane processors are targeted for wireless infrastructure equipment, such as base-station controllers and radio network controllers and multi-service switches. The IXC1100 processor will be available in early Q4. The MSRP for the 533-MHz, commercial-temperature-range version begins at $55 in one-thousand-unit quantities.

On Tuesday Intel also unveiled the first low-voltage Xeon processors. These CPUs are going to be the successors of the LV Pentium III-S CPUs used in 1 or 2 processors low-voltage ultra-thin servers. The first low-voltage Xeon chip’s core voltage is just 1.3V, as a result the processor dissipates only 30W of heat working at 1.6GHz, half of original Xeon CPU’s dissipation.

As all Xeon processors, its LV fellows with reduced core voltage are intended for Socket 604 and work at 400MHz FSB speed. Of course, as all the Northwoods, they also support HyperThreading Technology and incorporate 512KB of L2 cache. Intel recommends to use Xeon processors with the E7500 based mainboards.

The Low Voltage Intel Xeon processor is currently available for $355 in one-thousand-unit quantities.