 The IOPs are controlled by the Nucleus function in the CPU, but once an I/O event is triggered, they operate autonomously without interaction with the CPU until the I/O completes.The "Normal Interface" IOPs can each support up to 255 or 256 simultaneous I/O operations, each on a separate "Way".The I/O controllers on each IOP would each occupy one or more Ways, depending on how many simultaneous I/O operations they need to handle.