16 × 16-bit general purpose 24-bit PC 16-bit status
Zilog Z8000
Z8001 on the motherboard of an Olivetti M20 computer
General information
Launched
1979; 45 years ago (1979)
Designed by
Zilog
Performance
Data width
16 bits
Address width
23 bits
Physical specifications
Transistors
17,500
Package(s)
48-pin DIP (8001)
40-pin DIP (8002)
The Z8000 is a 16-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog in early 1979. The architecture was designed by Bernard Peuto while the logic and physical implementation was done by Masatoshi Shima, assisted by a small group of people. In contrast to most designs of the era, the Z8000 did not use microcode which allowed it to be implemented in only 17,500 transistors.
The Z8000 is not Z80-compatible, but it uses many of the well-received design elements from the Z80. Among these is the ability for its registers to be combined and used as a single larger register; while the Z80 allowed two 8-bit registers to be used as a single 16-bit register, the Z8000 expanded this by allowing two 16-bit registers to operate as a 32-bit register, or four to operate as a 64-bit register. These combined registers are particularly useful for mathematical operations.
Although it saw some use in the early 1980s, it was never as popular as the Z80. It was released after the 16-bit Intel 8086 (April 1978) and the same time as the less-expensive Intel 8088, and only months before the Motorola 68000 (September 1979), which had a 32-bit instruction set architecture and was roughly twice as fast.
The Zilog Z80000 was a 32-bit follow-on design, launched in 1986.
The Z8000 is a 16-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog in early 1979. The architecture was designed by Bernard Peuto while the logic and physical implementation...
Z80000 is Zilog's 32-bit processor, first released in 1986. It is essentially a 32-bit expansion of its 16-bit predecessor, the ZilogZ8000. It includes...
Z800 contrasts with Zilog's first 16-bit effort, the ZilogZ8000, in that the Z800 was intended to be Z80 compatible, while the Z8000 was only Z80-like...
communication USART chip. He then joined Zilog, where he worked with Faggin to develop the Zilog Z80 (1976) and Z8000 (1979). He studied organic chemistry...
abandoning this effort to adopt the Z8000. The C900 was a 16-bit computer based on the segmented version of the ZilogZ8000 CPU. Initial announcements indicated...
implemented in NMOS with a multiplexed "Z-Bus" interface that matched the ZilogZ8000/Z16C00/8086 CPUs Z8530 Functionally identical to the Z8030, but using...
The Olivetti M20 is a ZilogZ8000 based computer designed and released by Olivetti in 1982. Although it offered good performance, it suffered from a lack...
company stated that it intended to port the operating system to the ZilogZ8000 series, Digital LSI-11, Intel 8086 and 80286, Motorola 68000, and possibly...
notably including the MOS Technology 6502 and 6510 in addition to the Zilog Z80. Although considerably easier than in machine language, writing long...
the 5 MHz 16-bit ZilogZ8000 showed this clearly. Program size was about 30% larger than the VAX but very close to that of the Z8000, validating the argument...
TC1800. Olivetti's first modern personal computer, the M20, featuring a ZilogZ8000 CPU, was released in 1982. The M20 was followed in 1983 by the M24, a...
Z8015 (1985) used with the ZilogZ8000 family of processors. Later microprocessors (such as the Motorola 68030 and the Zilog Z280) placed the MMU together...
headroom even as single-chip 16-bit microprocessors like the TMS 9900 and ZilogZ8000 appeared in the later 1970s. Most mini vendors introduced their own single-chip...
and manufacturing field, in particular based on AMD's second-source ZilogZ8000 microprocessors. When the two companies' vision for Advanced Micro Computers...
became commercially available in 1980, when Onyx Systems released its ZilogZ8000-based C8002 and Microsoft announced its first Unix for 16-bit microcomputers...
were expensive; by the decade's end, low-cost 16-bit designs like the ZilogZ8000 were becoming common. Some unusual word lengths were also produced, including...
and manufacturing field, in particular based on AMD's second-source ZilogZ8000 microprocessors. When the two companies' vision for Advanced Micro Computers...
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