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Zilog, Inc., often seen as ZiLOG (the official company denotation in 1998 through Jun 2007), is a manufacturer of 8-bit
8-bit

Eight-bit CPUs normally use an 8-bit data bus and a 16-bit address bus which means that their address space is limited to 64 KBs. This is not a "natural law", however, so there are exceptions....
, 16-bit
16-bit

16-bit architectureThe HP 2100#Descendants and variants , introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor.Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816....
, 24-bit
24-bit

The IBM System/360, announced in 1964, was an extremely popular computer system with 24-bit addressing and 32-bit general registers and arithmetic. The early 1980s saw the first popular personal computers, including the IBM PC/AT with an Intel 80286 processor using 24-bit addressing and 16-bit general registers and arithmetic, and the Apple Inc....
, and 32-bit
32-bit

The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding....
 microprocessors, and is most famous for its Intel 8080
Intel 8080

The Intel 8080 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. The 8-bit microprocessor was released in April 1974 running at 2 megahertz , and is generally considered to be the first truly usable microprocessor....
-compatible Z80
Zilog Z80

The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and sold by Zilog from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes....
 series.



g was incorporated in California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
 in 1974 by Federico Faggin
Federico Faggin

Federico Faggin is an Italy-born physicist/electrical engineer, principally responsible for the design of the first microprocessor and responsible for leading the Intel 4004 to its successful outcome and for promoting its marketing....
, who left Intel after working on the 8080.






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Zilog, Inc., often seen as ZiLOG (the official company denotation in 1998 through Jun 2007), is a manufacturer of 8-bit
8-bit

Eight-bit CPUs normally use an 8-bit data bus and a 16-bit address bus which means that their address space is limited to 64 KBs. This is not a "natural law", however, so there are exceptions....
, 16-bit
16-bit

16-bit architectureThe HP 2100#Descendants and variants , introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor.Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816....
, 24-bit
24-bit

The IBM System/360, announced in 1964, was an extremely popular computer system with 24-bit addressing and 32-bit general registers and arithmetic. The early 1980s saw the first popular personal computers, including the IBM PC/AT with an Intel 80286 processor using 24-bit addressing and 16-bit general registers and arithmetic, and the Apple Inc....
, and 32-bit
32-bit

The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding....
 microprocessors, and is most famous for its Intel 8080
Intel 8080

The Intel 8080 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. The 8-bit microprocessor was released in April 1974 running at 2 megahertz , and is generally considered to be the first truly usable microprocessor....
-compatible Z80
Zilog Z80

The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and sold by Zilog from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes....
 series.

Zilog Z80


History

Zilog was incorporated in California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
 in 1974 by Federico Faggin
Federico Faggin

Federico Faggin is an Italy-born physicist/electrical engineer, principally responsible for the design of the first microprocessor and responsible for leading the Intel 4004 to its successful outcome and for promoting its marketing....
, who left Intel after working on the 8080. The company became a subsidiary
Subsidiary

A subsidiary, in business matters, is an entity that is controlled by a bigger and more powerful entity. The controlled entity is called a company , corporation, or limited liability company, and the controlling entity is called its parent ....
 of Exxon
Exxon

Exxon is a brand of fuel sold by ExxonMobil....
 in 1980, but the management and employees bought it back in 1989. Zilog went public in 1991, but was acquired in 1998 by Texas Pacific Group
Texas Pacific Group

TPG Capital is one of the largest private equity investment firms globally, focused on leveraged buyout, growth capital and leveraged recapitalization investments in distressed companies and turnaround situations....
, who, after chip prices plummeted, reorganized the company in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2001. On January 2008, Zilog declined an unsolicited proposal made by Universal Electronics Inc to acquire the company.

Products

The Z80 was an improved implementation of the Intel 8080
Intel 8080

The Intel 8080 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. The 8-bit microprocessor was released in April 1974 running at 2 megahertz , and is generally considered to be the first truly usable microprocessor....
 architecture, which was faster, more capable, and much cheaper; alongside the 6502
MOS Technology 6502

The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured central processing unit on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of competing designs from larger companies such...
 it was one of the most popular 8-bit processors for general purpose microcomputers and other applications. It was used in the Nintendo
Nintendo

is a global company located in Kyoto, Japan founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
 Game Boy
Game Boy

The is an 8-bit handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in August , and in Europe in ....
, the Sinclair
Sinclair Research Ltd

Sinclair Research Ltd is a consumer electronics company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge, England. Originally incorporated in 1973, it remained dormant until 1976, and didn't adopt the name Sinclair Research until 1981....
 ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. Referred to during development as the ZX81 Colour and ZX82, the machine was launched as the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair to highlight the machine's colour display, compared with the black-and-white of its predec...
 home
Home

A home is a place of residence or refuge. It is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and be able to store personal property....
 microcomputer
Microcomputer

A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. Another general characteristic of these computers is that they occupy physically small amounts of space when compared to mainframe computer and minicomputers....
s as well as the MSX
MSX

MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s. It was a Microsoft-led attempt to create unified standards among hardware makers, conceived by one-time Microsoft Japan executive Kazuhiko Nishi....
 architecture and the Tandy
Tandy Corporation

Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, which is best known for purchasing and giving its name to the Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack....
 TRS-80
TRS-80

TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The line won popularity with hobbyists, home users, and small-businesses....
 series - among many others. Also, many Texas Instruments graphing calculator
Graphing calculator

A graphing calculator typically refers to a class of handheld calculators that are capable of plotting graph of a function, solving simultaneous equations, and performing numerous other tasks with variables....
s used the Z80 as the main processor
Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
, and the chip found continued use in some newer game consoles such as the Sega
Sega

is a Multinational corporation video game software and hardware development company, and a home computer and console manufacturer headquartered in Ota, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan....
 Mega Drive (Genesis in the United States) and Saturn. The CP/M
CP/M

CP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/Intel 8085 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research. Initially confined to single tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations, and were migrated to 16-bit processors....
 operating system
Operating system

An operating system is an interface between hardware and applications; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer....
 (and its huge software library featuring hits like Wordstar
WordStar

WordStar was a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s....
 and dBase
DBASE

dBase II was the first widely used database management system for microcomputers, published by Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on the Apple II, Apple Macintosh, UNIX, OpenVMS, and IBM PC under DOS where it and its successors dBase III and dBase IV became one of the best-selling software titles for a number of years....
) was known to be "the Z80 disk operating system", and its success is partly due to the popularity of the Z80.

After the Z80 Zilog introduced the 16-bit
16-bit

16-bit architectureThe HP 2100#Descendants and variants , introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor.Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816....
 Z8000 and 32-bit
32-bit

The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding....
 Z80000 processors, but these were not particularly successful, and the company refocused on the microcontroller
Microcontroller

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit consisting of a relatively simple CPU combined with support functions such as a crystal oscillator, timers, watchdog, serial and analog I/O etc....
 market, producing both basic CPUs and application-specific integrated circuits/standard product
Application-specific integrated circuit

An application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use....
s (ASICs/ASSPs) built around a CPU core. As well as producing processors, Zilog has produced several other components. One of the most famous was the Z8530 serial communications controller as found on Sun
Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational corporation vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982....
 SPARCstation
SPARCstation

The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines were a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and server s in desktop, deskside and rack-based form factor developed and sold by Sun Microsystems...
s and SPARCservers up to the SPARCstation 20
SPARCstation 20

The SPARCstation 20 is a Sun Microsystems workstation based on the SPARC#SuperSPARC or SPARC#hyperSPARC CPU. It was the last model in the SPARCstation family of Sun "pizza box form factor" computers, which was superseded by the Sun Ultra series design in 1995....
.

Zilog also formed a Systems Division, which designed the Zilog System 8000, a Z8000- or Z80000-based multiuser computer system running a Unix derivative called ZEUS (Zilog Enhanced UNIX System).

Zilog entered 32-bit microcontroller market in February 2006 with the demonstration of ARM9-based Point-Of-Sale (POS
POS

POS or PoS may refer to:*Parent Over Shoulder, used on instant messaging to say that their parent is looking at what is being written* Polycystic ovary syndrome, a disease of the ovaries...
) microcontroller product line. The final product was released in 2007 called Zatara.

Microprocessor families

  • Zilog Z80
    Zilog Z80

    The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and sold by Zilog from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes....
     (1976)
  • Zilog Z8000
    Zilog Z8000

    The Z8000 was a 16-bit microprocessor introduced by ZiLOG in 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....
     (ca 1978)
  • Zilog Z800
    Zilog Z800

    The Zilog Z800 was a 16-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog to be released in 1985. It was instruction compatible with their existing Zilog Z80, and differed primarily in having on chip cache and MMU for a 16 MB address range, and also a huge number of new more orthogonal instructions and addressing modes....
     (1985)
  • Zilog Z80000
    Zilog Z80000

    The Z80000 was Zilog's 32-bit central processing unit from 1986, an expansion of its 16-bit predecessor, the Zilog Z8000. It included multiprocessing capability, a six-stage instruction pipeline, and a 256-byte cache....
     (late 1985)
  • Zilog Z280
    Zilog Z280

    The Zilog Z280 was an enhancement of the Zilog Z80 architecture introduced in July 1987, basically a slighly improved CMOS version of the earlier NMOS Zilog Z800, both versions were commercial failures....
     (early 1986)
  • Zilog Z180
    Zilog Z180

    The Zilog Z180 8-bit processor is a successor of the Zilog Z80 CPU. It is compatible with the large base of software written for the Z80. The Z180 family adds higher performance and integrated peripheral functions like clock generator, 16 bit counters/timers, interrupt controller, wait-state generators, serial ports and a DMA controller....
     (late 1986)
  • Zilog Z380
    Zilog Z380

    The Z380 is Zilog's 32 bit processor from 1994. The Z380 is Zilog Z80 compatible, but the newer and faster Zilog eZ80 family has been more successful recently....
     (1994)
  • Zilog eZ80
    Zilog eZ80

    The ZiLOG eZ80 is an 8-bit microprocessor which is essentially an updated version of the company's earlier Zilog Z80 8-bit microprocessor.The eZ80 is binary compatible with Z80 and Z180, but almost four times as fast as the old Z80 chip at the same core frequency....
     (2001)
  • Zilog eZ8 (2005)
  • Zilog Z16 (2006)


Microcontroller families

  • Zilog Z8
    Zilog Z8

    The Zilog Z8 is a microcontroller architecture, originally introduced in 1979, which today also includes the eZ8 Encore!, eZ8 Encore! XP, and eZ8 Encore! MC families....
     (1979)
  • Zilog Z8 Encore!
    Z8 Encore!

    The Zilog z8 Encore is a microcontroller based on the popular Zilog Z8 microcontroller.The Encore offers a wide Range of features for use in embedded applications....
  • Zilog Z8 Encore! XP
    Z8 Encore!

    The Zilog z8 Encore is a microcontroller based on the popular Zilog Z8 microcontroller.The Encore offers a wide Range of features for use in embedded applications....
  • Zilog Zatara


Flash microcontroller families

  • ZNEO Z16F


Communication controllers

  • Z16017/Z16M17/Z86017 PCMCIA adapter
  • Z80382/Z8L382 microprocessor
  • Z5380 SCSI protocol controller (based on NCR
    NCR Corporation

    NCR Corporation is a technology company specializing in products for the retail and financial sectors. Its main products are point of sale, automatic teller machines, cheque processing systems, barcode reader, and business consumables....
     5380)
  • Z022 series single-chip modem

Infrared
  • Zilog Crimzon infrared controllers
  • ZHX series IrDA
    IRDA

    IRDA may refer to:* Infrared Data Association, in information and communications technology , a standard for communication between devices over short distances using infrared signals...
     transceivers

Other wireless
  • Z87200
  • Z87L01
  • Z87L10


Digital Signal Processor
Digital signal processor

A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing, generally in real-time computing....

  • Z86295
  • Z89 series


TV controllers

  • Z90231
  • Z90233
  • Z90251
  • Z90255

Line 21 Decoders
  • Z86129/Z86130/Z86131
  • Z86228/Z86229/Z86230


See also

  • Applied Digital Data Systems
    Applied Digital Data Systems

    ADDS, or Applied Digital Data Systems was a leading supplier of high-quality video display computer terminals, founded by William J. Catacosinos together with SSDS in 1970....
  • LaFarr Stuart
    LaFarr Stuart

    LaFarr Stuart , now retired, was an early computer music pioneer, computer engineer and member of the Homebrew Computer Club....
    , ZiLOG's 4th employee


External links