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Signetics 2650
The Signetics 2650 was an 8-bit microprocessor introduced in July 1975. According to Adam Osborne's book ''An Introduction to Microprocessors Vol 2: Some Real Products'', it was "the most minicomputer-like" of the microprocessors available at the time. A combination of missing features and odd memory access limited its appeal, and the system saw little use in the market. Development In 1972, Signetics' Jack Curtis hired John Kessler of IBM to lead the design of a new single-chip CPU intended to compete with minicomputer systems. Kessler selected the IBM 1130 as the model for the new design. The 1130, released in 1965, was a 16-bit minicomputer that shared many design features with other minis of the era. While Kessler designed the architecture, Kent Andreas laid out the CPU using a recently developed ion implantation NMOS process. In contrast to the far more common PMOS process of the era, NMOS used less power and dissipated less heat. This allowed the chip to be run at hig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signetics
Signetics Corporation was an American electronics manufacturer specifically established to make integrated circuits. Founded in 1961, they went on to develop a number of early microprocessors and support chips, as well as the widely used 555 timer chip. The company was bought by Philips in 1975 and incorporated in Philips Semiconductors (now NXP). History Signetics was started in 1961, by a group of engineers (David Allison, David James, Lionel Kattner, and Mark Weissenstern) who had left Fairchild Semiconductor. At the time, Fairchild was concentrating on its discrete component business (mostly transistors), and its management felt that by making integrated circuits (ICs) it would lose its customers. Signetics founders believed that ICs were the future of electronics (much like another contemporary Fairchild spinoff, Amelco) and wished to commercialize them. The name of the new company was coined from Signal Network Electronics. The venture was financed by a group organized t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integrated Circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny MOSFETs (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors) integrate into a small chip. This results in circuits that are orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less expensive than those constructed of discrete electronic components. The IC's mass production capability, reliability, and building-block approach to integrated circuit design has ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of designs using discrete transistors. ICs are now used in virtually all electronic equipment and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, mobile phones and other home appliances are now inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the small size and low cost of ICs such as modern computer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Device Driver
In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and other computer programs to access hardware functions without needing to know precise details about the hardware being used. A driver communicates with the device through the computer bus or communications subsystem to which the hardware connects. When a calling program invokes a routine in the driver, the driver issues commands to the device (drives it). Once the device sends data back to the driver, the driver may invoke routines in the original calling program. Drivers are hardware dependent and operating-system-specific. They usually provide the interrupt handling required for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interface. Purpose The main purpose of device drivers is to provide abstraction by acting as a translator be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrupt Handler
In computer systems programming, an interrupt handler, also known as an interrupt service routine or ISR, is a special block of code associated with a specific interrupt condition. Interrupt handlers are initiated by hardware interrupts, software interrupt instructions, or software exceptions, and are used for implementing device drivers or transitions between protected modes of operation, such as system calls. The traditional form of interrupt handler is the hardware interrupt handler. Hardware interrupts arise from electrical conditions or low-level protocols implemented in digital logic, are usually dispatched via a hard-coded table of interrupt vectors, asynchronously to the normal execution stream (as interrupt masking levels permit), often using a separate stack, and automatically entering into a different execution context (privilege level) for the duration of the interrupt handler's execution. In general, hardware interrupts and their handlers are used to handle high-pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vectored Interrupt
In computer science, a vectored interrupt is a processing technique in which the interrupting device directs the processor to the appropriate interrupt service routine. This is in contrast to a polled interrupt system, in which a single interrupt service routine must determine the source of the interrupt by checking all potential interrupt sources, a slow and relatively laborious process. Implementation Vectored interrupts are achieved by assigning each interrupting device a unique code, typically four to eight bits in length. When a device interrupts, it sends its unique code over the data bus In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin '' omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This ex ... to the processor, telling the processor which interrupt service routine to execute. References {{Reflist Computer architecture Interrupt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Input/output
In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system and outputs are the signals or data sent from it. The term can also be used as part of an action; to "perform I/O" is to perform an input or output operation. are the pieces of hardware used by a human (or other system) to communicate with a computer. For instance, a keyboard or computer mouse is an input device for a computer, while monitors and printers are output devices. Devices for communication between computers, such as modems and network cards, typically perform both input and output operations. Any interaction with the system by a interactor is an input and the reaction the system responds is called the output. The designation of a device as either input or output depends on perspective. Mice a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signetics 2650A Die
Signetics Corporation was an American electronics manufacturer specifically established to make integrated circuits. Founded in 1961, they went on to develop a number of early microprocessors and support chips, as well as the widely used 555 timer chip. The company was bought by Philips in 1975 and incorporated in Philips Semiconductors (now NXP). History Signetics was started in 1961, by a group of engineers (David Allison, David James, Lionel Kattner, and Mark Weissenstern) who had left Fairchild Semiconductor. At the time, Fairchild was concentrating on its discrete component business (mostly transistors), and its management felt that by making integrated circuits (ICs) it would lose its customers. Signetics founders believed that ICs were the future of electronics (much like another contemporary Fairchild spinoff, Amelco) and wished to commercialize them. The name of the new company was coined from Signal Network Electronics. The venture was financed by a group organized th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers, communication interface products and data conversion solutions. National's key markets included wireless handsets, displays and a variety of broad electronics markets, including medical, automotive, industrial and test and measurement applications. On September 23, 2011, the company formally became part of Texas Instruments as the "Silicon Valley" division. History Founding National Semiconductor was founded in Danbury, Connecticut, by Dr. Bernard J. Rothlein on May 27, 1959, when he and seven colleagues, Edward N. Clarke, Joseph J. Gruber, Milton Schneider, Robert L. Hopkins, Robert L. Koch, Richard R. Rau and Arthur V. Siefert, left their employment at the semiconductor division of Sperry Rand Corp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PDP-8
The PDP-8 is a 12-bit computing, 12-bit minicomputer that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the first commercially successful minicomputer, with over 50,000 units being sold over the model's lifetime. Its basic design follows the pioneering LINC but has a smaller instruction set, which is an expanded version of the PDP-5 instruction set. Similar machines from DEC are the PDP-12 which is a modernized version of the PDP-8 and LINC concepts, and the PDP-14 industrial controller system. Overview The earliest PDP-8 model, informally known as a "Straight-8", was introduced on 22 March 1965 priced at $18,500 (). It used diode–transistor logic packaged on Flip Chip (trademark), flip chip cards in a machine about the size of a small household refrigerator. It was the first computer to be sold for under $20,000, making it the best-selling computer in history at that time. The Straight-8 was supplanted in 1966 by the PDP-8/S, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intersil 6100
The Intersil 6100 is a single-chip microprocessor implementation of the 12-bit PDP-8 instruction set, along with a range of peripheral support and memory ICs developed by Intersil in the mid-1970s. It was sometimes referred to as the CMOS-PDP8. Since it was also produced by Harris Corporation, it was also known as the Harris HM-6100. The Intersil 6100 was introduced in the second quarter of 1975, and the Harris version in 1976. The 6100 family was produced using CMOS rather than the bipolar and NMOS technologies used by most of its contemporaries (Z80, 8080, 6502, 6800, 9900, etc.). As a result of its CMOS technology and low clock speeds, 8 MHz for the Harris HM-6100A, it had relatively low power consumption, less than 100 mW at 10 V/2 MHz, and could be operated from a single supply over the wide range of 4–11 V. Thus, it could be used in high reliability embedded systems without the need for any significant thermal management, if the rest of the syst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intersil
Intersil is an American semiconductor company headquartered in Milpitas, California. As of February 24, 2017, Intersil is a subsidiary of Renesas. The previous Intersil was formed in August 1999 through the acquisition of the semiconductor business of Harris Corporation. Intersil is a power management IC business, with specialized capability in power management and precision analog technology for applications in industrial, infrastructure, mobile, automotive and aerospace. Company history The original Intersil, Inc. was founded in 1967 by the Swiss physicist Jean Hoerni to develop digital watch Integrated Circuits (ICs). The European subsidiary Eurosil was originally partially funded by SSIH, a Swiss watch company. Later-on, Intersil had a development contract with the Japanese company Daini Seikosha and became supplier of low-voltage CMOS watch ICs for Seiko. When microprocessors emerged to the market in the 1970s, Intersil participated with its 12-bit IM6100, which was the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFETs for logic functions. CMOS technology is used for constructing integrated circuit (IC) chips, including microprocessors, microcontrollers, memory chips (including CMOS BIOS), and other digital logic circuits. CMOS technology is also used for analog circuits such as image sensors (CMOS sensors), data converters, RF circuits (RF CMOS), and highly integrated transceivers for many types of communication. The CMOS process was originally conceived by Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor and presented by Wanlass and Chih-Tang Sah at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in 1963. Wanlass later filed US patent 3,356,858 for CMOS circuitry and it was granted in 1967. commercialized the technology with the trademark "COS-MO ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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