The Intel 80186, also known as the iAPX 186,
or just 186, is a
microprocessor and
microcontroller
A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable i ...
introduced in 1982. It was based on the
Intel 8086
The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allowi ...
and, like it, had a
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...
external
data bus multiplexed with a 20-bit
address bus. The
80188 variant, with an
8-bit
In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...
external data bus was also available.
Description
The 80186 series was generally intended for
embedded systems, as
microcontroller
A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable i ...
s with external memory. Therefore, to reduce the number of
integrated circuits required, it included features such as
clock generator,
interrupt controller,
timers,
wait state generator,
DMA
DMA may refer to:
Arts
* ''DMA'' (magazine), a defunct dance music magazine
* Dallas Museum of Art, an art museum in Texas, US
* Danish Music Awards, an award show held in Denmark
* BT Digital Music Awards, an annual event in the UK
* Doctor of M ...
channels, and external
chip select lines.
The initial clock rate of the 80186 was 6
MHz, but due to more hardware available for the
microcode
In processor design, microcode (μcode) is a technique that interposes a layer of computer organization between the central processing unit (CPU) hardware and the programmer-visible instruction set architecture of a computer. Microcode is a laye ...
to use, especially for address calculation, many individual instructions completed in fewer clock cycles than on an 8086 at the same clock frequency. For instance, the common ''register+immediate''
addressing mode was significantly faster than on the 8086, especially when a memory location was both (one of) the operand(s) and the destination. Multiply and divide also showed great improvement being several times as fast as on the original 8086 and multi-bit shifts were done almost four times as quickly as in the 8086.
A few new instructions were introduced with the 80186 (referred to as the 8086-2 instruction set in some
datasheets): ''enter''/''leave'' (replacing several instructions when handling stack frames), ''pusha''/''popa'' (push/pop all general registers), ''bound'' (check array index against bounds), and ''ins''/''outs'' (input/output of string). A useful ''immediate'' mode was added for the ''push'', ''imul'', and multi-bit shift instructions. These instructions were also included in the contemporary 80286 and in successor chips.
The (redesigned)
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 MOSFE ...
version, 80C186, introduced
DRAM refresh
Memory refresh is the process of periodically reading information from an area of computer memory and immediately rewriting the read information to the same area without modification, for the purpose of preserving the information."refresh cycle" ...
, a power-save mode, and a direct interface to the 80C187 floating point numeric
coprocessor
A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor (the CPU). Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating-point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, cryptography o ...
. Intel
second sourced this microprocessor to
Fujitsu Limited around 1985. Both packages for Intel 80186 version were available in 68-pin
PLCC and
PGA PGA is an acronym or initialism that may stand for:
Aviation
* IATA code for Page Municipal Airport, Coconino County, Arizona
* ICAO designator for Portugália, regional airline based in Lisbon, Portugal
* Abbreviation for Prince George Airport ...
in sampling at third quarter of 1985. The available 12.5 MHz Intel 80186-12 version using the
1.5-micron HMOS-III process for USD $36 in quantities of 100. The available 12.5 MHz Intel 80C186 version using the
CHMOS III-E technology using approximately 90 mA under normal load and only 32 mA under power-save mode. It was available in 68-pin PLCC,
CPGA, or CLCC package.
Uses
In personal computers
Because the integrated hardware of the 80186, designed with embedded systems in mind, was incompatible with the hardware used in the original IBM PC, the
80286 was chosen to succeed the
8086, in the
IBM PC/AT and other PC-compatible systems.
A few notable
personal computers used the 80186: the Australian
Dulmont Magnum laptop, one of the first laptops; the
Wang Office Assistant, marketed as a PC-like stand-alone word processor; the
Mindset; the
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad.
The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...
(not 100%
IBM PC compatible but using
MS-DOS 2.11); the
Compis (a
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
school computer); the French SMT-Goupil G4; the
RM Nimbus (a British school computer); the
Unisys ICON (a Canadian school computer); ORB Computer by ABS; the
HP 100LX
The HP 200LX Palmtop PC (F1060A, F1061A, F1216A), also known as project ''Felix'', is a personal digital assistant introduced by Hewlett-Packard in August 1994. It was often called a Palmtop PC, and it was notable that it was, with some mi ...
,
HP 200LX
The HP 200LX Palmtop PC (F1060A, F1061A, F1216A), also known as project ''Felix'', is a personal digital assistant introduced by Hewlett-Packard in August 1994. It was often called a Palmtop PC, and it was notable that it was, with some m ...
,
HP 1000CX, and
HP OmniGo 700LX
The HP 200LX Palmtop PC (F1060A, F1061A, F1216A), also known as project ''Felix'', is a personal digital assistant introduced by Hewlett-Packard in August 1994. It was often called a Palmtop PC, and it was notable that it was, with some mi ...
; the
Tandy 2000 desktop (a somewhat PC-compatible workstation with sharp graphics for its day); the Telex 1260 (a desktop PC-XT compatible); the
Philips :YES; the Nokia
MikroMikko 2; and the
IBM PCradio
The PCradio was a notebook computer released by International Business Machines (IBM) in late 1991. Designed primarily for mobile workers such as service technicians, salespersons and public safety workers, the PCradio featured a ruggedized buil ...
.
Acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally
two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...
created a plug-in for the BBC Master range of computers containing an 80186-10 with 512 KB of RAM, the
BBC Master 512 system.
In addition to the above examples of stand-alone implementations of the 80186 for personal computers, there was at least one example of an "add-in" accelerator card implementation: the
Orchid Technology PC Turbo 186, released in 1985. It was intended for use with the original
Intel 8088-based
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
(Model 5150).
Other devices
The Intel 80186 is intended to be embedded in electronic devices that are not primarily computers. For example:
* the 80186 was used to control the Microtek 8086 in-circuit emulator
* its offshoot,
Intel 80188 was embedded inside the Intel 14.4EX modem released in 1991. The 16 MHz processor was used to perform complex algorithms needed for forward error correction,
Trellis modulation, and echo cancellation in the modem
*the IBM 7171 protocol converter, which made
ASCII character-oriented terminals appear as an
IBM 3270
The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971
and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text ...
terminal to an IBM mainframe,
used the Intel 80186 as its CPU.
In May 2006, Intel announced that production of the 186 would cease at the end of September 2007. Pin- and instruction-compatible replacements might still be manufactured by various third party sources, and FPGA versions are publicly available.
See also
*
iAPX
In marketing, iAPX (''Intel Advanced Performance Architecture'' with X standing in for the Greek letter χ (''chi''), romanised as "ch") was a short lived designation used for several Intel microprocessors, including some 8086 family processors. ...
, for the iAPX name
*
NEC V20/
V30, for a third-party CPU also supporting the 80186 instructions
Notes
References
External links
Intel DatasheetScan of the Intel 80186 data book at datasheetarchive.comIntel 80186/80188 images and descriptions at cpu-collection.de
{{Authority control
Intel microcontrollers
80186
16-bit microprocessors