The Motorola 68008 is an 8/32-bit

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

introduced by

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

in 1982. It is a version of 1979's

Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

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 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 ...

, as well as a smaller

address 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 ...

. The 68008 was available with 20 or 22 address lines (respective to 48-pin or 52-pin package) which allowed 1 MB or 4 MB address space versus the 16 MB addressable on the 68000. The 68008 was designed to work with lower cost and simpler 8-bit memory systems. Because of its smaller data bus, it was roughly half as fast as a 68000 of the same clock speed. It was still faster than competing 8-bit microprocessors, because internally the 68008 behaves identically to the 68000 and has the same

microarchitecture In computer engineering, microarchitecture, also called computer organization and sometimes abbreviated as µarch or uarch, is the way a given instruction set architecture (ISA) is implemented in a particular processor. A given ISA may be impl ...

. Motorola ended production of the 68008 in 1996.comp.sys.m68k Usenet posting
May 16, 1995; also see other posts in thread. The end-of-life announcement was in late 1994; according to standard Motorola end-of-life practice, final orders would have been in 1995, with final shipments in 1996.

Details

The 68008 is an

HMOS In integrated circuits, depletion-load NMOS is a form of digital logic family that uses only a single power supply voltage, unlike earlier NMOS (n-type metal-oxide semiconductor) logic families that needed more than one different power supply v ...

chip with about with a speed grade of . There are two versions of the chip. The original is in a 48-pin

dual in-line package In microelectronics, a dual in-line package (DIP or DIL), is an electronic component package with a rectangular housing and two parallel rows of electrical connecting pins. The package may be through-hole mounted to a printed circuit board (P ...

with a 20-bit address bus, allowing it to use up to 1

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes o ...

of memory. A later version is in a 52-pin

plastic leaded chip carrier In electronics, a chip carrier is one of several kinds of surface-mount technology packages for integrated circuits (commonly called "chips"). Connections are made on all four edges of a square package; compared to the internal cavity for mounti ...

; this version has a 22-bit address bus and can support of RAM.

Usages

The

Sinclair QL The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small ...

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...

and

Luxor Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...

ABC 1600 The ABC 1600 was a personal computer from Luxor that was introduced in 1985. It was built around the Motorola 68008 processor, had of memory and used the operating system ABCenix, a Unix-like system developed from DNIX. The ABC 1600 used monochr ...

use the 68008 as their main processor.

References

External links

A small 68008 design

Kiwi - an 68k Homebrew Computer
{{Motorola processors 68k microprocessors