Is microprocessor an integrated circuit???

Maybe, Why do you want to know ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |

Fred is the one that should get lost.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |

oh have a heart! :/

Yogesh might be a 5-year-old boy... we don't know. That's the thing about google-groups - anyone can post there - they don't have to be old-school, professional usenet denziens like us. Play nice, Fred! :)

Yogesh should go to ibiblio.org/obp/electricCircuits/ and learn some basics there. That ought to keep him busy for awhile.

No it doesn't. It means micro-sized processor. What you're describing also includes the vax-11/780 whose processor board was hardly a microprocessor.

A microprocessor is nearly always a single chip processor; first one was the

4004; following were the 8080, 6800, 1802, etc. I don't bit slice processors could be considered a microprocessor.

and by the way, most 8 bit microprocessors weren't microprogrammed. Their instructions units were hard wired.

Yikes!

--
  Keith

Nope. No microprogramming. The logic was hard wired. No control- store, no microprogramming. Not all processors are microcoded.

--
  Keith

What color is the sky on your planet?

Simple answer; Because they're not single-chip.

Microprocessor == single chip processor.

--
  Keith

No they weren't. They were hardwired via logic.

BULLSHIT. The 11/780 was a minicomputer.

Which is irrelevent to wether or not a processor is microcoded.

again, irrelevent.

wrong.

Or it can be done with combinational logic.

or not at all.

Some microprocessors have a microcoded instruction decoder. So do some minicomputers.

You can post that it is a can of grapes, but that doesn't make it so.

The vax-11/780 was not a microprocessor. Using microcode does not make a microprocessor.

There are many examples of microprocessors that didn't use microcode.

Get lost!- and don't post to this newsgroup again.

6800, 6802, 6803, 6805, probably the PICs.

Any RISC processor: SPARC, PowerPC, Arm, Coldfire.

AVR and Dragonball, I think.

The original PDP-11 wasn't microcoded; it had about 550 TTL/MSI chips.

John

Answer: it can be. Some microprocessors are made with discrete components, but most today are integrated circuits, meaning the components have been built onto one circuit

Microprocessor means: micro programmed processor such that instructions are processed by referencing internal memory locations and there is a processor within a processor.

Most commercial microprocessors are general purpose, meaning the instruction set gives developers methods to move/control data, but some uPs are specific and have a limited/specific instruction set

However, that fact is irrelevent. Most minicomputers and many mainframes use microcode as well and many microprocessors do not.

Nor were the 1802, 4004, 8080, z80, or z8000. I believe the 8085 and

6800 were hard coded as well.

There's a point when a processor is too complex to hard code. The Z8000 was the last of the hard coded microprocessors and it was a failure due to it's numerous bugs.

Scenix (now Ubicom) for one. Microchip sued them and Micon Design Technology in Munich District Court, claiming copyright infringement of their microcode. Their defense was that they didn't have any.

And a startup company named TeraGen apparently made a version of the venerable 8051 without microcode.

And, apparently, the Alpha.

But I think most microprocessor cores do use microcode. CISC ones certainly do, RISC ones may not.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com