A study on microprocessors with special reference to the MC6800

Abstract

Certainly, one of the greatest achievements in electronics was the discovery of the properties of semiconductors. From then on, electronic engineering has evolved at a tremendous pace. First we had the advent of the transistor some thirty years ago which replaced the large, power hungry vacuum tube. The advent, almost simultaneously of the stored program digital computer provided large potential market for the transistor. The transistor proved to be invaluable, but it was not enough, not for complicated engineering problems such as missile and satellite programs for instance. By 1960 a further advance was made in semiconductor technology. This was the capability to integrate a number of circuits on a single chip Integrated circuits grew more and more complicated and less than a decade later, large scale integrated circuits were appearing which were the equivalent of tens of thousands of transistors on a single silicon chip less than a quarter of an inch square. After the large scale integrated circuit it was the turn of the microprocessor to appear. [ .... ]