Zilog Z8

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The Zilog Z8 family, including the compatible Z8 Encore![1], Z8 Encore! XP, and Z8 Encore! MC families, are microcontrollers with on-chip RAM and (optional) OTP ROM or FLASH, as well as on chip peripherals such as A/D converters, SPI and I2C channels, IrDA encoders/decoders etc. There are versions with from 8 up to 80 pins, housed in PDIP, MLF, SSOP, SOIC and LQFP packages. The Z8 Encore! series can be programmed and debugged through a single pin serial interface.

The Z8 is technically very different from the Zilog Z80; it uses a modified (non strict) Harvard architecture. Despite this, the instruction set and assembly syntax is quite reminiscent[2] of the Z80; load/store operations uses the same LD mnemonic (no MOV or MOVEs), instructions familiar to the Z80 programmer, such as DJNZ, are kept, and so on.

Primary competitors include the somewhat similar[3] Microchip PIC family, and all the Intel 8051 descendants. Also more traditional "von Neumann based" single chip microcontrollers may be regarded as competitors, such as the 6800/6809 based Motorola 68HC11, the Hitachi H8 family, and Z80-derivatives, such as Toshiba TLCS-870, to name just a few.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The "Encore!" products contains the newer eZ8 core which is 2-3 times as clock cycle efficient as the original Z8 core.
  2. ^ And its descendants, Z180 and eZ80, as well as other Zilog CPUs, such as the Z8000.
  3. ^ The PIC and the 8051 are using Harvard architectures as well, but in a more rigid manner.

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