An inside look at the Z80,000 CPU

With recent advances in very large scale integrated circuit (VLSI) design, the once-distinct boundaries of micro-, mini-, and mainframe computer architectures are eroding. For example, the Motorola 68000, the Z8000 CPU, and the Intel 8086 have broken the once-distinct boundary between micro- and minicomputers. Now the Z80,000 CPU, Zilog's new 32-bit processor chip, has broken the distinct boundary between mini- and mainframe computers by featuring a mainframe power on an integrated-circuit chip. The distinguishing features of the Z80,000 CPU---such as on-chip virtual memory management, on-chip cache memory, six-stage pipeline architecture, burst memory transfer, and multiprocessing support---put it ahead of any CPU in its class.