The End of an Era: Zilog Discontinues the Z80 Microprocessor

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Two years short of the Z80's 50th birthday, Zilog has called it curtains on the 8-bit MPU. What legacy does this microprocessor leave behind?

www.allaboutcircuits.com/, May. 01, 2024 – 

As of June 2024, the venerable Z80 microprocessor, released by Zilog in 1976, will no longer be available as a standalone part.

Despite the many evolutions and revolutions in the engineering industry, some silicon goes back decades. You can still hop over to DigiKey or Mouser and place an order for an NE555 timer, first produced in 1971, or an LM741 op amp from 1968. These chips are icons of the birth of integrated-circuit electronics. The lifecycle of the Z80, equally salient to that era, has now come to an end.

The Intel 8080 and the Birth of the Zilog Z80

Zilog, now owned by Littelfuse, was born from the race to the single-chip microprocessor. Zilog's principal founder, Federico Faggin, developed the 4-bit Intel 4004, generally regarded as the first commercial single-chip microprocessor, and the 8-bit Intel 8008.

He was also instrumental in improving the follow-on processors, the 4040 and 8080. The 8080, introduced in 1974, was the first high-performance 8-bit microprocessor. It was more powerful, and it could directly address 64 K of RAM. It was also easier to interface than Intel's prior microprocessor chips.

Faggin, however, wanted more for the microprocessor than Intel did at the time. As the story goes, Intel was more focused on selling static RAM and ROM and largely saw the microprocessor as a way to sell more memory chips rather than as a valuable product on its own. He left Intel in late 1974 along with Ralph Ungermann to found Zilog. The two initially set their sights on designing a low-cost, single-chip microcontroller. However, without their own fab capability, the product would not be economically viable due to strong competition and low margins. With that idea set aside, they decided to develop an improved microprocessor chip that was compatible with the popular 8080.

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