Production of some models of Z80 processor – one of the chips that helped spark the personal computing boom of the 1980s – is set to end after an

Zilog to end standalone sales of the legendary Z80 CPU

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2024-04-23 05:30:10

Production of some models of Z80 processor – one of the chips that helped spark the personal computing boom of the 1980s – is set to end after an all-too-brief 48 years.

Zilog blamed the standalone part's demise on one of its suppliers. "Please be advised that our wafer foundry manufacturer will be discontinuing support for Z80 and other product lines," the notification states.

The Z80 debuted in 1976, using a 4-micron process. The Register fancies that whichever factory Zilog used to churn out chips on that relatively chunky process node is no longer willing to do so.

Zilog will accept orders for the device until June 14, 2024. After that, it's the end for the eight-bit CPU – or at least the CMOS ZC8400 CPU family [datasheet PDF]. Zilog appears to still make the Z180 and eZ80 – successors that added lots of whistles and bells, and are basically system-on-chips.

The original Z80 featured just 8,500 transistors and could chug along at 2.5MHz typically, though that was enough to oomph for lots of fun stuff – helped by the fact that it was intended to be binary compatible with Intel's 8080 processor and sold at a cheaper price.