MC6800: Exploring The First Motorola Processor Family
Rochester revives this legacy product family
Who would have thought that in 2023 there could still be use for an 8-bit processor, almost 50 years after introduction?
The MC6800 was the iconic first processor produced by Motorola, all the way back in 1974. The parts ecosystem surrounding the MC6800, such as the MC6850 (ACIA), MC6821 (PIA), and MC6840 (PTM), created one of the very first computing systems. A unique feature of the MC6800 in 1974 was that only one 5v supply was needed in an era where -5v, +5v, and +12v were far more common.
To bring the MC6800 back to the market, after being unavailable in authorized channels for decades, was an undertaking for Rochester’s Design team. Unfortunately, the original GDS2 round tapes from Motorola were unreadable. However, there was the original hand-drawn schematic.
A single piece of paper in Rochester’s extensive semiconductor archives was the key in returning the product to active status. Our Design team jumped to work analyzing the schematic and replicating the functionality of every single cell in the design. The original fab process at Motorola had charge pumps to elevate on-die voltage and overcome NMOS process limitations to get to that required single 5v supply, but that would not work in any 5v process today. Predominant storage elements had cross-coupled latches with gated pass-throughs that today’s silicon design tools cannot cleanly handle. Our Design team persevered through these challenges and triumphed with the first-silicon success with working silicon in our first customer system.
Rochester Electronics has a Motorola archive that includes the original physical design databases for every processor product, from the MC6800 through the MC68060, as well as many other archives. Many of these products have already been brought back to life, like the MC6800, and are available today at Rochester. The list of archives or stocked parts at Rochester is monumental, and includes MC6800, MC6802, MC6809, MC6810, MC6821, MC6840, MC6850, MC68HC000, MC68020, MC68EC030, MC68030, MC68040, and MC68060. MC68EC030s will be stocked by the middle of 2024 and have currently shipped prototypes to our first customer. Even the unique 132-pin bumpered quad-plastic package for the MC68020 was brought back by Rochester and is currently being used for assembly in our Newburyport headquarters. All of this shows the dedication and capabilities of our manufacturing and design teams. Most of these products reconstructed by the Design team at Rochester Electronics through our product replication methodologies.
In the 1980s, Motorola teamed up with Thomson as a second source for many Motorola processors in the European markets. Generally, Thomson kept selling some early 8-bit products far longer than Motorola. Thomson had the fab processes of Motorola, so the products were identical in customer systems. In fact, many of the listed products above from Rochester have been sold to customers who were previously using Thomson parts.
What does this mean for our long-term system customers?
Rochester has the design archive or active stock for every MC68xxx processor introduced by Motorola from 1974 to 1994. The MC68060 was available from NXP/Freescale/Motorola up until 2015 and was the last of the MC68xxx line. For our customers, this means we are and can support systems where Motorola processors were active from 1974 until 2015, with over 40 years of design-ins. That’s over decades of code compatibility and support with the MC68000 code stack. Every single MC68xxx processor introduced by Motorola can be replicated or is currently stocked at Rochester Electronics.
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