Intel 8088

The Intel 8088 ("eighty-eighty-eight", also called iAPX 88)microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on July 1, 1979, the 8088 had an 8-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and the one megabyte address range were unchanged, however. In fact, according to the Intel documentation, the 8086 and 8088 have the same execution unit (EU)—only the bus interface unit (BIU) is different. The original IBM PC was based on the 8088.

History and description

The 8088 was designed in Israel, at Intel's Haifa laboratory, as with a large number of Intel's processors. The 8088 was targeted at economical systems by allowing the use of an 8-bit data path and 8-bit support and peripheral chips; complex circuit boards were still fairly cumbersome and expensive when it was released. The prefetch queue of the 8088 was shortened to four bytes, from the 8086's six bytes, and the prefetch algorithm was slightly modified to adapt to the narrower bus. These modifications of the basic 8086 design were one of the first jobs assigned to Intel's then new design office and laboratory in Haifa, Israel.

Intel

Coordinates: 37°23′16.54″N 121°57′48.74″W / 37.3879278°N 121.9635389°W / 37.3879278; -121.9635389

Intel Corporation (better known as Intel) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Intel is one of the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Intel supplies processors for computer system manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, HP and Dell. Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing.

Intel Corporation was founded on July 18, 1968 by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability.