8086 Microprocessor

Brief information of microprocessor. A microprocessor is basically the brain of the computer. We can also call it simply a processor or CPU. Furthermore, a microprocessor is basically a computer processor that is mounted on a single IC (Integrated Circuit). It means that all the functions of the processor are included on a single chip.

8086 Microprocessor is an enhanced version of 8085Microprocessor that was designed by Intel in 1976. It is a 16-bit Microprocessor having 20 address lines and 16 data lines that provides up to 1MB storage. It consists of powerful instruction set, which provides operations like multiplication and division easily.

It supports two modes of operation, i.e. Maximum mode and Minimum mode. Maximum mode is suitable for system having multiple processors and Minimum mode is suitable for system having a single processor.

The most prominent features of a 8086 microprocessor are as follows −

• It has an instruction queue, which is capable of storing six instruction bytes from the memory resulting in faster processing.
• It was the first 16-bit processor having 16-bit ALU, 16-bit registers, internal data bus, and 16-bit external data bus resulting in faster processing.
• It is available in 3 versions based on the frequency of operation −
  • 8086 → 5MHz
  • 8086-2 → 8MHz
  • (c)8086-1 → 10 MHz