Western Design Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Western Design Center (WDC), located in Mesa, Arizona, USA, is a company developing and manufacturing MOS 65xx-based microprocessors, microcontrollers (µCs), and related support chips. WDC was founded in 1978 by co-holder of the MOS Technology 6502 patent, Bill Mensch, himself a former MOS employee.
In addition to the actual microchips, WDC offers chips designs in the form of IP cores to be used inside other chips (like ASICs), and provides ASIC and embedded systems consulting services revolving around their processor designs. WDC also makes C compilers, assembler/linker packages, simulators, development/evaluation boards, and in-circuit emulators for their processors.
[edit] Hardware products
[edit] Microchips
| Name | Type | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| W65C02S | 8-bit CPU | Bug-fixed CMOS version of the originally NMOS-based 6502 |
| W65C134S | 8-bit µC | Microcontroller with W65C02S CPU core |
| W65C21S | I/O chip | Compatible with the 6520 Peripheral Interface Adapter (PIA) |
| W65C22S | I/O chip | Compatible with the 6522 Versatile Interface Adapter (VIA) |
| W65C51S | I/O chip | EIA-232 serial communications chip compatible with the 6551 asynchronous communications interface adapter (ACIA) |
| W65C816S | 16-bit CPU | 16-bit compatible follow-up to the W65C02, featuring 24-bit memory addressing |
| W65C802S | 16-bit CPU | A 65C816 core in a 6502 pin-compatible package (out of production) |
| W65C265S | 16-bit µC | Microcontroller with W65C816S CPU core |
Previous versions of this article gave the following as "in development as of February 2007", with no supporting references:
| Name | Type | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| W65T32 Terbium | 32-bit CPU | A compatible 32-bit follow-up to the W65C816. The Terbium is named after the 65th element as 65 is the prefix to all of WDC's microprocessor number identifiers. The chip has a 32-bit address bus, a 16-bit data bus, and a variable length instruction set. |
At the present time (October 2009) there is no sign of a 32-bit CPU from WDC. Postings in various discussion groups on the Web suggest that WDC first claimed to have one under development before the end of 2005, and that early versions of a company announcement mentioned plans for it. The present version of the announcement [1] (dated 2007) and the indexed parts of the WDC site now make no mention of it.
Various other locations on the Web (mostly associated with Atari) seem to have copied each other in claiming that the WDC65T32 had been released, but I have found no independent verification of this.
[edit] Notes
I apologise for the lack of documentation on the (non-)existence of the WDC65T32. The previous text made unsupported claims that it was under development, and I thought it best to replace them with something!
[edit] References
[edit] Other
- The Mensch Computer – A W65C265 and W65C22-based hobbyist experiment computer named after company founder Bill Mensch.
