Bit-slice microprocessor design
by John Mick · first published 1980
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2009–2025first – last mentioned
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Here are some old books on bit-slice processors. Very interesting reading. Bit-Slice Design: Controllers and ALUs by Donnamaie E. White Bit-Slice Microprocessor Design by John Mick and James Brick
on “Inside the Am2901: AMD's 1970s bit-slice processor” ↗Anyone wanting to learn more about Microcode in general, I found two old books that has some information: * Bit-Slice Design: Controllers and ALUs, Donnamaie White * Bit-Slice Microprocessor Design, Mick and Brick
on “IBM 5110 PALM (Put All Logic in Microcode) CPU from 1978” ↗If you don't know of it already, you might like the book Bit-Slice Microprocessor Design written by Mick and Brick. It's written to be very AM2900 specific, but a lot of the techniques would apply to microcoded TTL processors with just a little more work on your end. And it really does…
on “Glacial – Microcoded RISC-V core designed for low FPGA resource utilization” ↗You may be right about the 2900, but I think that one of the 2900 books ("Bit-slice Microprocessor Design" by Mick and Brick) could be considered very influential to a certain generation of older digital designer. Thanks for bringing this up--I'll need to add a copy to my library now!
on “25 Microchips That Shook the World” ↗…microprocessor.[...]" Along those lines, there was also a set of "bit-sliced" chips from AMD, which looked very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am2900 P.S. The "Mick & Brick" book: https://www.amazon.com/Bit-slice-microprocessor-design-John-...
on “The Surprising Story of the First Microprocessors (2016)” ↗…could use them as LEGO blocks to build your own design (e.g. 8, 12 ou 16 bits) with much fewer parts than using standard TTL gates (or ECL NANDs, if you were Seymour Cray). The 1980 Mick & Brick book Bit-slice Microprocessor Design later gathered together some "application notes" - the cookbooks/crib sheets that semiconductor companies wrote and provided to get buyers/engineers started after the spec sheets.
on “AMD entered the CPU market with reverse-engineered Intel 8080 clone 50 years ago” ↗