Forty years ago, Intel released the 8086 processor, introducing the x86 architecture that underlies every PC—Windows, Mac, or Linux—produced today.

To reduce the engineering effort needed to incorporate the 8086 into designs, Intel opted for an on-board charge pump to generate the bias voltage.

Microcode is a feature of many modern CPUs. The CPU runs several “microcode” instructions to process a single opcode. For the Intel 8086, there are 512 micro instructions, each with 21 bits.

1978: Intel introduces the 16-bit 8086 microprocessor. It will become an industry standard. 1979: Intel introduces a lower-cost version of the 8086, the 8088, with an 8-bit bus.

Birth of a Standard: The Intel 8086 Microprocessor By ABC News June 16, 2008, 10:06 PM ...

To mark the 40-year anniversary of the Intel 8086 that powered the first IBM PC, Intel has announced the Intel Core i7-8086K Limited Edition processor, its first CPU that can hit 5GHz in turbo mode.

Microprocessor design hit a wall in the first half of this decade with Intel unable to deliver a 4gHz Pentium chip and IBM unable to deliver Apple a 3gHz PowerPC G5 chip or a G5 at any speed ...

The world changed on Nov. 15, 1971, and hardly anyone noticed. It is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Intel 4004 microprocessor, a computer carved onto silicon, an element as plentiful on ...