Intel's i960 (or 80960) was a RISC-based microprocessor design that became popular during the early 1990s as an embedded microcontroller, becoming a best-selling CPU in that field, along with the competing AMD 29000. In spite of its success, Intel dropped i960 marketing in the late 1990s as a side effect of a settlement with DEC in which Intel received the rights to produce the StrongARM CPU. The processor continues to be used in a few military applications.
Intel 80960CA
The i960CA, first announced in July 1989, was the first pure RISC implementation of the i960 architecture. It featured a newly designed superscalar RISC core and added an unusual addressable on-chip cache, but lacked an FPU and MMU, as it was intended for high-performance embedded applications. The i960CA microarchitecture was designed in 1987-1988 and formally announced on September 12, 1989.
Intel 80960CA 16 MHz
Intel 80960CA 33 MHz
Kindly donated by Pauli Rautakorpi.
Intel 80960HD
Intel 80960HD 66 MHz
Kindly donated by Pauli Rautakorpi.
Intel 80960KA
A version of the RISC core without MMU or an FPU became the i960KA, and the RISC core with the FPU became the i960KB. The versions were, however, all identical internally - only the labeling was different. This meant the CPUs were much larger than necessary for the "actually supported" feature sets, and as a result, more expensive to manufacture than they needed to be.
The i960KA became successful as a low-cost 32-bit processor for the laser-printer market, as well as for early graphics terminals and other embedded applications. Its success paid for future generations, which removed the complex memory sub-system.
Intel 80960KA 20 MHz
Kindly donated by Pauli Rautakorpi.
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