• 2000

Hardware Description

The Zilog eZ80 is an 8-bit microprocessor which is essentially an updated version of the company's earlier Z80 8-bit microprocessor. The eZ80 (like the Z380) is binary compatible with the Z80 and Z180, but almost four times as fast as the original Z80 chip at the same clock frequency. Available at up to 50 MHz[1] (2004), the performance is comparable to a Z80 clocked at 200 MHz if fast memory is used (i.e. no wait states for opcode fetches, for data, or for I/O) or even higher in some applications (a 16-bit addition is 11 times as fast as in the original). The eZ80 also supports direct continuous addressing of 16 MB of memory without a memory management unit, by extending most registers (HL, BC, DE, IX, IY, SP, and PC) from 16 to 24 bits.