MCP-1600

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The MCP-1600 was a multi-chip microprocessor made by Western Digital in the late 1970s through the early 1980s. Used in the Pascal MicroEngine, the original AlphaMicro system, and one (small) variant of the DEC LSI-11 microcomputer.

There were three types of chips in the chip-set:

CP1611 RALU - Register ALU chip
CP1621 CON - Control chip
CP1631 MICROM - Mask-programmed microcode ROM chip (512 – 22 bit words)

The chips used a 3MHz four phase clock and four power supply voltages (+5V, +12V, -12V, and -5V). Internally the MCP-1600 was a (relatively fast) 8-bit processor that could be micro-programmed to emulate a 16-bit CPU. Up to four MICROMs were supported, but usually two or three could hold the needed microprogram for a processor.