HP FOCUS

HP FOCUS is a 1982 Hewlett-Packard microprocessor . He became the first commercial, single-chip, fully 32-bit CPU launched on the market. At that time, all 32-bit competitor microprocessors ( DEC , IBM , Prime Computer , etc.) were made in the form of several microcircuits that made up the modular design of the CPU. The FOCUS architecture, which included the FOCUS CPU, the Focus IOP I / O processor, the Focus MMU memory management unit , 16Kx8 dynamic RAM (with a four-transistor cell, was used as a cache ) and a timer , was used in the HP 9000 Series 500 server and workstation series ( were originally released under the name HP 9020 and, unofficially, were called the HP 9000 Series 600). The FOCUS processor had a stack architecture, an instruction system consisting of more than 230 instructions (both 32-bit and 16-bit), a segmented memory model and did not have general registers available for programmers . It could be used in multiprocessor (up to 3 pieces) configurations. Processor performance is approximately 1 MIPS . The FOCUS processor design was largely inspired by an earlier proprietary silicon-sapphire processor used by HP in 16-bit machines of the HP 3000 series.

The processor crystal contained 450 thousand transistors. Due to the high density of the n-MOS-III integrated circuits, heat dissipation has become a problem. Therefore, the microcircuits were installed on a special printed circuit board with a copper plate located in the center of a thickness of about 1 mm , called "finstrates" and acting as a radiator .