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| {{Short description|Semiconductor company based in Pennsylvania, U.S.}} | |||
| ] | |||
| {{Distinguish|Mostek}} | |||
| '''MOS Technology, Inc.''', also known as '''CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group)''', was a ] design and ] company based in ], in the ]. It is most famous for its ] ], and various designs for ]'s range of ]s. | |||
| {{About|the company|metal–oxide–semiconductor technology|MOSFET}} | |||
| {{More citations needed|date=September 2010}} | |||
| {{Use American English|date=July 2022}} | |||
| {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2022}} | |||
| {{Infobox company | |||
| (Note that, despite the name similarity, MOS Technology is not the same company as ].) | |||
| | name = MOS Technology, Inc. | |||
| | logo = MOS Technology.svg | |||
| | predecessor = ] | |||
| | foundation = {{Start date|1969}} | |||
| | location_city = ] | |||
| | location_country = United States | |||
| | industry = Semiconductor design and manufacturing | |||
| | successor = ] <br /> | |||
| ] | |||
| | defunct = {{End date|2001}} | |||
| }} | |||
| '''MOS Technology, Inc.''' ("MOS" being short for ]), later known as '''CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group)''' and '''GMT Microelectronics''', was a ] design and ] company based in ]. It is most famous for its ] ] and various designs for ]'s range of ]s. | |||
| ==History== | ==History== | ||
| ] | |||
| MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for ]) was originally started up to provide a second source for ] designed electronic calculators and the chips inside them. They also produced ]'s custom '']'' chip for a short time. As the calculator market grew MOS eventually became largely beholden to ], who bought practically all of their supply for their line of calculators.<ref>Another theory on the calculator line drying up is somewhat more conspiratorial. It states that Commodore deliberately overbought MOS's chip line to monopolize it, and warehoused the extras. Then, with several months worth stored, they stopped buying anything and MOS's sales died. This forced MOS to sell to Commodore.{{Fact|date=March 2007}}</ref> | |||
| Three former ] executives, John Paivinen, Mort Jaffe and Don McLaughlin, formed MOS Technology in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1969. The ] was looking to provide a second source for electronic calculators and their chips designed by ] (TI). In 1970 Allen-Bradley acquired a majority interest in MOS Technology. | |||
| In the early 1970s, TI decided to release their own line of calculators, instead of selling just the chips inside them, and introduced them at a price that was lower than the price of the chipset alone. Many early chip companies were reliant on sales of calculator chips and were wiped out in the aftermath; those that survived did so by finding other chips to produce. MOS became a supplier to ], producing a custom single-chip '']'' system. | |||
| Things changed dramatically in 1975. Several of the designers of the ] ] left the company shortly after its release, apparently in disgust. At the time there was no such thing as a "design-only" firm (known as a ] today), so they had to join a chip-building company to produce any of their designs. MOS was a small firm with good credentials in the right area, the East coast of the USA. | |||
| The team of four design engineers was headed by ] and included ]. At MOS they set about building a new ] that would outperform the 6800 while being similar to it in purpose. The resulting ] design was somewhat similar to the 6800, but by using several simplifications |
Things changed dramatically in 1975. Several of the designers of the ] left Motorola shortly after its release, after management told them to stop working on a low-cost version of the design. At the time there was no such thing as a ], so they had to join a chip-building company to produce their new CPU. MOS was a small firm with good credentials in the right area, the east coast of the US. The team of four design engineers was headed by ] and included ]. At MOS they set about building a new ] that would outperform the 6800 while being similar to it in purpose and much less expensive. The resulting ] design was somewhat similar to the 6800, but by using several design simplifications, the 6501 would be up to four times faster. | ||
| ===Mask fixing=== | ===Mask fixing=== | ||
| Previous CPU designs, like the 6800, were produced using a device known as a ]. This was essentially a complex ], which optically reproduced a CPU design, or "mask", on the surface of the silicon chip. The name "contact" referred to the fact that the mask was placed directly on the surface of the chip, which had the significant disadvantage that it sometimes pulled away materials from the chip, which were then copied to subsequent chips. This caused the mask to become useless after about a dozen copies, and resulted in the vast majority of chips having fatal flaws; for a complex chip like the 6800, only about 10% of the chips would work once the masking process was complete.<ref name=Mensch/> | |||
| In addition, MOS had a secret weapon, the ability to "fix" its masks.<ref>Phone conversation with Bill Mensch.</ref> Masks are the large drawings of the chip that are photo-reduced to make the pattern from which chips are made – a process similar to ]ing. All masks end up with flaws, both as a result of design problems in the chip itself, as well as side effects from the photo-reduction process. When a chip is made with this mask there is a chance that some of these flaws will end up "expressed" on the chip. If too many of them are expressed, that particular chip will not work. | |||
| In 1974 ] publicly introduced the ] system, the first projection scanner. Instead of placing the mask on the surface of the chip, it held it far from the surface and used highly accurate optics to project the image. Masks now lasted for thousands of copies instead of tens, and the flaw rate of the chips inverted so that perhaps 70% of the chips produced would work. The result was a similar inversion in pricing. The 6800 sold in small lots for {{US$|long=no|295}}; with no other changes than using a ], the same design could sell for {{US$|long=no|42}}.<ref name=Mensch/> | |||
| If a chip design with five design flaws results in a mask with ten flaws in total, there is no point in making another mask because it will have the same five design flaws plus some other set of five copying flaws. So companies simply built chips with these masks, and threw away broken chips. In the late 1970s this meant throwing away 70% or more of the completed chips. The price of a chip is largely defined by the ''yield,'' the measure of how many work, so improving this number can lower the price and raise the ] dramatically. | |||
| The change to the Micralign revealed a further advantage. Previously the masks were mass-produced by photography companies like ], who would make tens of thousands of copies of a master mask, or "]", and ship the masks to the aligners by the truckload. This meant that if a flaw was found in the design, it would cost a significant amount of money to fix it, as all the older masks would have to be thrown out. In contrast, with Micralign there was only one mask per aligner, so there was no inherent cost in replacing the mask if need be, although the cost, and especially time, of producing these master masks was considerable.<ref name=Mensch/> | |||
| MOS's engineers had learned the trick of fixing their masks ''after'' they were made. This allowed them to correct the major flaws in a series of small fixes, eventually producing a mask with a very low flaw rate. The company's production lines typically reversed the numbers others were achieving; even the early runs of a new CPU design –what would become the 6502– were achieving a success rate of 70% or better. This meant that not only were its designs faster, they cost much less as well. | |||
| MOS developed the ability to "fix" its masks after they had been produced.<ref name=Mensch>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2015/06/102739969-05-01-acc.pdf |title=Oral History of William David "Bill" Mensch, Jr. |last=Mensch|first=Bill|date=10 November 2014 |website=Computer History Museum |page=18}}</ref> This meant that as flaws in the design were discovered, the masks could be removed from the aligners, fixed, and put back in. This allowed them to rapidly drive out flaws in the original masks. | |||
| === 6502 family === | |||
| When the 6501 was announced, Motorola launched a lawsuit almost immediately. Although the 6501 was not compatible with the 6800, it could nevertheless be plugged into existing ] designs because it used the same arrangement of pins. That was enough, apparently, to allow Motorola to sue. Sales of the 6501 basically stopped, and the lawsuit would drag on for many years before MOS was eventually forced to pay a paltry $200,000 in fines. | |||
| The company's production lines typically reversed the numbers others were achieving; even the early runs of a new CPU design—what would become the 6502—were achieving a success rate of 70 percent or better. This meant that not only were its designs faster, but they also cost much less as well. | |||
| In the meantime the ] had gone on sale at 1 MHz in September 1975 for a mere $25. It was essentially identical to the 6501, differing only in pin layout. Due to its speed it outran the more complex and expensive 6800, and ], but cost much less and was easier to work with. Although it did not have the advantage of being able to be used in existing Motorola hardware like the 6501, it was so inexpensive that it quickly overran the 6800 in popularity anyway, making that a moot point. | |||
| ===6502 family=== | |||
| ] showing some important MOS Technology circuits: the ] (long chip, lower left) and the ] (right). The production week/year (WWYY) of each chip is given below its name.]] | |||
| {{main|MOS Technology 6502}} | |||
| When the 6501 was announced, Motorola launched a lawsuit almost immediately. Although the 6501 ] was not compatible with the 6800, it could nevertheless be plugged into existing ] designs because it had the same functional pin arrangement and ] footprint. That was enough to allow Motorola to sue. Allen-Bradley sold back its shares to the founders, sales of the 6501 basically stopped, and the lawsuit would drag on for many years before MOS was eventually forced to pay {{US$|200000}} in fines. | |||
| In the meantime MOS had started selling the ], a chip capable of operating at {{val|1|ul=MHz}} in September 1975 for a mere {{US$|25}}. It was nearly identical to the 6501, with only a few minor differences: an added on-chip clock oscillator, a different functional pinout arrangement, generation of the SYNC signal (supporting single-instruction stepping), and removal of data bus enablement control signals (DBE and BA, with the former directly connected to the phase 2 clock instead).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.6502.org/documents/books/mcs6500_family_hardware_manual.pdf|title=MOS MCS6500 Microcomputer Family Hardware Manual (Publication Number 6500-10A), January 1976, p. 41.}}</ref> It outperformed the more-complex 6800 and ], but cost much less and was easier to work with. Although it did not have the 6501's advantage of being able to be used in place of the Motorola 6800 in existing hardware, it was so inexpensive that it quickly became more popular than the 6800, making that a moot point. | |||
| The 6502 was so cheap, that many people believed it was a scam when MOS first showed it at a 1975 trade show. They were not aware of MOS's masking techniques and when they calculated the price per chip at normal yield rates it did not add up. But any hesitation to buy it evaporated when both Motorola and Intel dropped the prices on their own designs from $179 to $69 at the same show in order to compete. Their moves legitimized the 6502. By show's end the wooden barrel full of samples was empty. | |||
| ] showing some important MOS Technology circuits: the ] (long chip, lower left) and the ] (right). The production week/year (WWYY) of each chip is given below its name.]] | |||
| The 6502 would quickly go on to be one of the most popular chips of its day. A number of companies licensed the 650x line from MOS, including ], ], ], and ]. | |||
| The 6502 was so cheap that many people believed it was a scam when MOS first showed it at a 1975 trade show. They were not aware of MOS's masking techniques and when they calculated the price per chip at the current industry yield rates, it did not add up. But any hesitation to buy it evaporated when both Motorola and Intel dropped the prices on their own designs from {{val|p=$|179}} to {{val|p=$|69}} at the same show in order to compete. Their moves legitimized the 6502, and by the show's end, the wooden barrel full of samples was empty.{{citation needed|date=October 2012}} | |||
| A number of different versions of the basic CPU, known as the 6503 through 6507, were offered in 28-pin packages for lower cost. The various models removed signal or address pins. Far and away the most popular of these was the ], which was used in the ] and in Atari disk drives. The 6504 was sometimes used in printers. MOS also released a series of similar CPUs using external clocks, which added a "1" to the name in the 3rd digit, as the 6512 through 6515. These were useful in systems where the clock support was already being provided on the motherboard by some other chip. The final addition was the "crossover" ], used in the ], with additional I/O ports. | |||
| The 6502 would quickly go on to be one of the most popular chips of its day. A number of companies licensed the 650x line from MOS, including ], ], ], and ]. | |||
| A number of different versions of the basic CPU, known as the 6503 through 6507, were offered in 28-pin packages for lower cost. The various models removed signal or address pins. Far and away the most popular of these was the ], which was used in the ] and Atari disk drives. The 6504 was sometimes used in printers. MOS also released a series of similar CPUs using external clocks, which added a "1" to the name in the third digit, as the 6512 through 6515. These were useful in systems where the clock support was already being provided on the motherboard by some other source. The final addition was the "crossover" ], used in the ], with additional I/O ports. | |||
| ===Commodore Semiconductor Group=== | ===Commodore Semiconductor Group=== | ||
| However successful the 6502 was, the company itself was having problems. At about the time the |
However successful the 6502 was, the company itself was having problems. At about the same time the 6502 was being released, MOS's entire calculator ] market collapsed, and its prior existing products stopped shipping. Soon they were in serious financial trouble. Another company, ] (CBM), had invested heavily in the calculator market and was also nearly wiped out by ]'s entry into the market. A fresh injection of capital saved CBM, and allowed it to invest in company suppliers in order to help ensure their ] supply would not be upset in this fashion again. Among the several companies were ] display manufacturers, power controllers, and suppliers of the driver chips, including MOS. | ||
| In late 1976, CBM, publicly traded on the ] with a ] around {{US$|60 million}}, purchased MOS (whose market cap was around {{US$|12 million}}) in an all-stock deal. Holders of MOS received a 9.4 percent equity stake in CBM<ref>{{cite web|title=MOS – The Rise of MOS Technology & The 6502 | |||
| MOS had previously designed a simple computer kit called the ], primarily to "show off" the 6502 chip. At Commodore, Peddle convinced the owner, ], that calculators were a dead end, and that home computers would soon be huge. A repackaged KIM with a new display driver and keyboard became the ] computer. | |||
| |publication-date=2006-01-18<!-- originally written by Ian Matthews of commodore.ca in 2003-02-15 --> | |||
| |date=March 2015 | |||
| |access-date=2016-05-10 | |||
| |url=http://www.commodore.ca/commodore-history/the-rise-of-mos-technology-the-6502/ | |||
| |quote=MOS Technology is privately owned and valued at around $12 million.<!--original source: September 1976 edition of New Scientist--> | |||
| }}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xUAV0VcszIQC&pg=PA541,|title=Calculator maker integrates downwards |magazine=New Scientist|date=September 9, 1976 |page=541 |volume=71 |issue=1071|publisher=Reed Business Information|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>"Commodore Buys MOS Technology", ''New Scientist'', September 1976</ref> on the condition that Chuck Peddle would join Commodore as chief engineer. The deal went through, and while the firm basically became Commodore's production arm, they continued using the name MOS for some time so that manuals would not have to be reprinted. After a while MOS became the '''Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG)'''. Despite being renamed to CSG, all chips produced were still stamped with the old "MOS" logo until week 22/23 of 1989.<ref>Images of chips with week 22 and week 23 date codes.{{better source needed|{{subst:DATE}}|date=August 2024}}</ref> | |||
| MOS had previously designed a simple computer kit called the ], primarily to "show off" the 6502 chip. At Commodore, Peddle convinced the owner, ], that calculators were a dead end, and that home computers would soon be huge. | |||
| However, the original design group appeared to be even less interested in working for Jack Tramiel than it had for Motorola, and the team quickly started breaking up. One result was that the newly-completed 6522 (VIA) chip was left undocumented for years. | |||
| However, the original design group appeared to be even less interested in working for Jack Tramiel than it had for Motorola, and the team quickly started breaking up. One result was that the newly completed ] chip was left undocumented for years. | |||
| Bill Mensch left MOS even before the Commodore takeover, and moved home to ] from MOS's ]. After a short stint consulting for a local company called ICE, he set up the ] in 1978. As a licensee of the 6502 line, their first products were bug-fixed, power-efficient ] versions of the 6502 (the ], both as a separate chip and embedded inside a ] called the 65C150). But then they expanded the line greatly with the introduction of the ], a fairly straightforward ] upgrade of the original 65C02 that could also run in ] mode for compatibility. The design of the similar-in-concept ] ] CPU was completed, but not put into production. Since then WDC have moved much of the original MOS catalog to CMOS, and the 6502 continues to be a popular CPU in ]s, like medical equipment and car dashboard controllers. | |||
| ] left MOS even before the Commodore takeover, and moved home to Arizona. After a short stint consulting for a local company called ICE, he set up the ] in 1978. As a licensee of the 6502 line, their first products were bug-fixed, power-efficient ] versions of the 6502 (the ], both as a separate chip and embedded inside a ] called the 65C150). But then they expanded the line greatly with the introduction of the ], a fairly straightforward ] upgrade of the original 65C02 that could also run in ] mode for compatibility. Since then WDC moved much of the original MOS catalog to CMOS, and the 6502 continued to be a popular CPU for the ]s market, like medical equipment and car dashboard controllers. | |||
| ===GMT Microelectronics=== | ===GMT Microelectronics=== | ||
| After Commodore's ] in 1994, Commodore Semiconductor Group, MOS's successor, was bought by its former management for about $4.3 million, plus an additional $1 million to cover miscellaneous expenses including ] |
After Commodore's ] in 1994, Commodore Semiconductor Group, MOS's successor, was bought by its former management for about {{US$|long=no|4.3 million}}, plus an additional {{US$|long=no|1 million}} to cover miscellaneous expenses including a ] (EPA) license. Dennis Peasenell became CEO. In December 1994, the EPA entered into a Prospective Purchase Agreement (limiting the company's liability in exchange for sharing the costs of cleanup) with GMT Microelectronics. In 1994, the company, operating under the name '''GMT Microelectronics''' (''Great Mixed-signal Technologies''), reopened MOS Technology's original, circa-1970 ] process fab (]) in ], ], Pennsylvania that Commodore had closed in 1993.<ref name="CSG EPA">{{cite web |url=https://semspub.epa.gov/work/03/2218465.pdf |title=THIRD FIVE-YEAR REVIEW REPORT For Commodore Semiconductor Group Superfund Site |publisher=United States Environmental Protection Agency Region III |url-status=dead |date=August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200521044458/https://semspub.epa.gov/work/03/2218465.pdf |archive-date=2020-05-21}}</ref> | ||
| In 1995, the company, operating under the name '''GMT Microelectronics''' ('''''G'''reat '''M'''ixed-signal '''T'''echnologies''), reopened MOS Technologies' original, circa-1970 one-] ] in Norristown, Pennsylvania that Commodore had closed in 1992. | |||
| The plant had been on the EPA's National Priorities List of ] sites since October 4, 1989.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.karlstechnology.com/commodore/commodore-superfund-site.html |title=Commodore Computers Superfund Site Information |publisher=Environmental Protection Agency |date=April 2004|access-date=May 23, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=August 2002|title=Commodore Semiconductor Group|url=https://semspub.epa.gov/work/HQ/182397.pdf|access-date=2020-08-11|website=epa.org}}</ref> This was due to a 1978 leak of ] (TCE) from an underground 250-gallon concrete storage tank used by ] in the semiconductor cleaning process.<ref name="CSG EPA" /> Leaks from the tank had caused the local groundwater to become contaminated with TCE and other ] (VOCs) in 1978.<ref name="CSG EPA" /> By 1999 GMT Microelectronics had {{US$|long=no|21 million}} in revenues and 183 employees working on the site.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}} Announced in March 1999, GMT would have provided foundry services based on TelCom's ] and SiCr (silicon chromium) Thin Film Resistor processes and would have been a licensed alternate source for TelCom's Bipolar based products,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1121054# |title= GMT signs bi-polar foundry deal with TelCom |publisher=Electronic Engineering Times |access-date=May 23, 2019}}</ref> with production running at 10,000 5-inch ] per month, producing ], BiCMOS, NMOS, bipolar and SOI (]) devices. In 2000, GMT Microelectronics discontinued operations and abandoned all of its assets at the Commodore Semiconductor Group ] site.<ref name="CSG EPA" /> <!-- However, in 2001 the EPA shut the plant down due to the leaking of their underground hazardous waste storage tanks. GMT Microelectronics ceased operations and was liquidated.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}} {{Commenting out two sentences May 28, 2019 - this sentence has been marked as citation needed for a year and a half and there's contradictory information that says GMT abandoned the location but persisted as a company until they were acquired by someone else and this article isn't about GMT Microelectronics}} --> | |||
| GMT would have provided foundry services based on TelCom's Bipolar and SiCr Thin Film Resistor processes and would have been licensed alternate sources for TelCom's Bipolar based products. With production running at 10000 wafers (size 5) per month, producing CMOS BiCMOS NMOS BIPOLAR SOI. | |||
| The plant had been on the EPA's National Priorities List of ] sites since 1989. By 1999 it had $21 million in revenues and 183 employees, within 3 years. However, in ] the EPA shut the plant down. GMT ceased operations and was liquidated. | |||
| ==Chip naming convention== | |||
| Most of the MOS chips are named according to following rules, which shows used technology (logic gate design):<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://docs2.minhateca.com.br/767372,BR,0,0,m6502.txt |title=m6502.txt - m6502 - tankcarneiro |access-date=2015-03-24 |archive-date=2016-03-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305092145/http://docs2.minhateca.com.br/767372,BR,0,0,m6502.txt |url-status=dead }}</ref> | |||
| * ] (M65xx) | |||
| * ] (M65Cxx) | |||
| * ] (M75xx) | |||
| * ] (M85xx) | |||
| ==Products== | ==Products== | ||
| {{div col|colwidth=30em}} | |||
| *] – single board computer (kit)/CPU evaluation board, based on 6502 | *] – single board computer (kit)/CPU evaluation board, based on 6502 | ||
| *] – CPU (]) with two CIAs on-chip; 3.45 |
*] – CPU (]) with two CIAs on-chip; 3.45 MHz | ||
| *] – Gary Gate Array | *] – Gary Gate Array | ||
| *2521 – 8-digit calculator chip<ref>{{cite web |last1=Vis |first1=Peter |title= Melcor 380 |url=https://www.petervis.com/Calculators/Melcor_380/Melcor_380_PCB.html|website=Calculators |access-date=14 January 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1= Woerner |first1= Joerg |title= MELCOR Model 380|url=http://www.datamath.org/Related/Mariner/Melcor380.htm|website=Datamath Calculator Museum |access-date=14 January 2023}}</ref> | |||
| *] – CPU pin-compatible with Motorola 6800 | |||
| *2523 – 8-digit calculator chip<ref>{{cite web |last1=Sebastian |first1=Mike |title=MOS Technology, Inc. Calculator Chips |url=https://www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/calcwebpg/mos_tech.htm#mps2523 |website=Programmable Calculators |access-date=4 April 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Braun |display-authors=etal |title=Measuring system for the pharmacological manipulation of the coagulation mechanism in blood and for the elapsed coagulation time |date=January 4, 1977 |publisher=United States Patent and Trademark Office |location=United States |url=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22MPS+2523%22&OS= |access-date=4 April 2019}}</ref> | |||
| *] – CPU equal to 6501 except 6800-pin-compatibility | |||
| *2529 – Single chip scientific calculator array<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Electronics |date=November 14, 1974 |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/File:MOS_Technology_Calculator_Chip_Ad_1974.jpg |title= MOS Technology Calculator Chip Ad 1974 |access-date=4 April 2019}}</ref> | |||
| *] – CPU with 13 address pins | |||
| *] – CPU with |
*] – CPU pin-compatible with Motorola 6800 | ||
| *] – CPU |
*] – CPU equal to 6501 except no 6800-pin-compatibility | ||
| *] – CPU |
*] – CPU derived from the 6502 | ||
| *] – |
*] – CPU with 12 address pins, NMI pin and IRQ pin | ||
| *] – |
*] – CPU with 13 address pins and IRQ pin | ||
| *] |
*] – CPU with 12 address pins, IRQ pin and RDY pin. | ||
| *] |
*] – CPU with 13 address pins | ||
| *] – |
*] – CPU with 256 B RAM and 8 I/O pins | ||
| *] – |
*] – CPU with 20 address pins | ||
| *] – |
*] – CPU with clock pins and I/O ports, | ||
| *] – PIA Peripheral Interface Adapter | |||
| *] – |
*] – VIA Versatile Interface Adapter | ||
| *] – |
*] – Tri-Port Interface | ||
| *] |
*6526/8520/8521 – ] Complex Interface Adapter | ||
| *] |
*6529 – ]/SPIA Single Port Interface Adapter | ||
| *6530 – ] ROM-RAM-I/O Timer | |||
| *] – SID Sound Interface Device, aka 6581/6582/8580 | |||
| *] |
*] – RIOT RAM-I/O Timer | ||
| *] – |
*] – 2 KiB ROM | ||
| *] – |
*] – CRTC CRT Controller | ||
| *] – |
*] – 512 byte Static RAM | ||
| *] – |
*] – ACIA Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter | ||
| *] – |
*] – VIC Video Interface Chip, (]) | ||
| *] – |
*] – VIC Video Interface Chip, (]) Revision: -101 / E | ||
| *] – |
*] – VIC Video Interface Chip, (]) (6561 supporting 40-column) | ||
| *] – |
*] – 80-column video (intended for Colour PET, part of its design used in the MOS 6560/6561) | ||
| *] – |
*] – VIC-II (MaxMachine) | ||
| *] – |
*] – VIC-II (NTSC) Revision: R56A/R7/R8/R9 | ||
| *] – |
*] – VIC-II (PAL) Revision: R1/R3/R4/R5 (R1 = only 5 lumas) | ||
| *] – |
*] – 6500/1 microcontroller on keyboard PCB in Amiga 500 revision: -036 | ||
| *] – VIC-II (PAL-N) | |||
| *] – VIC-II (PAL-M) | |||
| *6581/6582/8580 – ] Sound Interface Device | |||
| *] – ] Text Editing Device (HMOS-I/II) | |||
| *] – CPU HMOS-I 6502 with 7-bit I/O port | |||
| *] – AGNUS Address Generator Unit (]) | |||
| *] – DENISE Display Encoder | |||
| *] – PAULA Port Audio UART and Logic | |||
| *] – AGNUS Address Generator Unit (]) | |||
| *] – "Fat" AGNUS Address Generator Unit (NTSC) | |||
| *] – "Fat" AGNUS Address Generator Unit (PAL) | |||
| *] – ] AGNUS Address Generator Unit | |||
| *] – ] DENISE Display Encoder | |||
| *] – ] ALICE Address Generator Unit | |||
| *] – ] AGNUS Address Generator Unit | |||
| *] – CPU HMOS-II Version of 6510 | |||
| *] – CPU HMOS-II 6502 with 7-bit I/O port | |||
| *] – CPU compatible with 6510 but able to run at 2 MHz | |||
| *] – CIA (Complex Interface Adapter) 1 MHz 8520 or 2 MHz 8520A-1 in Amiga | |||
| *] – ACIA Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter, HMOS-II variant of the 6551 | |||
| *] – VIC-II (NTSC) | |||
| *] – VDC Video Display Controller | |||
| *] – VIC-II (NTSC) | |||
| *] – VIC-II (PAL) | |||
| *] – VIC-II (PAL) | |||
| *] – VDC with composite HSYNC, VSYNC, and RDY interrupt | |||
| *] – clock generator | |||
| *] – PLA | |||
| *] – MMU Memory Management Unit | |||
| *] – REC RAM Expansion Controller | |||
| *] – DMA Direct Memory Access | |||
| {{div col end}} | |||
| == |
==References== | ||
| {{Reflist}} | |||
| <references /> | |||
| <!-- Dead note "mask-fixing": Information on MOS's "secret" are from a phone interview with ] in 2002. Mask-fixing is now widespread. --> | <!-- Dead note "mask-fixing": Information on MOS's "secret" are from a phone interview with ] in 2002. Mask-fixing is now widespread. --> | ||
| ==External links== | ==External links== | ||
| *{{Commonscatinline}} | |||
| * – By Ronald van Dijk | * – By Ronald van Dijk | ||
| * | |||
| * - link validated ], ] | |||
| * - link validated November 30, 2016. | |||
| * | |||
| * (2005), Variant Press. Covers Chuck Peddle, the formation of MOS Technology and corporate history, and the design and promotion of the 6502. | |||
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| {{MOS Interface}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 04:40, 13 December 2024
Semiconductor company based in Pennsylvania, U.S. Not to be confused with Mostek. This article is about the company. For metal–oxide–semiconductor technology, see MOSFET. | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "MOS Technology" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 | |
| Industry | Semiconductor design and manufacturing |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Allen-Bradley |
| Founded | 1969 (1969) |
| Defunct | 2001 (2001) |
| Successor | Commodore Semiconductor Group Western Design Center |
| Headquarters | Audubon, Pennsylvania, United States |
MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) and GMT Microelectronics, was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Audubon, Pennsylvania. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.
History
Three former General Instrument executives, John Paivinen, Mort Jaffe and Don McLaughlin, formed MOS Technology in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1969. The Allen-Bradley Company was looking to provide a second source for electronic calculators and their chips designed by Texas Instruments (TI). In 1970 Allen-Bradley acquired a majority interest in MOS Technology.
In the early 1970s, TI decided to release their own line of calculators, instead of selling just the chips inside them, and introduced them at a price that was lower than the price of the chipset alone. Many early chip companies were reliant on sales of calculator chips and were wiped out in the aftermath; those that survived did so by finding other chips to produce. MOS became a supplier to Atari, producing a custom single-chip Pong system.
Things changed dramatically in 1975. Several of the designers of the Motorola 6800 left Motorola shortly after its release, after management told them to stop working on a low-cost version of the design. At the time there was no such thing as a pure-play semiconductor foundry, so they had to join a chip-building company to produce their new CPU. MOS was a small firm with good credentials in the right area, the east coast of the US. The team of four design engineers was headed by Chuck Peddle and included Bill Mensch. At MOS they set about building a new CPU that would outperform the 6800 while being similar to it in purpose and much less expensive. The resulting 6501 design was somewhat similar to the 6800, but by using several design simplifications, the 6501 would be up to four times faster.
Mask fixing
Previous CPU designs, like the 6800, were produced using a device known as a contact aligner. This was essentially a complex photocopier, which optically reproduced a CPU design, or "mask", on the surface of the silicon chip. The name "contact" referred to the fact that the mask was placed directly on the surface of the chip, which had the significant disadvantage that it sometimes pulled away materials from the chip, which were then copied to subsequent chips. This caused the mask to become useless after about a dozen copies, and resulted in the vast majority of chips having fatal flaws; for a complex chip like the 6800, only about 10% of the chips would work once the masking process was complete.
In 1974 Perkin-Elmer publicly introduced the Micralign system, the first projection scanner. Instead of placing the mask on the surface of the chip, it held it far from the surface and used highly accurate optics to project the image. Masks now lasted for thousands of copies instead of tens, and the flaw rate of the chips inverted so that perhaps 70% of the chips produced would work. The result was a similar inversion in pricing. The 6800 sold in small lots for $295; with no other changes than using a Micralign, the same design could sell for $42.
The change to the Micralign revealed a further advantage. Previously the masks were mass-produced by photography companies like Kodak, who would make tens of thousands of copies of a master mask, or "reticle", and ship the masks to the aligners by the truckload. This meant that if a flaw was found in the design, it would cost a significant amount of money to fix it, as all the older masks would have to be thrown out. In contrast, with Micralign there was only one mask per aligner, so there was no inherent cost in replacing the mask if need be, although the cost, and especially time, of producing these master masks was considerable.
MOS developed the ability to "fix" its masks after they had been produced. This meant that as flaws in the design were discovered, the masks could be removed from the aligners, fixed, and put back in. This allowed them to rapidly drive out flaws in the original masks.
The company's production lines typically reversed the numbers others were achieving; even the early runs of a new CPU design—what would become the 6502—were achieving a success rate of 70 percent or better. This meant that not only were its designs faster, but they also cost much less as well.
6502 family
Main article: MOS Technology 6502When the 6501 was announced, Motorola launched a lawsuit almost immediately. Although the 6501 instruction set was not compatible with the 6800, it could nevertheless be plugged into existing motherboard designs because it had the same functional pin arrangement and IC package footprint. That was enough to allow Motorola to sue. Allen-Bradley sold back its shares to the founders, sales of the 6501 basically stopped, and the lawsuit would drag on for many years before MOS was eventually forced to pay US$200,000 in fines.
In the meantime MOS had started selling the 6502, a chip capable of operating at 1 MHz in September 1975 for a mere US$25. It was nearly identical to the 6501, with only a few minor differences: an added on-chip clock oscillator, a different functional pinout arrangement, generation of the SYNC signal (supporting single-instruction stepping), and removal of data bus enablement control signals (DBE and BA, with the former directly connected to the phase 2 clock instead). It outperformed the more-complex 6800 and Intel 8080, but cost much less and was easier to work with. Although it did not have the 6501's advantage of being able to be used in place of the Motorola 6800 in existing hardware, it was so inexpensive that it quickly became more popular than the 6800, making that a moot point.
The 6502 was so cheap that many people believed it was a scam when MOS first showed it at a 1975 trade show. They were not aware of MOS's masking techniques and when they calculated the price per chip at the current industry yield rates, it did not add up. But any hesitation to buy it evaporated when both Motorola and Intel dropped the prices on their own designs from $179 to $69 at the same show in order to compete. Their moves legitimized the 6502, and by the show's end, the wooden barrel full of samples was empty.
The 6502 would quickly go on to be one of the most popular chips of its day. A number of companies licensed the 650x line from MOS, including Rockwell International, GTE, Synertek, and Western Design Center (WDC).
A number of different versions of the basic CPU, known as the 6503 through 6507, were offered in 28-pin packages for lower cost. The various models removed signal or address pins. Far and away the most popular of these was the 6507, which was used in the Atari 2600 and Atari disk drives. The 6504 was sometimes used in printers. MOS also released a series of similar CPUs using external clocks, which added a "1" to the name in the third digit, as the 6512 through 6515. These were useful in systems where the clock support was already being provided on the motherboard by some other source. The final addition was the "crossover" 6510, used in the Commodore 64, with additional I/O ports.
Commodore Semiconductor Group
However successful the 6502 was, the company itself was having problems. At about the same time the 6502 was being released, MOS's entire calculator IC market collapsed, and its prior existing products stopped shipping. Soon they were in serious financial trouble. Another company, Commodore Business Machines (CBM), had invested heavily in the calculator market and was also nearly wiped out by TI's entry into the market. A fresh injection of capital saved CBM, and allowed it to invest in company suppliers in order to help ensure their IC supply would not be upset in this fashion again. Among the several companies were LED display manufacturers, power controllers, and suppliers of the driver chips, including MOS.
In late 1976, CBM, publicly traded on the NYSE with a market capitalization around US$60 million, purchased MOS (whose market cap was around US$12 million) in an all-stock deal. Holders of MOS received a 9.4 percent equity stake in CBM on the condition that Chuck Peddle would join Commodore as chief engineer. The deal went through, and while the firm basically became Commodore's production arm, they continued using the name MOS for some time so that manuals would not have to be reprinted. After a while MOS became the Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG). Despite being renamed to CSG, all chips produced were still stamped with the old "MOS" logo until week 22/23 of 1989.
MOS had previously designed a simple computer kit called the KIM-1, primarily to "show off" the 6502 chip. At Commodore, Peddle convinced the owner, Jack Tramiel, that calculators were a dead end, and that home computers would soon be huge.
However, the original design group appeared to be even less interested in working for Jack Tramiel than it had for Motorola, and the team quickly started breaking up. One result was that the newly completed 6522 (VIA) chip was left undocumented for years.
Bill Mensch left MOS even before the Commodore takeover, and moved home to Arizona. After a short stint consulting for a local company called ICE, he set up the Western Design Center (WDC) in 1978. As a licensee of the 6502 line, their first products were bug-fixed, power-efficient CMOS versions of the 6502 (the 65C02, both as a separate chip and embedded inside a microcontroller called the 65C150). But then they expanded the line greatly with the introduction of the 65816, a fairly straightforward 16-bit upgrade of the original 65C02 that could also run in 8-bit mode for compatibility. Since then WDC moved much of the original MOS catalog to CMOS, and the 6502 continued to be a popular CPU for the embedded systems market, like medical equipment and car dashboard controllers.
GMT Microelectronics
After Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994, Commodore Semiconductor Group, MOS's successor, was bought by its former management for about $4.3 million, plus an additional $1 million to cover miscellaneous expenses including a United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) license. Dennis Peasenell became CEO. In December 1994, the EPA entered into a Prospective Purchase Agreement (limiting the company's liability in exchange for sharing the costs of cleanup) with GMT Microelectronics. In 1994, the company, operating under the name GMT Microelectronics (Great Mixed-signal Technologies), reopened MOS Technology's original, circa-1970 one-micrometre process fab (semiconductor fabrication plant) in Audubon, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania that Commodore had closed in 1993.
The plant had been on the EPA's National Priorities List of hazardous waste sites since October 4, 1989. This was due to a 1978 leak of trichloroethylene (TCE) from an underground 250-gallon concrete storage tank used by Commodore Business Machines in the semiconductor cleaning process. Leaks from the tank had caused the local groundwater to become contaminated with TCE and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 1978. By 1999 GMT Microelectronics had $21 million in revenues and 183 employees working on the site. Announced in March 1999, GMT would have provided foundry services based on TelCom's Bipolar and SiCr (silicon chromium) Thin Film Resistor processes and would have been a licensed alternate source for TelCom's Bipolar based products, with production running at 10,000 5-inch semiconductor wafers per month, producing CMOS, BiCMOS, NMOS, bipolar and SOI (silicon on insulator) devices. In 2000, GMT Microelectronics discontinued operations and abandoned all of its assets at the Commodore Semiconductor Group superfund site.
Chip naming convention
Most of the MOS chips are named according to following rules, which shows used technology (logic gate design):
Products
- KIM-1 – single board computer (kit)/CPU evaluation board, based on 6502
- 4510 – CPU (CSG 65CE02) with two CIAs on-chip; 3.45 MHz
- 5719 – Gary Gate Array
- 2521 – 8-digit calculator chip
- 2523 – 8-digit calculator chip
- 2529 – Single chip scientific calculator array
- 6501 – CPU pin-compatible with Motorola 6800
- 6502 – CPU equal to 6501 except no 6800-pin-compatibility
- 65CE02 – CPU derived from the 6502
- 6503 – CPU with 12 address pins, NMI pin and IRQ pin
- 6504 – CPU with 13 address pins and IRQ pin
- 6505 – CPU with 12 address pins, IRQ pin and RDY pin.
- 6507 – CPU with 13 address pins
- 6508 – CPU with 256 B RAM and 8 I/O pins
- 6509 – CPU with 20 address pins
- 6510 – CPU with clock pins and I/O ports,
- 6520 – PIA Peripheral Interface Adapter
- 6522 – VIA Versatile Interface Adapter
- 6523/6525 – Tri-Port Interface
- 6526/8520/8521 – CIA Complex Interface Adapter
- 6529 – SPI/SPIA Single Port Interface Adapter
- 6530 – RRIOT ROM-RAM-I/O Timer
- 6532 – RIOT RAM-I/O Timer
- 6540 – 2 KiB ROM
- 6545 – CRTC CRT Controller
- 6550 – 512 byte Static RAM
- 6551 – ACIA Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter
- 6560 – VIC Video Interface Chip, (NTSC)
- 6561 – VIC Video Interface Chip, (PAL) Revision: -101 / E
- 6562 – VIC Video Interface Chip, (NTSC) (6561 supporting 40-column)
- 6564 – 80-column video (intended for Colour PET, part of its design used in the MOS 6560/6561)
- 6566 – VIC-II (MaxMachine)
- 6567 – VIC-II (NTSC) Revision: R56A/R7/R8/R9
- 6569 – VIC-II (PAL) Revision: R1/R3/R4/R5 (R1 = only 5 lumas)
- 6570 – 6500/1 microcontroller on keyboard PCB in Amiga 500 revision: -036
- 6572 – VIC-II (PAL-N)
- 6573 – VIC-II (PAL-M)
- 6581/6582/8580 – SID Sound Interface Device
- 7360/8360 – TED Text Editing Device (HMOS-I/II)
- 7501 – CPU HMOS-I 6502 with 7-bit I/O port
- 8361 – AGNUS Address Generator Unit (NTSC)
- 8362 – DENISE Display Encoder
- 8364 – PAULA Port Audio UART and Logic
- 8367 – AGNUS Address Generator Unit (PAL)
- 8370 – "Fat" AGNUS Address Generator Unit (NTSC)
- 8371 – "Fat" AGNUS Address Generator Unit (PAL)
- 8372 – ECS AGNUS Address Generator Unit
- 8373 – ECS DENISE Display Encoder
- 8374 – AGA ALICE Address Generator Unit
- 8375 – ECS AGNUS Address Generator Unit
- 8500 – CPU HMOS-II Version of 6510
- 8501 – CPU HMOS-II 6502 with 7-bit I/O port
- 8502 – CPU compatible with 6510 but able to run at 2 MHz
- 8520 – CIA (Complex Interface Adapter) 1 MHz 8520 or 2 MHz 8520A-1 in Amiga
- 8551 – ACIA Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter, HMOS-II variant of the 6551
- 8562 – VIC-II (NTSC)
- 8563 – VDC Video Display Controller
- 8564 – VIC-II (NTSC)
- 8565 – VIC-II (PAL)
- 8566 – VIC-II (PAL)
- 8568 – VDC with composite HSYNC, VSYNC, and RDY interrupt
- 8701 – clock generator
- 8721 – PLA
- 8722 – MMU Memory Management Unit
- 8726 – REC RAM Expansion Controller
- 8727 – DMA Direct Memory Access
References
- ^ Mensch, Bill (November 10, 2014). "Oral History of William David "Bill" Mensch, Jr" (PDF). Computer History Museum. p. 18.
- "MOS MCS6500 Microcomputer Family Hardware Manual (Publication Number 6500-10A), January 1976, p. 41" (PDF).
- "MOS – The Rise of MOS Technology & The 6502" (published January 18, 2006). March 2015. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
MOS Technology is privately owned and valued at around $12 million.
- "Calculator maker integrates downwards". New Scientist. Vol. 71, no. 1071. Reed Business Information. September 9, 1976. p. 541 – via Google Books.
- "Commodore Buys MOS Technology", New Scientist, September 1976
- Images of chips with week 22 and week 23 date codes.
- ^ "THIRD FIVE-YEAR REVIEW REPORT For Commodore Semiconductor Group Superfund Site" (PDF). United States Environmental Protection Agency Region III. August 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 21, 2020.
- "Commodore Computers Superfund Site Information". Environmental Protection Agency. April 2004. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
- "Commodore Semiconductor Group" (PDF). epa.org. August 2002. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
- "GMT signs bi-polar foundry deal with TelCom". Electronic Engineering Times. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
- "m6502.txt - m6502 - tankcarneiro". Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
- Vis, Peter. "Melcor 380". Calculators. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
- Woerner, Joerg. "MELCOR Model 380". Datamath Calculator Museum. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
- Sebastian, Mike. "MOS Technology, Inc. Calculator Chips". Programmable Calculators. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
- Braun; et al. (January 4, 1977). Measuring system for the pharmacological manipulation of the coagulation mechanism in blood and for the elapsed coagulation time. United States: United States Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
- "MOS Technology Calculator Chip Ad 1974". Electronics. November 14, 1974. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
External links
Media related to MOS Technology at Wikimedia Commons- Information on MOS' chips and their use in CBM's computers – By Ronald van Dijk
- Documentation for various chips used in Commodore computers
- EPA page on former MOS/CSG/GMT fabrication facility - link validated November 30, 2016.
- On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore (2005), Variant Press. Covers Chuck Peddle, the formation of MOS Technology and corporate history, and the design and promotion of the 6502.
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| MOS Technology, CSG | |
| Western Design Center | |
| Mitsubishi, Renesas | |
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| Interface chips from MOS Technology and second source/clone vendors | |
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40°07′27.9″N 75°25′07.2″W / 40.124417°N 75.418667°W / 40.124417; -75.418667
Categories:- Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States
- Manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania
- Companies based in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
- Superfund sites in Pennsylvania
- Electronics companies established in 1969
- Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2001
- Commodore International
- Defunct companies based in Pennsylvania
- 1969 establishments in Pennsylvania
- 2001 disestablishments in Pennsylvania
- Defunct computer companies of the United States
- Defunct computer hardware companies