The Fairchild F8 is an 8-bit microprocessor system from Fairchild Semiconductor, announced in 1974 and shipped in 1975. The original processor family included four main 40-pin integrated circuits (ICs); the 3850 CPU which was the arithmetic logic unit, the 3851 Program Storage Unit (PSU) which contained of program ROM and handled instruction decoding, and the 3852 Dynamic Memory Interface (DMI) or 3853 Static Memory Interface (SMI) to control additional RAM or ROM holding the user programs or data. The 3854 DMA was an optional system that added direct memory access into the RAM controlled by the 3852. A minimal system containing a 3850 and 3851 also included four 8-bit data ports, 64 bytes of RAM, and a user program on ROM. This allowed microcontroller applications to be built using just two chips. It also meant that any application that did not fit the simple requirements generally required at least three 40-pin ICs, the CPU, PSU and either the 3852 or 3853 along with additional memory chips. As a result of these tradeoffs, the F8 series found widespread use in the microcontroller market but saw less use as a CPU in general-purpose computers. It is relatively obscure today, as its embedded uses rarely revealed the F8 inside. In 1977, Mostek released a greatly improved single-chip implementation, the Mostek 3870. It merged the 3850 and 3851 and reduced the number of power supply voltages. More important, Mostek re-arranged the assembly line so user code in ROM was added at the last step, greatly reducing the cost of customizing the design for controller use. The 3870 replaced the original Fairchild versions and was produced by several companies in the US and Europe. In Europe, STMicroelectronics continued producing variations of the design into the mid-1990s. History Development The F8 story begins with a microprocessor development project at Olympia-Werke, a subsidiary of AEG. Best known as a manufacturer of typewriters, Olympia also had a long history in mechanical calculators, which were rapidly being converted to electronic format. They were developing a processor system known as the CP3-F, which General Instrument (GI) had licensed from them. As part of the license agreement, GI sent David Chung, head of GI's processor division, to Olympia to liaise with their design team. Shortly after returning to the US, Chung quit GI and moved to Fairchild where he became lead designer of the F8, and is named as the primary