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Zilog To File For Chapter 11

Posted by Hemos on from the death-of-the-old-timers dept.

Frédéric writes: "The venerable company ZiLOG who was founded in 1974, and who brought us the famous Z80 CPU (used in the Timex/Sinclair ZX80/ZX81, and the Amstrad CPC/PCW computers), is filling for Chapter 11 ... I didn't find the today's news on the web, but found this article at Silicon Strategy and this one at Electronics times, which was written a few days ago to announce it."

5 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. A tremendous blow to the Zilog community by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Most of you couldn't understand what we are feeling - as you are not part of the tightly knit Zilog user community. Our usenet group: comp.zilog has had the same core membership for over ten years and we are all very close. Every third Thursday we would gather at our favorite Silicon Valley pub for fond memories and circuit diagrams. We have watched our children grow up. We have celebrated holidays together. Those of you outside the Zilog enthusiast community could not understand what we are feeling.

  2. Re:They're _still_ pushing the Z80 by dillon_rinker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Go read Von Neumann and Turing.

    You can do ANYTHING with an 8-bit microcontroller. It just isn't necessarily easy.

  3. Re:$280M debt? by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Did they REALLY expect a Z80 with a TCP/IP stack to set the world on fire enough to pay back $280M? QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS!?!?!
    You seem to forget the embedded/controller market. There are zillions of devices in the field based on Z-80 controllers, and gillions of software written for it. This is something you just don't throw out overnight.

    And a instantly-networkable Z-80 will definitely fill some needs, if only for the plentifulness of implementing distributed systems via TCP/IP.

  4. Re:They're _still_ pushing the Z80 by rnturn · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ``Can you do anything with an 8-bit microcontroller anymore? :)''

    The smiley indicates that you were probably joking. But... there's probably enough brainwashed budding engineers out there who will take it for granted that they need a Pentium class microprocessor to power the next programmable Mr. Coffee. They probably want to use Windows CE, too. Just you wait. Laziness will result in your ``smart'' kitchen appliances requiring muffin fans to keep the processors cooled.

    (Damn but I'm cynical today...)

    --
    CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
  5. Saw it coming.. by Prizm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm from Nampa, ID, just down the road from the Nampa Zilog-manufacturing plant. I can't say that i didn't see huge losses coming from this company, although the bankruptcy surprised me.

    Zilog has had problems finding a niche for quite some time. In recent years (months?), they have been highly influenced by the market trends, which have affected their product directions. I mean, their main product as of recent is a z80 webserver kit.

    I still think there's plenty of room in the market for a microcontrollers company, but this company needs some serious restructuring. Along those same lines, they need to keep their logos for more than a month at a time. Every time I drive by the plant they have a new logo and coloring scheme, the most recent of which is a horrid yellow-on-purple. You haven't seen tacky until you've seen a beautiful, white, futuristic-looking technology building with a giant yellow 'Z' plastered on the front, covering all the windows.

    Should have seen this bankrupty coming from that alone!