Template:mpu The Motorola MC14500B or Industrial Control Unit (ICU) is a 1-bit microprocessor designed by Motorola and released in 1976. Production continued well into the 1990s. The MC14500B was designed as an extremely low cost programmable logic controller suited for implementing various ladder logic circuits as replacement for older relay-based systems.

Architecture

The MC14500B is a true 1-bit microprocessor - all operations are done on single-bit operands. The MC14500B comes with an internal clock that may be controlled via an external resistor. While designed to run at 1 MHz, it may be tuned down to 10 KHz or hooked up to an external clock altogether.

The MC14500B does not include any on-chip memory nor a program counter. A program counter is not provided because this MPU has no notion of memory at all, and by extension no notion of addresses. It implements an early Harvard architecture type of flow where separate instruction lines and data lines are fed to it. Individual instructions and values are fed in each clock cycle and the result can be read via a number of output lines. Typically a PROM chip such as the MCM7641 and PC such as the MC145168 were used to form a complete system. Because this was done externally, in theory at least, this MPU can support any amount of memory needed.

The MC14500B has a number of output lines to help facilitate subroutine returns, branching, conditional, and general purpose I/O. However since there are no built-in support for memory or addressing, they have to be dealt with externally, possibly with some glue chips.

Registers

The MC14500B has a single register: result register (RR) which always stores the value of the intimidate operation that has been performed. RR can be read directly from pin 15 at any time. RR is also always used as the 2nd operand to any binary ALU operation.

Instruction Set

Mnemonic	OPCode	Action
NOPO	0x0	RR → RR ; Flag O → 1
LD	0x1	Data → RR
LDC	0x2	Data → RR
AND	0x3	RR · Data → RR
ANDC	0x4	RR · Data → RR
OR	0x5	RR + Data → RR
ORC	0x6	RR + Data → RR
XNOR	0x7	If RR = Data, RR → 1
STO	0x8	RR → Data ; Write → 1
STOC	0x9	RR → Data ; Write → 1
IEN	0xA	Data → IEN
OEN	0xB	Data → OEN
JMP	0xC	JMP Flag → 1
RTN	0xD	RTN Flag → 1
SKZ	0xE	Skip next instruction if RR = 0
NOPF	0xF	RR → RR ; Flag F → 1

Packaging

The MC14500B came in a few different packages for different specifications.

Part	Temperature range
MC14500BCL	Military
MC14500BAL	Industrial
MC14500BCP	Industrial

Documents

• MC14500B Datasheet
• Motorola MC14500B Industial Control Unit Handbook