Trivia Question - What does the HCS (as in HCS12) stand for?

[admin]

The prefixes HC and HCS have been around for awhile, and someone the other day asked me what it meant and I honestly did not know.  So,  I looked and asked around and I actually can't find the answer.  I have some guesses...but was wondering if anyone knew exactly?

[Lundin]

HC stands for Hot Carrier and it refers to the transistor type in the IC. Some semiconductor guru can explain what that means, I'm a software guy

The CPU itself was originally called "Star 12", as opposed to the existing MC68HC12. Luckily, someone decided to abandon that silly name and shorten it to S12. Probably because it sounded too similar to the Starcore DSP?

[mculater · Accepted solution]

High-speed CMOS is what "HC" stands for (e.g. 74HC573).  The letter "S" was added when the designs migrated to a smaller-scale fabrication process, which resulted in a smaller, speedier product.

Best regards

Carl Barnes

www.technologicalarts.com

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