Editing Intel i960 (section)

==Origin==
[[File:KL Intel i960 PLCC.jpg|thumb|upright|Intel N80960SA ([[Plastic leaded chip carrier|PLCC]] Package)]]
[[File:KL Intel i960 BGA.jpg|thumb|upright|Intel GC80960RD66 (BGA Package)]]
[[File:KL Intel i960 BGA 2.jpg|thumb|upright|Intel GC80960RN, sSpec: SL3YW, BGA Package]]
[[File:KL Intel i960 PQFP.jpg|thumb|upright|Intel FC80960HD66 (PQFP Package)]]

The i960 design was begun in response to the failure of Intel's [[Intel iAPX 432|iAPX 432]] design of the early 1980s. The iAPX 432 was intended to directly support high-level languages that supported [[tagged architecture|tagged]], [[memory protection|protected]], [[garbage collection (computer science)|garbage-collected]] memory—such as [[Ada (programming language)|Ada]] and [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]]—in hardware. Because of its instruction-set complexity, its multi-chip implementation, and design flaws, the iAPX 432 was very slow in comparison to other processors of its time.

In 1984, Intel and [[Siemens]] started a joint project, ultimately called [[BiiN]], to create a high-end, fault-tolerant, object-oriented computer system programmed entirely in Ada. Many of the original i432 team members joined this project, although a new lead architect, [[Glenford Myers]], was brought in from [[IBM]]. The intended market for the BiiN systems was high-reliability-computer users such as banks, industrial systems, and nuclear power plants.

Intel's major contribution to the BiiN system was a new processor design, influenced by the protected-memory concepts from the i432. The new design was to include a number of features to improve performance and avoid problems that had led to the i432's downfall. The first 960 processors entered the final stages of design, known as ''[[tape out|taping-out]]'', in October 1985 and were sent to manufacturing that month, with the first working chips arriving in late 1985 and early 1986.

The BiiN effort eventually failed, due to market forces, and the 960 was left without a use. Myers attempted to save the design by extracting several subsets of the full capability architecture created for the BiiN system. He tried to convince Intel management to market the i960 (then still known as the "P7") as a general-purpose processor, both in place of the [[Intel 80286]] and [[i386]] (which taped-out the same month as the first i960), as well as the emerging RISC market for [[Unix]] systems, including a pitch to [[Steve Jobs]] for use in the [[NeXT]] system. Myers was unsuccessful at convincing Intel management to support the i960 as a general-purpose or Unix processor, but the chip found a ready market in early high-performance 32-bit embedded systems.

The lead architect of i960{{clarify|reason=When did Pollack replace Myers as the lead architect?|date=November 2024}} was [[superscalar]]ity specialist [[Fred Pollack]] who was also the lead engineer of the [[Intel iAPX 432]] and the lead architect of the i686 chip, the [[Pentium Pro]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Dvorak |first=John C. |author-link=John C. Dvorak |title=Whatever Happened to The iAPX432 — Intel's Dream Chip |url=http://www.dvorak.org/blog/whatever-happened-to-the-intel-iapx432/ |date=2008 |website=Dvorak.org |access-date=September 8, 2018}}</ref>