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Decoding the NEC V20 Microcode

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Why This Matters

Extracting the NEC V20's microcode directly from high-resolution die photography is the kind of hardware archaeology that makes truly cycle-accurate emulation possible. It matters because preservation of 1980s PC software depends on emulators that reproduce timing quirks exactly, not approximations built by trial and error. It also shows how commissioned die imaging has become a practical tool for independent researchers, not just corporate labs.

Key Takeaways

reenigne's decoding of the 8088 microcode in 2020 opened the doors for extremely accurate emulation of the 8088 CPU.

Although I had added support for the NEC V20 in MartyPC, the V20 core was not cycle-accurate in terms of the V20's actual timings. It was an 8088 in a V20's clothing - a copy-paste of my 8088 core with V20 instructions tacked on.

This was not an ideal case, but the prospect of making my V20 core cycle-exact without the microcode seemed like it might be a discouraging slog of trial and error.

So why not get the microcode, then?

I recently commissioned InfoSecDJ to take die photography of an NEC V20 CPU (actually a second-source V20 fabricated by Sharp, but a V20 nonetheless). He did an excellent job.

The NEC V20 CPU die - InfoSecDJ

This photomosaic is extremely high resolution - 5.6 Gigapixels to be exact, an astonishing 70478x80672 resolution - too large to even fit in the JPEG image format!

You can see the entire thing at full resolution here.

The rectangular region just below the center of the die is the main microcode ROM.

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