Zilog is discontinuing their production of the Z80

[DragWx]

After 48 years, Zilog is killing the classic standalone Z80 microprocessor chip

Sorry if I'm late to this party.

Based on what I could find, Zilog themselves will no longer produce classical DIP Z80s, though a modern variant, the eZ80, will still be produced, albeit in a different package.

Aside from that though, Zilog licensed the Z80 design to other manufacturers, and others have produced compatible clones (source), so I doubt the Z80 is becoming unobtainium or anything.

Pretty fascinating to think about -- the Z80, 6502, 68xx, and x86 have been around for so long, I never thought about what would happen if any of them just decided to end their production run. Though, I guess the 6502 already saw that, huh?

[paulscottrobson]

I doubt it would matter significantly. As FPGAs get cheaper, Microcontrollers get faster they'll replace them with accurate emulation. That leaves two groups : the retro collectors (who are already having issues with things like the C64's 6502 variant) and those who think it's important to be using a 'real chip'.

[Kalvan]

Well, so long as the surface-mount and PGA package versions are still available, I won't be too upset. And the Z180 series is still available, so long as you don't need the undocumented Z80 instructions. It's just that with Renaisis, Microchip Technologies, and Freescale having discontinued their second-source versions, it feels like the end of an era. Still, the age of home-packaged, 3D-printed hard logic microchips cannot come soon enough!