Western Design Center

American company

Not to be confused with Western Digital.

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The Western Design Center, Inc.

Company type| Private
Industry| Electronics
Founded| 1978; 46 years ago (1978) in Mesa, Arizona, United States
Founder| Bill Mensch
Headquarters|

Mesa, Arizona

United States

Area served

| Worldwide

Key people

| Bill Mensch
Products| Microprocessors, microcontrollers, support devices
Owner| Bill Mensch
Website| wdc65xx.com www.westerndesigncenter.com

The Western Design Center (WDC), located in Mesa, Arizona, is a company which develops intellectual property for, and licenses manufacture of, MOS Technology 65xx based microprocessors, microcontrollers (µCs), and related support devices. WDC was founded in 1978 by a former MOS Technology employee and coholder of the MOS Technology 6502 patent, Bill Mensch.[1]

Beyond discrete devices, WDC offers device designs in the form of semiconductor intellectual property cores (IP cores) to use inside other chips such as application-specific integrated circuit (ASICs), and provides ASIC and embedded systems consulting services[2] revolving around their processor designs. WDC also produces C compilers, assembler/linker packages, simulators, development–evaluation printed circuit boards,[3] and in-circuit emulators for their processors.

## Hardware products[edit]

### Devices[edit]

Name | Type | Comments

|
|

W65C02S | 8-bit microprocessor | Enhanced static core CMOS version of the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor
W65C816S | 16-bit microprocessor | Extended version of the W65C02S, featuring larger instruction set, selectable register sizes and 24-bit memory addressing
W65C134S | 8-bit microcontroller | Microcontroller with W65C02S core and mask-programmable ROM
W65C265S | 16-bit microcontroller | Microcontroller with W65C816S core and mask-programmable ROM
W65C21N | I/O device | Drop-in replacement for MOS Technology 6520 & Motorola 6820/6821 peripheral interface adapters (PIA)
W65C21S | I/O device | Lower power, higher performance version of the W65C21N PIA
W65C22N | I/O device | Drop-in replacement for the MOS Technology 6522 versatile interface adapter (VIA)
W65C22S | I/O device | Modified version of the MOS Technology 6522 VIA, with totem-pole IRQ output
W65C51N | I/O device | Drop-in replacement for the MOS Technology 6551 asynchronous communications interface adapter (ACIA)

### Personal computer[edit]

The Mensch Computer is a W65C265 and W65C22-based hobbyist experimental personal computer named after company founder Bill Mensch.

## References[edit]

1. ^ Cass, Stephen (September 16, 2021). "Q&A With Co-Creator of the 6502 Processor: Bill Mensch on the microprocessor that powered the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64". IEEE Spectrum.
2. ^ "Integrated Circuit (IC) | the Western Design Center, Inc".
3. ^ "Single Board Computers (SBC) | the Western Design Center, Inc".

## External links[edit]

* Official website

* v
* t
* e

65xx-based CPUs

MOS Technology, CSG|

* 6502 (and 6501, 6503, 6504, 6505)
* 6507
* 6508
* 6509
* 6510 (and 6510T, 6512, 6513, 6514, 6515)
* 8502 (and 7501, 8500, 8501)
* 65CE02 (and 4510)

Western Design Center|

* 65C02
* 65C134
* 65C265
* 65C816 (and 65C802)

Mitsubishi, Renesas|

* 740 family

Architecture|

* Interrupts in 65xx processors

For game machines|

* Hudson HuC6280
* Nintendo SA-1
* Ricoh 2A03
* Ricoh 5A22

Designers|

* Bill Mensch
* Chuck Peddle

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