In marketing, iAPX (''Intel Advanced Performance Architecture'') was a short lived designation used for several

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

microprocessors, including some

8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allo ...

family processors. Not being a simple initialism seems to have confused even Intel's technical writers as can be seen in their iAPX-88 Book where the asterisked expansion shows iAPX to mean ''Intel Advanced Processor System''.Intel iAPX 88 Book
(page i) The iAPX prefix originally belonged to the

Intel iAPX 432 The iAPX 432 (''Intel Advanced Performance Architecture'') is a discontinued computer architecture introduced in 1981. It was Intel's first 32-bit processor design. The main processor of the architecture, the ''general data processor'', is im ...

architecture, alias Intel 8800. However, as this radical design failed in the marketplace, Intel also tried it on its more conventional 8086-family of processors, mainly used as a kind of system prefix but also to denote individual processors in the family. The 8086 based line was therefore called the iAPX 86 series for a few years during the early 1980s. This was abandoned rather soon, however. The industry around the 8088- and 80286-based

de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that is commonly used even though its use is not required. is a Latin phrase (literally " of fact"), here meaning "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, ...

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...

and IBM AT designs also seldom used that naming scheme. As a result, the iAPX prefix is now, again, more closely associated with the (non-x86) iAPX 432 architecture (which, although a commercial failure, is often seen as historically important).

List of x86-related iAPX chips and multi-chip system configurations

* iAPX 86 and iAPX 86/10 refer to the

* iAPX 86/11 refers to a combination of 8086 and 8089 (IOP) * iAPX 86/20 refers to a combination of 8086 and

8087 The Intel 8087, announced in 1980, was the first floating-point coprocessor for the 8086 line of microprocessors. The purpose of the chip was to speed up floating-point arithmetic operations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, di ...

(NPX) * iAPX 86/21 refers to a combination of 8086, 8087 and 8089 * iAPX 86/30 refers to a combination of 8086 and 80130 (OSP) * iAPX 88 and iAPX 88/10 refers to the

8088 The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers ...

* iAPX 88/11 refers to a combination of 8088 and 8089 * iAPX 88/20 refers to a combination of 8088 and 8087 * iAPX 88/21 refers to a combination of 8088, 8087 and 8089 * iAPX 88/30 refers to a combination of 8088 and 80130 * iAPX 186 and iAPX 186/10 refer to the

80186 The Intel 80186, also known as the iAPX 186, or just 186, is a microprocessor and microcontroller introduced in 1982. It was based on the Intel 8086 and, like it, had a 16-bit external data bus multiplexed with a 20-bit address bus. The 80188 ...

* iAPX 186/11 refers to a combination of 80186 and 8089 * iAPX 186/20 refers to a combination of 80186 and 8087 * iAPX 186/21 refers to a combination of 80186, 8087 and 8089 * iAPX 186/30 refers to a combination of 80186 and 80130 * iAPX 186/40 refers to a combination of 80186, 8087 and 80130 * iAPX 188 and iAPX 188/10 refer to the 80188 * iAPX 188/20 refers to a combination of 80188 and 8087 * iAPX 188/21 refers to a combination of 80188, 8087 and 8089 * iAPX 188/30 refers to a combination of 80188 and 80130 * iAPX 286 and iAPX 286/10 refer to the

80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non-multiplexed address and data buses and also the fi ...

* iAPX 286/20 refers to a combination of 80286 and 80287 * iAPX 386 refers to the

80386 The Intel 386, originally released as the 80386 and later renamed i386, is the third-generation x86 architecture microprocessor from Intel. It was the first 32-bit processor in the line, making it a significant evolution in the x86 architect ...

List of non-x86 iAPX chips

* Intel MCS (Intel Micro Computer Set)

List of x86-related iAPX chips and multi-chip system configurations

List of non-x86 iAPX chips

References

Further reading