Inside the 8086 processor, tiny charge pumps create a negative voltage

.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} Introduced in 1978, the revolutionary Intel 8086 microprocessor led to the x86 processors used in most desktop and server computing today. This chip is built form digital circuits, as you would expect. However, it also has analog circuits: charge pumps that turn the 8086's 5-volt supply into a negative voltage to improve performance.1 I've been reverse-engineering the 8086 from die photos, and in this post I discuss the construction of these charge pumps and how they...