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Ken Shirriff

Division on the 8086 was very very slow, up to 184 clock cycles due to all the looping. Modern Intel processors are much faster, but division is still slow compared to addition or multiplication. While you can now multiply every clock cycle, divisions need 6-10 clock cycles.

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Ken Shirriff

This 8086 die photo shows the main functional blocks. The Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU) performs the subtractions and shifts. Microcode is in the ROM at the right. I removed the metal and polysilicon layers for this image so you can see the silicon transistors underneath.

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