Western Design Center

{{Short description|American company}}

{{Confused|Western Digital}}

{{More citations|date=June 2023}}

{{Use American English|date=July 2022}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2022}}

{{Infobox company

| name = The Western Design Center, Inc.

| logo = Western Design Center logo one-color.svg

| type = Private

| industry = Electronics

| fate =

| predecessor =

| successor =

| founded = {{Start date and age|1978}} in Mesa, Arizona, United States

| founder = Bill Mensch

| defunct =

| hq_location_city = Mesa, Arizona

| hq_location_country = United States

| area_served = Worldwide

| key_people = Bill Mensch

| products = Microprocessors, microcontrollers, support devices

| owner = Bill Mensch

| num_employees =

| num_employees_year =

| parent =

| website = {{URL|https://wdc65xx.com/}}

{{URL|https://www.westerndesigncenter.com/}}

}}

The Western Design Center (WDC), located in Mesa, Arizona, is a company that develops intellectual property for, and licenses manufacture of, MOS Technology 65xx based microprocessors and microcontrollers. WDC was founded in 1978 by a former MOS Technology employee and co-holder of the MOS Technology 6502 patent, Bill Mensch.{{cite web |last=Cass |first=Stephen |date=September 16, 2021 |title=Q&A With Co-Creator of the 6502 Processor: Bill Mensch on the microprocessor that powered the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/q-a-with-co-creator-of-the-6502-processor |work=IEEE Spectrum}} Prior to leaving MOS Technology in 1977 Bill was the microprocessor design manager at MOS Technology.

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{{cite web | url=https://wdc65xx.com/integrated-circuit | title=Integrated Circuit (IC) | the Western Design Center, Inc }} revolving around their processor designs. WDC also produces C compilers, assembler/linker packages, simulators, development–evaluation printed circuit boards,{{cite web | url=https://wdc65xx.com/Single-Board-Computers | title=Single Board Computers (SBC) | the Western Design Center, Inc }} and in-circuit emulators for their processors.