The 8086 microprocessor is a 16-bit processor released by Intel in 1978. It has a 16-bit external data bus and a 20-bit address bus. The 8086 uses segmented memory architecture and can access 1MB of physical memory using segment registers and a 20-bit address generated by combining the segment register and offset register contents. It has a 16-bit execution unit with four general purpose registers (AX, BX, CX, DX), index registers (SI, DI), pointer registers (SP, BP) and instruction pointer (IP) register. It also contains segment registers (CS, DS, SS, ES) and a flag register.