The processor in an electronic telephone switching system must be designed to efficiently and reliably process telephone calls. Because of the extended life span of a telephone switching system and the nature of the function it provides, it is advantageous to build a great deal of flexibility into the processor design. This paper provides details of a microprogram control design philosophy for the development of a medium-size processor <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∗</sup> that provides the required flexibility. The aspects of the microprogram control that make it very suitable for the design of a processor in a fault-tolerant system are also described.