Appendix J: Prefixes

Typical problem: You need to replace anintegrated circuit, or at least find somedata on it. It says

and lives in a 16-pin DIP. What is it? The7410 has a familiar sound, so you ordera few. A week later they arrive, in 14-pinDIPS! Banging your head on the nearestwall (since you should have known this allalong), you realize you're back where youwere a week ago, but with a handful ofspare 3-input for consolation.

What's needed is a master list of IC pre-fixes, from which you can quickly identify the manufacturer. This appendix is our at-tempt to bring some order out of chaos.We make no pretense of accuracy or com-pleteness, especially since the list is prolif-erating daily. (That mystery chip is a Na-tional Semiconductor 8095 hex three-stateTTL buffer, by the way, manufactured inthe week of 1974.)

PREFIXES

The various semiconductor manufacturers use distinctive (usually) prefixes in front ofthe IC number, even if it is an IC type made by many different companies. TheDM in the preceding example indicates adigital monolithic IC made by NationalSemiconductor (also indicated by the NSlogo). Here is a list of most of the prefixesnow in use:

Prefixes

ACF, AY, GIC,GP, SPR

AD, CAV, HAS,HDM

ADC, DM, DS, LFLFT, LH,LM, NH

AH

AM

AN

Bt

BX, CX

C, I,

CA, CD, CDP

CA, TDC, MPY,THC, TMC

CM, HV

CLC

CMP, DAC, MAT,OP, PM, REF,SSS

CY

D, DG, SI

DS

ET, MK,SFC, TDF, TS,

EP, EPM, PL

Unx

FSS, ZLD

GA

GAL

GEL

HA, HI

Manufacturer

General Instrument (GI)

Analog Devices

NationalSemiconductor (NSC)

Optical Electronics Inc.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

Panasonic

Brooktree

Sony

Intel

TRW

Supertex

Comlinear

PrecisionMonolithics

Cypress

Siliconix

DallasSemiconductor

Ferranti

Gazelle

Lattice

GE

Harris

PREFIXES1070 Appendix J

HA, HD, HG, HL, HM, HN

HADC, HDAC

HEP, MC, MCC, MCM, MEC, MM, MWM

ICH, ICL, ICM,IM

IDT

IMS

INA, ISO, OPA,PWR

IR

ITT, MIC

L

L, LD

L,

LA, LC

LS

LT, LTC, LTZ

M

MA

MAX

MB

MCS

MIL

ML, SL,TAB

ML, MT

MM

MN

MP

MSM

N, NE, PLS, S, SE, SP

NC

PA

PAL

R

R, Ray, RC, RM

Hitachi

Honeywell

Motorola

Integrated Device TechnologySiemens

Inmos

Burr-Brown

Sharp

ITT

Samsung

SGS

Siliconix, Siltronics

Sanyo

LSI Computer Systems

Linear Technology Corp.

Mitsubishi

Analog Systems,Marconi

Maxim

MOS Technology

MicrosystemsInternational

Mitel

Teledyne-Amelco,Monolithic Memories

Micro Networks

Micro Power Systems

Oki

Signetics

Gigabit Logic

Nitron

Apex

RD, RM,RT, RU

SFC

SG

SN, TL, TLC, TMS

SS

TA, TC, TDTMM, TMP

OM, PCD, SAA, SAB, SCB, SCN, TAA,TBA, TCA, TDA,TEA, U

TML

TP

TPQ, UCN, UCS, UDN, UDS, UHP, ULN, ULS

TSC

vVA, VC

ESMF

Silicon General

Texas Instruments (TI)

Silicon Systems

Toshiba

AEG, SGS,Siemens, Signetics, Telefunken

Telmos

Teledyne Philbrick

Sprague

Teledyne Semiconductor

NEC

Amtel

VTC

VLSI Technology Inc.

Xicor

Xilinx

Exar

Zilog

Hewlett-Packard (HP)

Suffixes

Suffix letters indicate package type andtemperature range. There are three stan-dard temperature ranges: "Military"(-55°C to "Industrial" (-25°Cto and "Commercial" to

Commercial is adequate for any-thing intended for use in normal indoor environments. As luck would have it, eachmanufacturer has its own set of suffixes, subject to frequent modification. Be sureto look up the correct suffix you or-der, or ask the distributor for assistance.

IC PREFIXES

Appendix J 1071

DATE CODES

Most and transistors, and many other electronic components, are stamped with asimple four-digit code giving date of man-ufacture: the first two digits are the year,the last two are the week of the year. In the example given earlier, 7410means the sec-ond week of March 1974. They're some-times useful, for example to estimate theage of components that have a finite usefullife (electrolytic capacitors, for instance); unfortunately the components with the

shortest life (batteries) are often purposelycoded so you can't figure out the date.If you get a batch of with an abnor- mally high failure rate (most manufactur- ers test only a sample of each batch; typi-cally0.01% to O.lO/oof the you buy willnot meet specifications), avoid replace-ments with the same date code. Datecodes can also help you estimate the date of manufacture of commercial electronic equipment. Since don't become stale,there's no reason to avoid an IC with anold date code.