Part number letters

[e44-72]

Hello

If on an IC it sais 4001b, what does the "b" after the part number mean. I've heard its something to do with there being buffered outputs but what does that mean?
There are others I've seen which I think are BE and BP and I don't know what they are either.

Thank you for any help or advice.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

The suffixes have in the past referred to package type such as LM301N when N is a dual in line. LM is typically a National Part. Some suffixes could refer to militar, commercial and consumer temperature ranges or a particular selected part such as lower offset voltage.

You can see the ordering code here: https://www.futurlec.com/4000Series/CD4001.shtml and they all refer to package ID's

 

[Dean Huster]

In the case of the "B" at the end of the 4000-series CMOS chips, that is to distinguish it from a 4000 or 4000A. The "B" series is a more rugged part, less prone to ESD because of some built-in protection. I've never blown a "B" version; a lot of the earlier CMOS chips have died under even my most careful handling.

Manufacturers do differ quite a bit, but as already mentioned, the letter preceeding the "part number" is usually manufacturer specific, although there have been gobs of changes there over the past 20 years. SN tended to be Texas Instruments; Motorola used M and µ a lot; "f" for Fairchild before it was bought by National before National was bought by Texas Instruments. AD preceeds the bulk of Analog Devices chips, LT for Linear Technology. The list goes on and on and there are zillions of exceptions.

The last letters are very manufacturer specific. Also as mentioned previously, some can imply temperature ranges, accuracy or specifications improvements. Most of the various letters are package designations, whether referring to the various sizes of DIP, "canned" and the plethora of SMT packages. I've seen letters stream out to five or more characters after the main part number on some analog chips from Maxim.

 

[Jaguarjoe]

National's LM means Linear Monolithic, DM is Digital Monolithic. I forgot the others.

 

[e44-72]

Thanks ror the replies, I've bought severel IC's from maplins. Sometimes they use Texas Instruments as there manufacturer (mostly) and some I've bought from them are NXP. Does it make any difference using ic's together from different manufacturers or is it best that in a circuit you use the same manufacturer.

Thanks for the help

 

[audioguru]

Some manufacturers make a CD4017 counter/divider IC with a Schmitt-trigger on its clock input and other manufacturers do not. So read the datasheet for the manufacturer that you are using or design the circuit so it works with or without the Schmitt-trigger.

 

[e44-72]

Thanks for the information audioguru, I did not know they did that.

 

[atferrari]

Hello

If on an IC it sais 4001b, what does the "b" after the part number mean. I've heard its something to do with there being buffered outputs but what does that mean?

"Buffered" IIRC

 

[RCinFLA]

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4000_series

'B' has additional input buffering.

 

[audioguru]

The "B" at the end of a CD4xxx IC means "Better" because the "A" version was "Awful".

 

[Jaguarjoe]

Doesn't the Better version have zeners across the inputs to make them much more tame?

 

[Mr RB]

The "B" at the end of a CD4xxx IC means "Better" because the "A" version was "Awful".

Which makes the "C" version "Cool".

 

[Dean Huster]

Some manufacturers make a CD4017 counter/divider IC with a Schmitt-trigger on its clock input and other manufacturers do not. So read the datasheet for the manufacturer that you are using or design the circuit so it works with or without the Schmitt-trigger.

Reminds me of when I was having a horrible time getting a 74LS123 one-shot to work correctly. Turns out that I'd swapped out the original 74123 in the experimental circuit with the "LS" version to save a bit of power and up the frequency specs to find that the truth table for the two are different! That was quite a surprise.