To LinFinfinity and beyond.....

It's a second source. First introduced by Silicon General c. 1991. What's your point?

? I thought the MC34xxxx range where Motorola chips. I have a HC11 design from 1990 which uses the MC34064 for the reset.

The point? The product codes with which it is pin compatible are

The industry is filled with 2nd-source chips. Sometimes these are friendly deals arraigned with the original manufacturer, so engineers feel more comfortable to design in the part, thereby helping sales. But usually it's an unfriendly deal, a copy, reversed engineered from the datasheet specs and from part performance on the bench, and designed from scratch.

It's long been industry custom to give the replacement part the same part number and identical typical specs, or perhaps to make spec improvements here or there and tout that. But as often as not, even if a new design is improved, they'll keep exactly the same specs in the datasheet to help convince you that it's the same.

The Motorola mc34164 part was introduced in the mid 1980's and few years later Silicon General introduced their sg34164 2nd-source, which was renamed to mc34164 by the follow-on LinFinity managers, no doubt in an attempt to increase sales.

If you check, you'll see Microsemi also makes the '34164, and it's long-since become a true jelly-bean part.

After a lifetime working in electronics I am well familiar with the situation.

The point is there is no mention of manufacturers and no code variation.....just an MC34164 datasheet whose key feature is being compatible with the MC34164.

I found that odd, and funny.

Win are not amused.

John

I'm sorry, the way you asked the question...

But you must have noticed that frequently the 2nd-source part datasheet doesn't mention the original manufacturer. It's as if they're acting like it's a new part and want to get and keep this part's customers for themselves. For example, when Silicon General first introduced the part and called it a sg34164 (the datasheet did say, pin-for-pin compatible with Motorola mc34164), I imagine they hoped designers would write the sd number into their parts list and purchasing agents wouldn't realize Motorola's mc34164 was equivalent. Of course that backfired and so Linfinity had to fix that.

What a minute, hold it! I just checked -- all the Linfinity datasheets do say pin-for-pin compatible with mc34164, plus electrically compatible with the Motorola mc34164-3. > I found that odd, and funny.

How so?

Hmm, mine dosn't, so I looked up a new sheet on Digikey and that does mention Motorola, perhaps some mistake had allready been noticed ;-)

Anyway, something I would like to point out to Winnie is **why** I still have that Motorola book hanging around. Fact is that it includes the graphs from O.H.Schade for bridge and supply cap design (IRE procs. vol 31, 1943). Despite thier age I still use these graphs for dimensioning supplies. Perhaps they should have been in Chap. 6. of AoE?

Dunno, I have six revs of the Linfinity '34164 datasheet in my computer. The oldest is Silicon General's sg33164 introduction in 1991. Then there's the name change to Linfinity and their 1993 version 1.0, still called a sg33164 (still says mc33164 compatible). Linfinity's first datasheet to use the mc33164 name was version 1.0 in 1994, their version 1.1 in 1996, version 1.2 in 1999, and the 2005 version 1.2a. All six mention Motorola mc33164 compatibility. The 1993 sg33164 datasheet mentions mc33164 but not Motorola.

Yes, I do love the old databooks and app notes. I have several references with those graphs. Your suggestion is appreciated.