Jellybean ICs 2016

I thought I’d check out some of the cheapest and most popular items in the most diverse IC categories on Digi-Key.

(Related to My attempt to learn about jellybean electronic components, from 2017 and 2018, which isn’t specifically focused on chips, and Transistors vs. Microcontrollers, which explores the implications of microcontrollers now being as cheap as individual discrete transistors nowadays in many cases.)

Microcontrollers: 61814 items

• 72000 available of the US$2.86 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/MSP430G2755IDA38R/MSP430G2755IDA38R-ND/4090934 which is a TI MSP430, “16BIT 32KB FLASH 38TSSOP”. 16MHz, 32K flash, 4K RAM, probably the usual super low power, a 12-channel 10-bit ADC, 32 GPIOs, internal oscillator, and so on. Other MSP430 parts with 55601 available are #3.
• 67594 available of the US$2.69 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/freescale-semiconductor-nxp/S9S08SG16E1CTLR/S9S08SG16E1CTLRDKR-ND/2252301 Freescale S9S08SG16E1CTLR, “8BIT 16KB FLASH 28TSSOP,” from their S08 series, which I’ve never heard of before. It’s the MC9S08SG32 in the datasheet, in the HCS08 category, originally the 68HC08 or HC08, the successor to the 68HC05, a successor to the 6800. Also it’s sometimes called the 9S08. So despite all the obfuscation this is a 6800. But a 40MHz 6800 with memory paging and on-chip flash, 16K of it I guess. Von Neumann, 22 GPIOs (with two selectable output drive strengths plus an optional pullup on input), 8 interrupt pins with selectable priority, a 16-channel 10-bit ADC, SPI, I²C, wakeup timer, PWM generation, 1024 bytes of RAM. Its big brother, the ...SG32, has 32K of flash and operates up to 150°. Runs on 5V, normally uses an external crystal, though it has a 40MHz internal clock source too. It has a “standard 6-pin header” for a documented “background debug mode” that’s driven through a single-wire serial protocol, typically bitbanged from a PC. The BDM documentation says there are other secret test modes too. It makes it sound like chips of this family found in the field might have the Flash-reprogramming functionality available through the debug port disabled.
• 45696 available of the US$3.20 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/atmel/ATMEGA48-20AU/ATMEGA48-20AU-ND/739775 Atmel ATMega48, “8BIT 4KB FLASH 32TQFP”. 20MHz, 8-bit, 23 GPIO, 4K of flash and half a K of RAM, 8 10-bit ADCs.
• 9000 available of the US$0.42 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/PIC10F200T-I-OT/PIC10F200T-I-OTTR-ND/665882 PIC10F200T-I/OT, a 4MHz Microchip PIC with 384 bytes (!!) of flash, 16 bytes (!!!) of RAM, and 3 GPIOs, in a six-pin SOT-23 package, 3.1mm × 1.75 mm × 1.3 mm.
• 4500 available of the US$1.01 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/atmel/ATTINY4-TSHR/ATTINY4-TSHRTR-ND/2238292 ATTINY4-TSHR, a 12MHz Atmel AVR ATtiny4 with 512 bytes of flash and 32 bytes of RAM, in the same package as the PIC.
• 127 available of the US$1.11 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/silicon-labs/EFM8SB20F16G-A-QFN24/336-3175-5-ND/5115732 Silicon Labs EFM8SB20F16G-A-QFN24, a 25MHz 8051, “8BIT 16KB FLASH 24QFN”, with 4¼ kibibytes of RAM and 16 kibibytes of flash. This is the cheapest microcontroller with over 4K of RAM. It runs off 1.8 to 3.6 volts, with 16 GPIOs, a 15-channel 10-bit 300ksps ADC, a thermometer good to about half a degree, and a PWM generator; of the “Sleepy Bee” line, “the world’s most energy friendly 8-bit microcontrollers”. 50 nA sleep current (or 300 nA with the internal RTC running), 170 μA / MHz; most instructions are 1- or 2-cycle, so if we assume an average of 1½ and 1.8V, that's about 200 pJ/insn. The RAM is “256 bytes standard 8051 RAM and 4096 bytes on-chip XRAM”; the GPIOs are 5 mA source, 12.5 mA sink. And it has an internal 20MHz ±10% clock, an internal 16 (or 32?) kHz clock, and a 24.5MHz ±2% one, so you don't need an external crystal, and the RTC optionally uses a watch crystal. Four timers. It ships with a UART bootloader. Its “on-chip debugging interface” is a thing called “C2 Silicon Labs 2-Wire”, which is apparently public. 4mm × 4mm.
• 2,570 available of the US$3.49 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/atmel/AT80C51RD2-3CSUM/AT80C51RD2-3CSUM-ND/1026863 Atmel AT80C51RD2-3CSUM, which is a 5V 40MHz 8051 in a 40-pin DIP with no ROM; you hold its “external enable” pin low so that it executes code from an external ROM.
• only 22 available of the US$2.06 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/intel/EE80C51FA24SF88/864420-ND/1464725 Intel EE80C51FA24SF88. That’s an actual 8051! With no ROM, using an external ROM.

Linear regulators: 58468 items

• 163000 available of the US$0.71 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/LM317LIPK/296-21742-6-ND/1944499 LM317LIPK, an adjustable ungrounded linear voltage regulator that can output from 1.2 to 32 V at up to 100 mA, in a tiny SOT-89-3 case. This LM317L family is the low-current version of the regular 1500mA LM317. You adjust it with an external voltage divider providing negative feedback from its output; I guess you could probably use a FET in its linear region to make it a more custom voltage regulator. And you can also use it as a precision current source! Note that this part is more popular than any of the microcontrollers. Its datasheet includes instructions for how to make a slow-turn-on regulator circuit with it, I guess to ensure that your brownout detection circuits have time to do a power-on reset.
• 121799 available of the US$0.39 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/toshiba-semiconductor-and-storage/TCR2EF12,LM%28CT/TCR2EF12LM%28CTDKR-ND/4503462 Toshiba TCR2EF12,LM(CT), “LDO 1.2V 0.2A SMV”. This is a 1.2-volt output voltage regulator with an 0.38V dropout and up to 200mA of output. I am guessing that this is such an important voltage because of NiMH battery chargers, but I don't know.
• 14254 available of the US$0.12 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/MIC5365-3.0YC5-TR/576-3191-1-ND/1868228 Microchip (ex-Micrel) MIC5365-3.0YC5-TR, a tiny (1mm×1mm!) 3V 150mA linear regulator. I think this may be the cheapest linear regulator of all.

Memory: 40599 items

• 168177 available of the US$0.23 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/M24C32-WMN6TP/497-5027-6-ND/1007946 STM M24C32-WMN6TP, a 400kHz 32-kibibit serial I²C EEPROM in an 8-pin package. STMicroelectronics will even sell you an unsawn wafer! It supports random address reads, and also erases of individual 32-byte pages.
• 130237 available of the US$0.36 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/winbond-electronics/W25X40CLSNIG/W25X40CLSNIG-ND/3008652 Winbond W25X40CLSNIG, a 104MHz (!) 4-mebibit (!!) dual SPI EEPROM in an 8-pin package. It’s insane that this is literally 256 times faster than and 128 times bigger than, but only 57% more expensive than, the #1 memory above.
• 5357 available of the US$0.13 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/M24C02-FDW6TP/497-15746-1-ND/5283304 STMicroelectronics M24C02-FDW6TP, another 400kHz serial I²C EEPROM, this time 2 kibibits. This one claims “More than 200-year data retention,” which is a surprising claim I haven’t seen other Flash chips make, but now that I notice, the 32-kibibit one above makes it too!
• 27500 available of the US$2.78 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/M95M02-DRMN6TP/497-11405-2-ND/2679404 STMicroelectronics M95M02-DRMN6TP, another serial EEPROM with “200-year data retention”, but this time SPI, two megabits, and 5 MHz! It's in the same 8-SOIC as the others above.

Op-amps, etc.: 36285 items

• 136806 available of the US$0.57 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/TSV321RILT/497-8164-6-ND/1884598 STMicroelectronics TSV321RILT “Op Amp GP 1.4MHz RRO SOT23-5”, “General purpose input/output rail-to-rail low-power operational amplifiers”, going 200mV past the power rails, good up to 125°, now replaced by the LMV321L. These are lower-voltage versions of the LMV324 for the 2.5–6V range, have a 1.3MHz GBP, and can source or sink up to 80mA and is stable driving up to 500pF of capacitive load.
• 99104 available of the US$1.00 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/LMC6032IMX-NOPB/LMC6032IMX-NOPBCT-ND/3440137 TI LMC6032IMX/NOPB, which is also a 1.4MHz GBP op-amp, but there are two op-amps on the chip, so it has 8 pins. This one only sources or sinks up to 18mA, it’s not quite rail-to-rail, runs on 4.75–15.5V, and is stable driving up to 100pF of capacitive load.
• 83402 available of the US$0.77 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/rohm-semiconductor/BU7411SG-TR/BU7411SGDKR-ND/2791706 Rohm BU7411SG-TR, an “Op Amp GP 4KHZ 5SSOP”, which makes it sound like it’s worse than the TSV321$ in every way, orders of magnitude worse in the GBP. But it only need 0.35μA of supply current, and needs even lower voltages: 1.6–5.5V. It can only source or sink a couple milliamps on its output.
• 53751 available of the US$0.24 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/MCP6001T-I-OT/MCP6001T-I-OTCT-ND/697158 Microchip MCP6001T-I/OT, the world’s cheapest op amp. This is a rail-to-rail 1MHz GBP op-amp using 100μA and sourcing/sinking up to 23mA, running on 1.8 to 6 V, in a SOT-23-5. It says it’s “low power” but it consumes 300 times what the BU7411SG above does.
• 2148 available of the US$0.31 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/MIC912YM5-TR/576-3691-1-ND/2339688 Microchip MIC912YM5-TR “Op Amp VFB 200MHz SOT23-5”, which is the cheapest 10MHz-or-over op amp; this was a Micrel part before Microchip bought them. This uses 2.4mA of supply current, is stable with unlimited capacitive loads, and runs on 2.5–9V. The datasheet PDF is corrupted, so I can’t find out more.
• 51585 available of the US$2.77 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/analog-devices-inc/AD8606ACBZ-REEL7/AD8606ACBZ-REEL7DKR-ND/2468795 Analog Devices. AD8606ACBZ-REEL7 “Op Amp GP 10MHZ RRO 8WLCSP”. It’s a dual-op-amp chip, and the most popular (as measured by Digi-Key stock) RF op amp. It’s immune to oscillation and phase reversal even when driving large (1000 pF) capacitive loads, and its picoamp input offset current allows you to use large feedback resistors.

Power management supervisor ICs: 35843 items

• 67032 available of the US$0.54 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/on-semiconductor/NCP302LSN20T1G/NCP302LSN20T1GOSCT-ND/2121405 ON Semiconductor NCP302LSN20T1G two-volt detector in a 5-TSOP (a thin SOT-23 with five pins). This is a power-on reset circuit. These suck 500 nA from 0.8 V to 10 V and produce an active-low reset signal when the voltage is below 2 V with hysteresis and a delay programmable with a capacitor on one of its pins. “This device contains 28 active transistors.”
• 56,660 available of the US$0.36 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/diodes-incorporated/APX809-31SAG-7/APX809-31SAGDICT-ND/1844722 Diodes Incorporated APX809-31SAG-7, which is basically the same thing, but with a 3.08V threshold voltage, a fixed delay of 240ms instead of a programmable delay, and only 3 pins. It sucks 30000 nA though and only works in the 1.1 to 5.5 volt range.
• 38041 available of the US$0.64 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/torex-semiconductor-ltd/XC61CC2502MR-G/893-1027-6-ND/2138365 Torex XC61CC2502MR-G, which is a ±2% low voltage detector in a SOT-23 with a 2.5V threshold that sucks 700 nA.

DC-DC switching regulators: 25051 items

• 79,855 available of the US$1.16 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/TPS61221DCKR/296-41854-6-ND/5224781 TI TPS61221DCKR, a TPS61221DCKR, described as “Boost Switching Regulator IC Positive Fixed 3.3V 1 Output 200mA (Switch) 6-TSSOP, SC-88, SOT-363”. This takes an input of anywhere from 0.7 to 5.5 volts and turns it into a 3.3-volt ±3% output at up to 200mA. It needs an external inductor (4.7μH suggested, higher inductances give higher efficiency) and a couple of 10μF capacitors; the adjustable-voltage versions also use a couple of resistors for feedback. At over 1V input and from 0.1 to 100 mA output, it’s over 80% efficient; above 2.3V input and 0.3 mA output, it’s over 90% efficient. This is basically intended for running 3.3V circuits off rechargeable batteries.
• 73,400 available of the US$0.70 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/alpha-omega-semiconductor-inc/AOZ1280CI/785-1277-1-ND/2769845 Alpha Omega AOZ1280CI, described as “Buck Switching Regulator IC Positive Adjustable 0.8V 1 Output 1.2A SOT-23-6”. This is a step-down switching regulator that takes 3–26V in and produces a 1.5MHz PWM output signal which you filter with a 2.2μH output inductor and a 10μF output bypass cap to get whatever voltage you want (programmed with a 800mV voltage divider), down to 0.8V, at up to 1.2 amps. It’s “up to 95% efficient”, but typically more like 80–90%. It sucks a whole milliamp itself, though, so it's not suitable for super low-power circuits.
• 58,254 available of the US$1.36 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/vishay-siliconix/SIP12107DMP-T1-GE3/SIP12107DMP-T1-GE3CT-ND/3309123 Vishay Siliconix SIP12107DMP-T1-GE3 “Buck Switching Regulator IC Positive Adjustable 0.6V 1 Output 3A 16-SMD”, which honestly sounds like more of the same, but higher power and less versatile. But it says it's “current-mode constant on-time”, and its switching frequency is 4MHz, and it has 16 pins.

Programmable timers and oscillators: 23241 items

• 56,647 available of the US$0.44 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/NE555P/296-1411-5-ND/277057 TI 555 (NE555P), the chip that gave birth to this product category in the 1970s. The datasheet says, “September 1973—revised September 2014”, which I guess means TI bought Signetics at some point. Astable or monostable operation. Sinks or sources up to 200mA, runs on 4.5 to 16 volts, at 1 millihertz to 100 kHz. This is an 8-pin DIP.
• 34,355 available of the US$0.73 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/intersil/ICM7555IBAZ-T/ICM7555IBAZ-TDKR-ND/2529181 Intersil ICM7555IBAZ-T, which is a CMOS version of the 555, but runs at up to 1 MHz, with a wider 2–18 V power supply, and it runs on 60 μA and comes in an 8-SOIC rather than a DIP.
• 2,717 available of the US$3.41 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/SN74LS628DR/296-37424-1-ND/4758875 TI SN74LS628DR, aka 74628, a 20MHz VCO, an improved version of the 74LS324, using an external timing resistor to improve temperature compensation. Datasheet is from 1980, revised 1988. It can oscillate at roughly 2MHz to 20MHz as the frequency-control input voltage ranges from 1V to 5V.
• the great majority of these 23000 items are very slightly different VCXOs whose prices start at US$30.

FPGAs: 19724 items

• 3,482 available of the US$32.49 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/atmel/AT40K20AL-1BQU/AT40K20AL-1BQU-ND/1914271 Atmel AT40K20AL-1BQU, a 1024-cell 3.3V FPGA (“30000 gates”) with 8192 bits of 10ns RAM and 114 5V-tolerant GPIOs in an LQFP. Supposedly good up to 100MHz, with 50MHz multipliers. Its cells have propagation delays of about 2 ns, are capable of implementing full-adders or even multiplier bits, and have diagonal interconnections to make multipliers out of. Bitstream format and debugging features are apparently not documented.
• 3,127 available of the US$6.75 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microsemi-corporation/A3P030-QNG48/1100-1012-ND/2744959 Microsemi A3P030-QNG48, a ProASIC3/E FPGA with 34 3.6V-tolerant GPIO and “30000 gates”. “Ideal for CPLD replacement.” “1.5 V single voltage operation.” “350 MHz system performance.” 1024 bits of flash that it can’t write to (and also its programming is stored in flash; it doesn’t have to load a bitstream to boot). Consists of 768 "VersaTiles" which are three-input arbitrary functions registered with D flip-flops, but no RAM. No AES protection on its JTAG ISP. Quiescent supply current is 2 mA, enormous compared to the microcontrollers. Maximum JTAG TCK clock is 19MHz. Bitstream format and debugging features are apparently not documented.
• 1,953 available of the US$2.96 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/lattice-semiconductor-corporation/LCMXO256C-4TN100C/220-1048-ND/2641849 Lattice LCMXO256C-4TN100C, marketed as a CPLD, from the “MachXO” family. 256 LUT4s, no external configuration memory (and “instant-on”), fast SRAM reconfigurability, normally programmed via JTAG.

Tantalum capacitors: 54077 items

• 1,534,001 available of the US$0.84 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/avx-corporation/TAJB226M010RNJ/478-3040-6-ND/1717036 AVX TAJB226M010RNJ 22μF ±20% 10V 2.4Ω capacitor in a 3.5 mm × 2.8 mm package. This is not the highest-energy-capacity capacitor in the series (that would be the 25V 150μF type, holding 47 mJ, like the TAJV157M025#NJ in a 7.3 mm × 6.1 mm case, though Digi-Key doesn’t carry it; they'll sell you the lower-voltage 20V type TAJV157M020RNJ at US$2.17 but only in lots of 400) but it still has a pretty impressive energy density. These are advertised as “standard tantalum” capacitors; I think that means they don’t have wet electrolyte. AVX's wet tantalum page explains, “AVX’s wet tantalum capacitors offer higher capacitance and voltage capability than solid tantalum capacitors.” On another page, they say, “We are the global leader in MnO₂ solid tantalum technologies such as smallest case size MnO₂, highest temperature capabilities up to 230°C and lowest DCL product offering,” and the TAJ series is indeed on that page.
• 792,881 available of the US$0.38 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/kemet/T491A106K010AT/399-3684-1-ND/819009 Kemet T491A106K010AT 10µF 10V 3.8Ω 3.2mm x 1.6mm tantalum capacitor. This is also a MnO₂ capacitor.
• 761,191 available of the US$1.49 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/kemet/T491D107K016AT/399-3770-1-ND/819095 Kemet T491D107K016AT 100μF 16V 0.7Ω 7.3mm × 4.3mm tantalum capacitor. This one is rated for 2000 hours, even though it’s I think also a MnO₂ capacitor. This is really cheap for such a high-energy capacitor.
• 4169 available of the US$8.91 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/vishay-sprague/597D157X9025F2T/718-1632-1-ND/1973910 Vishay 597D157X9025F2T, the cheapest 150 μF 25 V capacitor I could find.
• 2278 available of the US$9.55 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/vishay-sprague/597D227X0025M2T/718-1945-1-ND/3985794 597D227X0025M2T, which is the 220μF version, with 37% more energy capacity per dollar.

Some interesting notes from the above list

• High-speed serial interfaces usually are SPI rather than I²C.
• Although sub-picojoule-per-instruction CPUs exist in research labs, the ones you can actually buy are up in the hundreds-of-pJ range.