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Dave Jones didn't spare words [1] on how insane it was to have a jellybean component changing specs so significantly, particularly the input voltage from 22V to 18V, the removal of offset trim, and more.
Something is going on over a TI. They tried to scrub their old datasheets from the web a few years ago too [1]
[1] - Texas Instruments sent a DMCA takedown to a site archiving data sheets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25682785 -
354 points by DyslexicAtheist on Jan 8, 2021 | 122 comments
An amusing aside: Look at the list of "applications." Netbooks? Multichannel video transcoders? Scalable platforms?
I've seen this in other TI datasheets. One old general purpose 74HC series logic chip included "E Meters" in its applications.
My hunch is that whoever was assigned to add these "applications" to each data sheet was having some harmless fun.
Another note is that I'm a low profile customer of Digi-Key and Mouser. Both of them send out change notifications on parts that I've ordered in the past.
This sort of thing really annoys me. Part numbers are for use of engineers, not for the marketing dept. If you change the specs, change the part number.
> If you change the specs, change the part number.
They took it from SW.
You know this joke with "Windows is a single platform" ? Or the joke with "use rust if you can compile it" ? Or "your browser version is not supported" ?
Ran into this building a mic preamp last year. Substituted what I thought were equivalent 5532s and got noticeably higher noise floor. Took me days to blame the chip. Same part number, completely different behavior under low-impedance source conditions.
It annoys me too but part numbers are not a spec but more of a strong hint. The attitude of the industry is that it’s up to you to read data sheets carefully and test. Even for a 2N2222 or whatever.
Because unicode and f-string replacements in an open source project are the devil and have completely similar parallels to a proprietary hardware chiplet being altered without any recourse? Axe grind me harder daddy.
The analogy breaks down pretty quickly. Python 3 at least announced the changes. As far as I know, TI changed the silicon quietly, same part number. That's not a tradeoff decision, that's counterfeiting adjacent.
This is fucking dire. Lowering voltage will just lead to early failures for poor clueless designers/repairmen that had old datasheet saved and just assume it will never change but slew rate chance is just "well it works, but suddenly it's worse in certain applications"
There are better and superior alternative of NE5532 these days. People should just move on. OPA1612 is the king in highest-end audio performance, at least on datasheet paper.
Oh, wow, I was expecting from the title that, eh, maybe they changed the process or something, and someone was being a bit fussy. But yeah, no, different part.
Across the board TI is moving to new fabs, new fab processes and 300 mm wafers. So the old tooling is going away and they're adapting legacy designs to the new processes. This changes component behavior, particularly analog stuff, like these op amps.
That's all inevitable and has happened in the semiconductor business before. When it happens, manufacturers are forced to choose; obsolete old parts that can't be indistinguishably reproduced on the new node, or and sell substantially different components under existing SKUs, so they can keep booking orders from high volume customers without disruption.
In this case, the latter is happening. In all probability their high volume customers have already accounted for the PCN because TI told them it was coming years ago, back when the new fab buildout started and the lithography machines were first ordered.
The SMT question matters more than people realize. TI's own datasheet shows different test conditions between packages, and production line substitutions don't always carry through to the die. Worth actually measuring before assuming.
This is why you should always order new parts for a new design and never, never trust the old guy with the magic parts box. Also why learning to read and compare data sheets skeptically is a fundamental skill.
We've been burned by this before with a different part. Caught it because our QA board sounded wrong. Now we buy 2-3 years of stock when we qualify a critical component. Annoying but necessary.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ZmmZ67SMY