INTRODUCTION

This E-Book is a handy reference for many common chips. Each page contains a pinout, notes and circuits using the chip.
It also has Chip Resistor identification Surface Mount Transistor
Surface Mount Diode/Zener and Surface Mount Outlines.
Identification of surface-mount components is getting a difficult problem and many of the latest devices are poorly identified or the exact specifications are only available by carefully reading the technical notes. That’s why we have provided a number of pages on surface-mount.

• CD 4001 Quad NOR gate
• CD 4011 Quad NAND gate
• CD 4013 Dual D Flip Flop
• CD 4014 8-Stage shift register
• CD 4017 Divide by 10
• CD 4020 14-Stage Bin Counter
• CD 4024 7-Stage Binary Count
• CD 4026 7-Segment Driver
• CD 4040 12-Stage Bin Counter
• CD 4049 HEX Inverter
• CD 4060 14-Stage with Osc
• CD 4069 HEX Inverter
• CD 40106 Hex Schmitt Trigger
• CD 4510 BCD up/down Counter
• CD 4511 BCD TO 7-Segment
• LM 324 Quad OP-AMP
• LM 380 4 watt amp
• LM 386 0.5 watt amp
• LM 741 OP-AMP
• OP-AMP List
• Opto Coupler List
• PIC Chip List
• S/mount Diodes/Zeners
• Surface Mount LEDs
• Surface Mount Resistors
• Surface Mount Transistors
• Surface Mount Outlines
• Voltage Regulators
• 40106 Hex Schmitt Trigger
• 555 Timer Chip
• 556 Dual Timer Chip
• 567 Tone Decoder
• 74c14 Hex Schmitt Trigger

DESIGNING A PROJECT

If you are designing a project, it is a good idea to consider the economics of how it should be designed.
There are basically two approaches:

1. Using individual chips, or
2. Using a microcontroller.

The first thing to consider is the “commercial value” of the project.
If it has “high commercial value,” you should be aiming at keeping the circuit-operation a secret.

Why allow your design to be copied?

We have already talked about the speed of copying a product on TE Interactive website. A product can be dismantled, copied and prototyped in less than a week by industrious little beavers! I have seen this in action with boards for arcade games. Within a week, a board containing more than 40 chips was copied and released onto the market. These boards had a microprocessor and a bank of memory chips. It was old technology by today’s standards and was quite easy to duplicate. Modern microcontrollers have a “security” feature that makes duplication very difficult.

Why let month’s of work go down the drain?

One of the ways to protect your idea is to design it around a microcontroller.
In fact, one of the original uses for a microcontroller (PIC microcontroller) was to scramble information on a data bus so the program could not be copied. These devices were called “dongles” and proved to be so effective that governments refused to purchase programs requiring a dongle! Sales declined to such a point that dongles have now been disbanded.
Some manufacturers include a microcontroller to merely complicate a project and frustrate copying.
No matter how you look at them, micro’s are certainly an effective addition to any design. Not only will your project look up-to-date but it can be simpler in design, smaller in size and include features you never thought possible.
And you will feel a great sense of satisfaction by including a micro.
I’m not advocating adding an unnecessary micro, but if you can reduce a 7 chip project to 1, 2 or 3 chips, you will know what I mean.

Many of the chips in this E-Book are nearly 20 years old and very simple in operation.
Very little thought went into their makeup and circuits requiring gating chips are ripe for conversion to a micro. As an example, a old telephone dialing project using 14 chips was converted to an 18-pin microcontroller - with no other devices! In the process, the capability increased 400% and the cost fell by 60%.

OP-AMPS

Op-amps are different.
If a circuit needs to detect very small voltages or waveforms, an op-amp is a good choice. You can get 4 op-amps in a single package for about $1.00, so they are not an expensive addition.
If only a single stage of amplification is needed, a transistor may be the answer.
Whenever a signal is about .05v or greater, a micro can take care of the processing (using the analogue input feature). These are the things you have to take into account when designing a circuit. Our subscription section on the website has a Basic Electronics Course and PIC Microcontroller Course to help you in this direction.

SECURITY

The main advantage of a micro is the security feature. The program can be protected from prying eyes via a Code Protection (CP) feature. A micro also has the ability to be updated with a new program and this can save changing component values. Many micros are
re-programmable and the latest versions are re-programmable while fitted to the PC board. This is called “In-Circuit Programming.”
Once you get into designing with a microprocessor, you will never look back.
Everything you work-on will be considered as a micro-design.

The break-even point between a micro and individual chips can be as low as 3 or 4 chips.
It’s not just the basic cost of production of a module but the head-start you have and the on-going protection you are afforded - there is much less chance of someone copying a microcontroller design.

CMOS CHIPS

Many of the chips we have covered in this data book are common CMOS chips. Some have upgraded versions such as “HC” for “high-speed CMOS” and “LP” for low power versions.
You will need to contact your supplier about the suitability of using a particular chip. Also, make sure supplies will be available in the future. Many of these chips are being phased out. They are disappearing for two reasons.
The cost of producing a simple gate is about the same as a micro! And yet the selling price is less than one-tenth!
In addition, the demand for simple gates is reducing with large manufacturers opting for “masked ROM micro’s” and single-chip designs. They are simply dying a natural death.

Before I go, there is one thing I cannot stress too strongly.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

How do you think I became so capable at designing circuits?
I built and played with hundreds of simple circuits. I didn’t launch into a microcontroller project before I knew all about simple building blocks and how things worked.
Too many readers are asking for a complex microcontroller design to complete their year of study, without doing any of the necessary preliminary work.
And they leave it to the last 3 weeks!
This is not how electronics design-engineers work.
We make sure we have a firm-footing before launching into the next phase of things.
If you don’t follow these simple rules you will come well-and-truly unstuck.
That’s why Talking Electronics has a whole range of basic projects with full instructions and circuit details.
You needs lots of these types of projects to build up your knowledge, before thinking of designing something of your own.
Learning is expensive. That’s why you will appreciate earning an honest degree. A 2-week bachelor’s degree over the internet is worthless and you will soon find out there is no substitute for “knowing-that-you-know.”

Colin Mitchell

The subscription section contains a course on Basic Electronics and PIC Microcontroller Programming. The site also has many projects in the Projects Section, so everyone is catered for.

To subscribe, click HERE.