Re:555 timer teardown: inside the most popular IC (2016)
by panpanna on Friday June 05, 2020 @07:34AM
(#23427351)
I would like to challenge that!
Consider something like the 741. In fact, let's consider the single opamp IC family against the 555 family (including 556 and the rest).
I bet you 55x is nowhere as popular as those.
Re:555 timer teardown: inside the most popular IC (2016)
by Sanzig on Friday June 05, 2020 @10:03AM
(#23428642)
The 741 is obsolete... almost nobody uses it anymore. In terms of a jellybean opamp, I would guess that the LM358 and friends (LM321, LM324, and modernized rail-to-rail CMOS descendants) are quite a bit more popular.
The bipolar LM358 family is also pretty much obsolete by modern standards (plenty of nicer rail-to-rail amps available), but you can't beat them on price since they've been second sourced by practically every analog company in the industry.
> Since the introduction of the 555 by Signetics in 1972, this integrated circuit has outsold all other IC types by a wide margin, with over 1 billion units sold worldwide in 2003 alone.
http://www.semiconductormuseum.com/Transistors/LectureHall/C...
It’s what we used as a starting point in 2005. It's the "Hello World" of electronics, and seemingly a commonality across the world. I love this IC because it is so simple, predictable, and understandable; the perfect jumping off point to learn electronics.