Who is the actual manufacturer of this part

[Freshman]

I see this part - LMC7101 has TI datasheet and also Microchip datasheet.



Who's the current manufacturer of this part? And any reason/history on this?



https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/aemDocuments/documents/MSLD/ProductDocuments/DataSheets/LMC7101-Low-Power-Operational-Amplifier-DS20006282A.pdf



https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lmc7101.pdf?ts=1727494662086&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F

[Bryn]

The part in question is manufactured by Texas Instruments, although was originally made by the National Semiconductor Corporation before TI's acquisition of it. Interestingly, it is also associated with STMicroelectronics.

Yes, confusing between the three names I know... but hope this helps anyway.

[tooki]

I assume that by "actually", you really mean "original", since both Microchip and TI actually make the part (as in, factually both manufacture them now). In fact, you missed one: STM released their LMC7101 just recently in 2020!

Anyway, the answer as to which of TI and Microchip made it first is: neither (if we are being pedantic) or TI (if we include acquisitions)

First, Microchip's datasheet has a revision note stating the conversion from Micrel to Microchip format. This means that their version was originally made by Micrel, a company Microchip bought. If we search for the Micrel datasheet, we see it's from September 1999. Note that the Microchip and Micrel datasheets also expressly state that the chip is intended to be drop-in compatible with the National Semiconductor part. That's a big hint that National Semiconductor was the original manufacturer.

Second, if you look at the TI datasheet, in its revision history, it states it was converted from National Semiconductor to TI format. National Semiconductor (Nat Semi for short) was a huge semiconductor company TI bought. If we search for the Nat Semi datasheet, the earliest one I found was from March 1995, but since it has no revision history, we don't know when it was first released. It could very well be older, but I doubt it since pre-1995 Nat Semi databooks don't mention it. A text search on archive.org also finds no mention earlier than 1995, and a 1995 ad listing it among "National's latest wave of analog innovations".

Furthermore, "LM" is one of the traditional prefixes for Nat Semi parts, so it's almost certain they created the original. Micrel used the MIC prefix for its chips.

[coppice]

Customers want second sources for commodity parts, to ensure security of supply and competitive prices. This may be through formal second source agreements, where manufacturers share actual mask sets, and make true copies of the same thing. This used to be common, as key customers, like telecoms and military ones, used to insist on it. That has faded away for new products. It may be through a vendor spotting that something has become popular and designing a clone, according to the original part's data sheet. The snag here is the behaviour of the device may be different outside the ranges in the data sheet. A designer shouldn't rely on behaviour outside the data sheet, but they often don't even realise during development how much they rely on such behaviour. So, these parts may not be as interchangeable as expected.

In general, parts starting with LM were originally from National Semiconductors, which is now a part of TI. Anyone making a clone is likely to use a very similar part number, to emphasise that the part is supposed to be a clone. They will almost certainly use the numeric part of the original part number, and frequently use the whole thing, including stuff like that LM prefix.