A surprising press release from Toshiba Electronics Europe seems to take us thirty years or so back in time when SMT components were beginning to get popular. Indeed, the company currently suffering from financial problems that may force it to sell off its memory division and maybe more, proudly announced the introduction of standard CMOS logic chips in SMD packages. Hadn’t they never thought of that before? No wonder they are not doing so well.

I may be missing the point and err on false information, but it seemed to me that CMOS logic devices have been available in SOIC packages for ages; I am sure I have used them at some point in my electronics engineering career. Anyway, Toshiba Electronics Europe is happy to inform the world that their brand new 74HCxxxD series consists of 63 of the most commonly used 74-series logic functions — various gate types, flip flops, buffers, multiplexers, serial/parallel shift registers and more — and that they are housed in 14-pin, 16-pin and 20-pin small outline integrated circuit (SOIC) packages. These products support flow and reflow soldering, and are suitable for industrial equipment and digital home appliances with logic levels of 6 V and lower.

Welcome to the 21st century.