I continue to mine the Gadgeteer News archives.
Here is a good one from NA5N.
Orignally posted on Gadgeteer news, 2 December 2006
NE602=NE612=SA602 Here is a good one from NA5N.
Orignally posted on Gadgeteer news, 2 December 2006
(Originally posted by NA5N on QRP-L)
Gang,
The ever famous NE602's are manufactured in the Philips
Semiconductor plant in Albuquerque, about 85 miles north of me. I visited
there last summer and had a nice discussion with an applications engineer
about the history of the NE602's. Goes something like this:
This long story will prove that NE602 = SA602 = NE612 = SA612
(for those of you who don't want the gory details -hi)
The original NE602 was designed/manufactured by SIGNETICS for
the 45MHz FM wireless telephone market. A little later, the wafer was
redesigned a bit to allow the internal oscillator to operate to 200MHz and the
RF to 500MHz. This was redesignated the NE612, and was intended to
replace the NE602. However, customers kept ordering the NE602, getting
angry at Signetics because their distributors were out of stock, etc. So when
they made the chips, they made a jillion NE612's, and labeled some of them
NE612 and the rest NE602 to satisfy the users of both parts. This is why
contemporary data books show the exact same specifications for both NE602
and NE612. They came from the same wafer.
Then Signetics was bought out by Philips, who evidently
continued this practice for a short time, then decided it was rather
redundant. So they announced that the production of NE602's has been discontinued
and listed it as an obsolete part ... giving QRPers around the world
various fits of apoplexy to suicidal tendencies that doomsday had struck.
What wasn't well understood is Philips continued to support production of
the NE612, as they do today.
Then to make matters worse, disaster struck the Philips plant
in Albuquerque in the spring of 2000. A wild grass fire in
northwest New Mexico threatened three main electrical lines that run from
the "Four Corners" electrical generating plant to Albuquerque. Smoke
from the fire caused one of the high-voltage lines to arc, tripping the
circuit off line. Virtually the entire electrical load for Albuquerque
and southern New Mexico was now transfered to the two remaining feeders,
which could not handle the full load, causing brownouts, voltage spikes,
etc. until they too failed. Where I live in Socorro, New Mexico, I
remember the brownouts hit about 4:15pm, outages on and off until the
entire grid went down about 5pm, and stayed off until about 11pm. One of the
longest power failures in US history. We just figured it was Y2K about 3
months late. (PS - I worked 40M CW QRP that night by candlelight, and it
was the quietest conditions I ever heard on 40M!!! And every QSO I
heard seemed to be a QRPer). The extreme voltage fluctations as the
feeders were failing caused a transformer at the Philips plant in
Albuquerque to catch on fire. I remember seeing it on the TV news, in which they
said it caused mostly smoke damage from the burning transformer and
burned a couple of storage rooms. That was all-no biggie. Well, it
turned out one of the storage rooms that was burned was where they stored
the film masters for making the semiconductor dies, and the NE612 film
master was now molten emulsion. These film masters were the originals
from the old Signetics company. So Philips had to completely redo the
artwork for the majority of their IC's. Additionally, it turned out the
smoke damage was excessive and the IC fabrication facilities were
left unusable. Philips was basically unable to manufacture IC's at
the Albuquerque plant for months. It was about 8 months before
they got all their wafer machines back on line, which left a huge hole in
the semiconductor industry. I know it just about killed several
cell phone manufacturers because delivery contracts for parts were
suddenly postponed for six to eight months.
The world wide supply of NE602/NE612's virtually dried up
during 2000 as a result of this fire and the nearly year backlog of
manufacturing quotas. The first run of NE612's in 2 years finally occured in
September 2000.This huge shortage of NE612's, combined with the fact that
NE602's have been discontinued/obsolete, is what convinved QRPers that
these nifty little chips were no more. I was told 20,000 units were
manufactured in 2000, or what Philips believes is a 2 year supply. This is
also why the release of the K1 (with 5 NE612's!) was delayed from the
promised "after Dayton" to late in the year, as were other kits. It just
wasn't clear when Philips was going to schedule the NE612's for production.
So yes, the NE602 is dead, but the perfectly compatible NE612
is still available, and Philips has no plans at the present to
discontinue that part number.
For final clarification:
NE602 = plastic DIP, rated 0C to +70C ... OBSOLETE
SA602 = plastic DIP, rated -40C to +85C ... OBSOLETE
NE612 = plastic DIP, rated 0C to +70C ... AVAILABLE
SA612 = plastic DIP, rated -40C to +85C ... AVAILABLE
or, to answer the final question ...
NE602 = SA602 = NE612 = SA612
72, Paul NA5N
The ever famous NE602's are manufactured in the Philips
Semiconductor plant in Albuquerque, about 85 miles north of me. I visited
there last summer and had a nice discussion with an applications engineer
about the history of the NE602's. Goes something like this:
This long story will prove that NE602 = SA602 = NE612 = SA612
(for those of you who don't want the gory details -hi)
The original NE602 was designed/manufactured by SIGNETICS for
the 45MHz FM wireless telephone market. A little later, the wafer was
redesigned a bit to allow the internal oscillator to operate to 200MHz and the
RF to 500MHz. This was redesignated the NE612, and was intended to
replace the NE602. However, customers kept ordering the NE602, getting
angry at Signetics because their distributors were out of stock, etc. So when
they made the chips, they made a jillion NE612's, and labeled some of them
NE612 and the rest NE602 to satisfy the users of both parts. This is why
contemporary data books show the exact same specifications for both NE602
and NE612. They came from the same wafer.
Then Signetics was bought out by Philips, who evidently
continued this practice for a short time, then decided it was rather
redundant. So they announced that the production of NE602's has been discontinued
and listed it as an obsolete part ... giving QRPers around the world
various fits of apoplexy to suicidal tendencies that doomsday had struck.
What wasn't well understood is Philips continued to support production of
the NE612, as they do today.
Then to make matters worse, disaster struck the Philips plant
in Albuquerque in the spring of 2000. A wild grass fire in
northwest New Mexico threatened three main electrical lines that run from
the "Four Corners" electrical generating plant to Albuquerque. Smoke
from the fire caused one of the high-voltage lines to arc, tripping the
circuit off line. Virtually the entire electrical load for Albuquerque
and southern New Mexico was now transfered to the two remaining feeders,
which could not handle the full load, causing brownouts, voltage spikes,
etc. until they too failed. Where I live in Socorro, New Mexico, I
remember the brownouts hit about 4:15pm, outages on and off until the
entire grid went down about 5pm, and stayed off until about 11pm. One of the
longest power failures in US history. We just figured it was Y2K about 3
months late. (PS - I worked 40M CW QRP that night by candlelight, and it
was the quietest conditions I ever heard on 40M!!! And every QSO I
heard seemed to be a QRPer). The extreme voltage fluctations as the
feeders were failing caused a transformer at the Philips plant in
Albuquerque to catch on fire. I remember seeing it on the TV news, in which they
said it caused mostly smoke damage from the burning transformer and
burned a couple of storage rooms. That was all-no biggie. Well, it
turned out one of the storage rooms that was burned was where they stored
the film masters for making the semiconductor dies, and the NE612 film
master was now molten emulsion. These film masters were the originals
from the old Signetics company. So Philips had to completely redo the
artwork for the majority of their IC's. Additionally, it turned out the
smoke damage was excessive and the IC fabrication facilities were
left unusable. Philips was basically unable to manufacture IC's at
the Albuquerque plant for months. It was about 8 months before
they got all their wafer machines back on line, which left a huge hole in
the semiconductor industry. I know it just about killed several
cell phone manufacturers because delivery contracts for parts were
suddenly postponed for six to eight months.
The world wide supply of NE602/NE612's virtually dried up
during 2000 as a result of this fire and the nearly year backlog of
manufacturing quotas. The first run of NE612's in 2 years finally occured in
September 2000.This huge shortage of NE612's, combined with the fact that
NE602's have been discontinued/obsolete, is what convinved QRPers that
these nifty little chips were no more. I was told 20,000 units were
manufactured in 2000, or what Philips believes is a 2 year supply. This is
also why the release of the K1 (with 5 NE612's!) was delayed from the
promised "after Dayton" to late in the year, as were other kits. It just
wasn't clear when Philips was going to schedule the NE612's for production.
So yes, the NE602 is dead, but the perfectly compatible NE612
is still available, and Philips has no plans at the present to
discontinue that part number.
For final clarification:
NE602 = plastic DIP, rated 0C to +70C ... OBSOLETE
SA602 = plastic DIP, rated -40C to +85C ... OBSOLETE
NE612 = plastic DIP, rated 0C to +70C ... AVAILABLE
SA612 = plastic DIP, rated -40C to +85C ... AVAILABLE
or, to answer the final question ...
NE602 = SA602 = NE612 = SA612
dear sir,
ReplyDeletei have looking for this IC but never found in indonesia, is there this one sold there??
if so would u like to send me some ??
if u can send me just contact me on terhempas(at)yahoo(dot)com
thx,
jay
A wonderful device. The simple 602/612 oscillator is one of the most stable I have built- even as a free-running VFO. Use it for what it is rated for and it will not disappoint.
ReplyDeleteThere is a little difference between SA602A and SA612A. The Philips datasheets from 2014 defines for the SA602A maximum values for IO3i input third-order intercept point of -15dB and Ci(RF) RF input capacitance of 3.5pF. Therefore the SA602A is a selected SA612A.
ReplyDeleteThe end of a four decade life, the NXP SA612 (in SOIC8) ceased production and the final delivery date for orders placed by the last-time-buy deadline was August 18, 2023.
ReplyDeleteThe SA612 truly is a remarkable chip. It's as if The Radio Gods got together back in the early 80s and said, 'what integrated circuit can we bring into the radio world that will supercharge homebrew radio and help enthusiasts to build their own rigs?'. And after the wise council settled on a combined oscillator-mixer in a single DIP-8 package, the rest is history.
The 602/612 launched dozens of DIY radios and even businesses, and the careers of the QRP pioneers, from Doug DeMaw to Wayne Burdick to Dave Benson. I'll bet even Wes Hayward built a few.
SA612 discussions on Groups.io lists such as Qrp-Tech ran for decades and continue to attract attention and raise new insights today.
Even Elecraft with all of their digital radio know-how and resources launched the KH1 hand-held CW rig into production with SA612s in its receiver as late as 2023.
It really is an almost ideal part for simple homebrew receivers and transmitters. A 200MHz mixer with balanced inputs and outputs, an on-chip stable LO that can be used in three ways - a crystal BFO, an LC (or varactor) VFO, or a buffer for an external oscillator or clock such as the si5351 digital PLL/multisynth. Up to 15dB conversion gain which mostly eliminates the need for IF gain. Able to be gain-controlled with a DC AGC applied to its input. And did I mention low current?
Its only weakness is in its mixer dynamic range and strong signal performance but if you put a basic BPF in front, for simple homebrew rigs at home or portable/field rigs, this hasn't really been a problem.
Of course there are other mixers that outperform the 612 but some consume much more current, and none have the built-in oscillator.
Vale the SA612. You served, and continue to support the homebrew community like no other chip. You will not be forgotten.
Fortuitously, eBay is full of $5 a piece NOS parts on tape, which pretty much guarantees they are not fake. And at this price, for all you get, they're still great value!
Paul VK3HN.
Confirmed card-carrying SA612 fan-boy.
The old Philips Fab in Albuquerque was near my commute to work (Intel in Rio Rancho). I must have passed the that building 100s time and had no idea of history until I read the story about the fire and the shortage of NE602/NE612's by NA5N. I even had several NXP (ex Philips) engineers on our Semitech test benchmark committee, but that was long after the Albuquerque Fab closed.
ReplyDeleteThe whole story reminded me of the Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM) semiconductor plant fire in Miyazaki, Japan. The fire caused a huge shortage of ADCs and DACs, as well as other digital mixed signal technology used in high-end audio devices.
In either case, I can only imagine the scramble by the buyers to find any stock and try to save their product lines / companies.
73, de Andy KB7ZUT