0
\$\begingroup\$

I can't wait until 2024 for my order of LMR14050SDDA buck converter IC's to be fulfilled, so I bought a few demo boards from Mouser and Digikey to salvage the ICs from these.

Recently, the board house I am working with said they have sourced parts from WinSource Electronics in China. I checked them out, and it seems legit, so I ordered 16 pieces of the LMR14050SDDA from them. They arrived and were packaged on a reel (cut-tape).

It appears the IC's are brand new, and I fully intend to test a few, but at the moment I am trying to interpret the top markings on the device as my bid to determine if these are fake or rejected parts.

Every device has DB5SP written on it which indicates it is an LMR14050SDDA(R) (from the datasheet and from TI's part marking lookup page).

What I can't find is the meaning of the subsequent two lines of text on the top of these devices. Are these lot and date codes? I searched Texas Instruments' website, but can't find this information. Would anyone here know what these lines of text mean?

Here is an example of the IC from the demo boards I have. All three (which I have) have the following text:

DB5SP
TI 86A
PO28G4

enter image description here

And here is an image of the IC I received from WinSource. All appear to have the same markings.

DB5SP
TI 2AA
POYRG4

enter image description here

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ Markings don't say anything about if a chip is original or copycat/silicon dummy. Those lines that differ should be things like batch/mask/date codes. Assuming they are original parts, which you can't know by looking at it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Lundin
    Commented Dec 13, 2022 at 10:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ I agree, markings only tell part of the story. I had mentioned that I will test these, but until I get a chance I thought I would look into the packaging and labeling. \$\endgroup\$
    – mike
    Commented Dec 14, 2022 at 9:15

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1
\$\begingroup\$

They can have several meanings and are not always shown in the datasheet.

They can indicate the manufacturing site (i.e. factory code), date code, lot, serial number, configuration etc. Some of them might be meaningful only to the TI for some purposes such as fault tracking.

Best way is to contact TI directly to check what those codes mean and even whether the chips are genuine. Oh, I can't forget that time when I came across to a genuinely-marked fake op amp sourced from far east.

\$\endgroup\$
0
\$\begingroup\$

Whilst this is technically a comment and not an answer to your question, I felt it necessary to include a picture.

TI has inventory of the LMR14050SDDAR and LMR14050SSQDDARQ1 on their online store, currently 10 and 345 respectively. (Q1 suffix = Automotive Grade AEC-Q100). I believe you need login credentials in order to view the inventory.

enter image description here

I despise grey market profiteering so thought you should know. I have removed these items from my basket also.

I was stuck on a human verification step on TI's website (click and hold a button) whilst using Chrome, but it worked on other browsers, namely Firefox and Edge.

\$\endgroup\$

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.