🚀 go-pugleaf

> Keywords: ICs
> 
> In article <571@vu-vlsi.UUCP> colin@vu-vlsi.UUCP (Colin Kelley) writes:
>>I'm looking for a 1-of-8 decoder (like the 74138) but with active high
>>outputs.  I've looked through several TTL data books, but I haven't been
>>able to find one.  This isn't exactly crucial, as the same effect can be
>>had with a 74138 + 1 1/3 7404s, but I hate to go adding another two ICs
>>to my design after paring the chip count down so carefully with some neat
>>ICs (like the 74259).
> 
> Get with it, guy! Where have you been the last six or so years? Use a
> PAL. TTL is obsolete and dead. For high speed, PALs come in D
> varieties which run at about 10 nS, and that gives you a trip through
> an AND-OR plane. For low cost, the plastic PALs are amazingly cheap.

>  Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720

Actually, while PALs are great to work with and great to prototype with,
their cost can be prohibitively high if you're going to mass produce
something.  For the cost of a PAL or a PAL-and-a-half (depending on the
PAL), I can put a application specific gate array into my design which
will easily replace the functionality of 4-10 PALs or more.  On the
other end, TTL still makes sense for very small operations (garage
shops, hobbiests) who don't have their own PAL programming capability.
Once you start talking 10ns parts instead of 25ns or 35ns, you've
probably doubled you cost.  No big deal if its a $20,000 system that 
you make 100 of a month, but a big concern if its a $100 system that
you make 20,000 of a month.

-- 
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Dave Haynie	{caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh

     "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home"
						-Peter Gabriel

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