Texas Instruments Components: A Full Guide by Category

Texas Instruments components span 16 device categories, from operational amplifiers and DC-DC converters to microcontrollers, data converters, sensors and wireless SoCs. This guide maps the full TI portfolio the way a designer actually navigates it, by function, with real flagship part numbers in each category and the package and lifecycle details that decide whether a chosen TI part yields cleanly on a finished board.

TI runs one of the broadest analog and embedded catalogs in the industry: over 80,000 orderable parts, with a single sub-family like operational amplifiers numbering more than 14,000 options once you count every package and grade. That breadth is why TI parts dominate most BOMs. It is also why picking the right one is harder than it looks, because the cheapest part on paper can be the most expensive to build.

Key takeaways

• TI splits into 16 working categories. Use this page as the map, then drill into the category you need.
• Part prefixes carry history: OPA and INA came from Burr-Brown (acquired 2000), LM and LMV from National Semiconductor (2011), and TPS and TLV are TI’s own lines.
• The cheapest TI part on the BOM is often the most expensive to assemble. A 0.4 mm-pitch QFN or wafer-level BGA costs more in stencil, placement and X-ray than its unit price suggests.
• Package choice is an assembly decision. Exposed thermal pads, fine-pitch BGAs and MSL ratings all change what happens at reflow.
• Lifecycle matters as much as specs. Check for NRND (not recommended for new designs) status before you commit a part to a multi-year product.

What Texas Instruments Makes: The TI Portfolio at a Glance

TI builds two broad classes of silicon: analog (signal conditioning, power, interface, sensing) and embedded processing (microcontrollers and processors). Together those two account for more than 80 percent of TI’s revenue. Around them sit specialised lines such as DLP micromirror devices and SimpleLink wireless SoCs.

The catalog runs past 80,000 orderable parts. Op amps and buffers alone number more than 14,000 once you count every package, temperature grade and reel option. That scale is partly organic and partly bought: TI acquired Unitrode in 1999 (about $1.2 billion) for power management, Burr-Brown in 2000 (about $7.6 billion) for precision data converters and amplifiers, and National Semiconductor in 2011 ($6.5 billion), the deal that made TI the largest analog supplier in the world. Those acquisitions are why a single TI BOM line can carry parts designed in Tucson, Santa Clara and Dallas under three different naming conventions.

Most boards pull from several categories at once. A sensor feeds an amplifier, which drives a data converter, which talks to a microcontroller, which is fed by a power-management IC. Thinking in those signal-chain terms is the fastest way to navigate the catalog, and it is the structure this guide follows.

Texas Instruments Components by Category: The Full Directory

Every category links to its own selection guide with flagship part numbers, comparison tables and assembly notes. Example parts are representative, not exhaustive.

Category	What it handles	Example TI parts
Texas Instruments amplifiers	Op amps, comparators, instrumentation and current-sense amps	OPA192, INA240, TLV9001
TI audio, haptics and piezo ICs	Class-D audio amps, codecs, haptic and piezo drivers	TAS5825, DRV2605
TI clocks and timing	Oscillators, clock buffers, jitter cleaners, RTCs	LMK04832, LMK61E2
Texas Instruments data converters	Precision and high-speed ADCs and DACs	ADS1115, ADS127L11, DAC80508
TI DLP products	DMD micromirror chipsets and display controllers	DLP3010, DLPC3436
TI interface ICs	RS-485, RS-232, CAN, USB, LVDS, Ethernet PHY	SN65HVD75, TCAN1042
TI digital isolators	Digital isolators, isolated gate drivers and amplifiers	ISO7741, UCC21520
TI logic and voltage translation	Gates, buffers, flip-flops, level shifters	SN74LVC1G08, TXB0108
Texas Instruments microcontrollers	MSP430, C2000 real-time, MSPM0 Arm Cortex-M0+	MSP430FR5994, TMS320F28P55x, MSPM0G3507
TI processors	Sitara Arm MPUs, C6000 DSPs, edge-AI SoCs	AM335x, AM62x
TI motor drivers	Brushed DC, BLDC, stepper drivers and gate drivers	DRV8825, DRV8323
Texas Instruments power management ICs	DC-DC, LDO, PMIC, battery charger, gate driver	TPS54331, TPS7A47, BQ25150
TI RF and microwave	RF amps, mixers, PLL synthesizers, mmWave	LMX2594, IWR6843
Texas Instruments sensors	Temperature, current, magnetic/Hall, mmWave radar	TMP117, INA226, DRV5055
TI switches and multiplexers	Analog switches, load switches, signal muxes	TS3A24159, TPS22918
Texas Instruments wireless connectivity	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, Sub-1 GHz, Thread	CC3235, CC2652, CC1352

How TI Part Numbers and Prefixes Work

A TI part number is two things stacked together: a family prefix that tells you the function and lineage, and a suffix that tells you the package, temperature grade and carrier. Read both and you can often guess what a part does, and how hard it will be to build, before you open the datasheet.

The prefix is the lineage marker. Because TI grew by acquisition, the prefix often tells you which company originally designed the part, which in turn hints at its strengths: Burr-Brown for precision analog, National for power and interface, TI’s own TLV and TPS lines for cost-optimised CMOS and switching power.

Prefix	What it is / where it came from	Example parts
OPA, INA	Precision op amps and current-sense amps, Burr-Brown heritage	OPA192, INA240
LM, LMV, LMx	General-purpose analog from National Semiconductor	LM358, LMV358
TLV, TLC	TI’s own low-voltage CMOS analog	TLV9001, TLC555
TPS, TPA	TI power management (TPS) and audio power (TPA)	TPS54331, TPA3116
ADS, DAC	Data converters: ADCs (ADS) and DACs	ADS1115, DAC80508
SN74	Logic, gates, buffers, level translators	SN74LVC1G08
MSP430, MSPM0	Low-power and Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontrollers	MSP430FR5994, MSPM0G3507
TMS320	C2000 real-time MCUs and C6000 DSPs	TMS320F28P55x
AM	Sitara Arm processors (MPUs)	AM62x
CC	SimpleLink wireless: Wi-Fi, BLE, Sub-1 GHz	CC2652, CC1352
DRV	Motor, gate and haptic drivers	DRV8323, DRV2605
ISO, UCC	Digital isolators (ISO) and isolated gate drivers (UCC)	ISO7741, UCC21520
LMK, LMX	Clocks and timing (LMK), RF PLL synthesizers (LMX)	LMK04832, LMX2594

Then comes the suffix. Take SN74LVC1G08DBVR: “DBV” is the SOT-23-5 package and the trailing “R” means tape-and-reel. Swap DBV for DSF or RSE and you have changed the footprint, the stencil and sometimes the assembly yield without changing what the chip does. Order the wrong suffix and you get the right silicon in a package your line cannot place.

How to Choose the Right TI Part for Your Board

Start from the signal chain, not the catalog. A physical input, whether temperature, current, motion or voltage, is sensed, conditioned by an amplifier, digitised by a data converter, processed by a microcontroller or processor, and acted on through a driver or interface. Power management feeds all of it. Lock the chain stages first, then choose the cheapest part that meets the real specification at each stage.

Walk it stage by stage. A sensor such as the TMP117 picks up the physical quantity, a Texas Instruments amplifier conditions and scales it, and a Texas Instruments data converter turns it into bits for the MCU to read. Get the order and the budget right at each stage and the part selection mostly falls out of the requirements.

Two questions decide most selections. First, what accuracy or speed does the system actually need, in numbers? Not “high precision” but a ±0.1 percent error budget or a 1 MSPS sample rate. A 24-bit ADC delivers far fewer effective bits if the reference and driver amplifier are noisy, so the headline number on the datasheet is rarely the number you get on the bench. Second, what is the package willing to cost you downstream? A part that saves 30 cents but forces a 0.4 mm wafer-level BGA, X-ray inspection and a finer stencil can erase its savings at volume.

The honest trade-off is integration versus flexibility. A single PMIC such as the BQ25150 collapses a charger, power path and LDO into one chip, shrinking the board and the BOM line count. It also locks you into one vendor’s exact feature set and creates a single point of failure if that part goes on allocation. Discrete designs cost more lines but survive shortages better, which stopped being theoretical after the 2021 to 2023 analog shortage, when lead times on some TI parts stretched past a year.

TI Package Types and What They Cost to Assemble

A datasheet tells you what a part does; the package tells you whether you can build it, and what that build costs. Most modern TI analog and embedded parts ship in leaded SMT, QFN, BGA or wafer-level packages, and each one carries a different assembly bill.

Package	Typical pitch	Assembly difficulty	Inspection
SOT-23 / SOT-323 (DBV)	0.95 mm	Easy, standard SMT	Visual / AOI
SOIC (D)	1.27 mm	Easy	Visual / AOI
TSSOP / SSOP (PW)	0.65 mm	Moderate	Visual / AOI
WSON / SON	0.5 mm	Moderate, exposed pad	AOI + X-ray (pad voiding)
QFN / VQFN (RGE, RHB)	0.4–0.5 mm	Harder, leadless + exposed pad	X-ray required
BGA / NFBGA	0.5–0.8 mm	Hard, hidden joints	X-ray required
DSBGA / WCSP (YZP, YFP)	0.3–0.5 mm	Hardest, wafer-level + tiny	X-ray + fine stencil

Two things on that table move costs the most: pitch and whether the joints are hidden. Anything at or below 0.5 mm pitch needs a laser-cut stencil and tighter placement tolerance. Anything with joints under the body, QFN, BGA or WCSP, cannot be inspected optically, so you verify it with X-ray and grade it against IPC-A-610. TI’s wafer-level DSBGA parts go down to 0.3, 0.35 and 0.4 mm pitch in heights of 0.35 to 0.55 mm. They give you the smallest possible footprint and the least forgiving assembly window, and TI recommends Type 3 (25 to 45 µm) or finer solder paste for them rather than the coarser paste you would run on an 0805.

From Datasheet to Reflow: What TI Packages Mean for Assembly

Choosing a TI part is also choosing a stencil, an inspection step and a rework risk. Four package realities decide most first-build problems, and distributor pages never mention any of them.

• Exposed thermal pads (QFN, power parts): the bottom pad carries heat and ground. Per IPC-7093 it needs a segmented “windowpane” stencil aperture giving roughly 50 to 80 percent paste coverage, not one solid opening. A single large aperture traps flux volatiles and pushes voiding past the 50 percent IPC-7093 limit. Counterintuitively, more paste makes a worse joint. Add thermal vias on a roughly 1.0 to 1.2 mm grid with ≤0.3 mm drills, filled or capped to stop solder wicking.
• Land patterns: footprints should follow the IPC-7351 land-pattern standard, not a hand-traced copy of the datasheet drawing. TI publishes an ePOD (enhanced package outline) for most parts that includes the recommended land pattern and stencil design. Use it.
• Moisture sensitivity (MSL): ICs are rated MSL 1 to 3 per J-STD-020. An MSL 3 part exposed past its floor life must be baked before reflow or it can delaminate (“popcorn”) in the oven. Wafer-level and BGA parts are the ones that bite here.
• Inspection: any BGA or bottom-terminated part hides its joints. You verify them with X-ray and grade them against the IPC-A-610 acceptance classes, Class 2 for most commercial work and Class 3 for high-reliability.

This is where sourcing a TI design and assembling it stop being separate problems. The most common reason a Texas Instruments power management IC buck converter overheats on a first prototype is an unstitched or paste-starved exposed pad, a layout-and-stencil miss rather than a silicon fault.

TI Lifecycle Status: Active, NRND and Obsolete

A TI part has a lifecycle status, and it matters as much as any spec line when you are committing to a product that ships for years. TI marks every orderable part Active, NRND (not recommended for new designs), Preview, or Obsolete.

Active is safe for new designs. NRND means the part still ships but TI is steering you off it, so designing one in schedules a redesign within a few years, usually right when volume ramps. Obsolete means end of life, available only through last-time-buy stock or the broker market, where price and authenticity both get unpredictable.

Check status on the part’s product page before you commit, not after. A wearables client once locked a layout around an NRND sensor because it was the cheapest option at prototype. By the time they hit production the part was obsolete, and they ate a board respin plus a three-month requalification to swap it. The respin cost more than the lifetime savings on the part.

For multi-year or automotive programs, the move is to design in Active parts, identify a pin-compatible second source early, and prefer families TI markets for long lifecycles. A Texas Instruments microcontroller in a 10-year industrial product is a different sourcing decision than the same MCU in a one-season consumer toy.

Common Mistakes When Specifying Texas Instruments Components

• Specifying by headline number alone. A 24-bit ADC delivers far fewer effective bits if the reference and driver amplifier are noisy.
• Ignoring lifecycle. Designing in an NRND part guarantees a redesign within a few years.
• Copying the datasheet footprint instead of an IPC-7351 land pattern, which causes tombstoning and poor paste release on small passives and leadless parts.
• Forgetting the thermal pad. The most common reason a TI buck converter overheats on a first prototype is an unstitched or paste-starved exposed pad.
• Skipping the MSL bake. Pulling an MSL 3 BGA reel that has been open on the floor and running it straight through reflow is how you get popcorned packages and intermittent field failures.
• Ordering the wrong package suffix. The same silicon in DBV, DGK and RGE is three different footprints, and the cheapest line item is not always the one your stencil supports.
• Ignoring automotive qualification. A part that is not AEC-Q100 qualified, or lacks the -Q1 suffix, does not belong on an automotive BOM no matter how good the specs look.
• Single-sourcing a critical PMIC or wireless SoC with no pin-compatible alternate identified.

A TI Design Checklist You Can Run This Week

1. Pull the lifecycle status on every TI part in your BOM and flag anything NRND or Obsolete.
2. Replace every datasheet-copied footprint with an IPC-7351 land pattern, and pull TI’s ePOD stencil design for each leadless part.
3. Add segmented windowpane apertures and thermal vias to every exposed-pad QFN, targeting 50 to 80 percent paste coverage per IPC-7093.
4. Check the MSL rating and floor life of every BGA and wafer-level part, and add a bake step if reels have been open.
5. Identify a pin-compatible second source for each critical PMIC, MCU and wireless SoC.
6. Confirm AEC-Q100 / -Q1 status for anything going into a vehicle.

Frequently Asked Questions About Texas Instruments Components

Is Texas Instruments a distributor or a manufacturer?

TI is a manufacturer. It designs and fabricates its own analog and embedded silicon and sells through ti.com plus authorised distributors. pcbsync sources genuine TI parts and assembles them onto your boards rather than reselling reels.

How many product categories does TI have?

TI organises its catalog into 16 device categories, listed in the directory above, from amplifiers and power management to microcontrollers, sensors and DLP display chips. Each splits into dozens of sub-families, so the 80,000-plus part count sits underneath those 16 top-level buckets.

What do TI part-number prefixes mean?

The prefix marks the family lineage. OPA and INA op amps came from Burr-Brown, LM and LMV from National Semiconductor, TPS and TLV from TI’s own lines, ADS from the data-converter group, and CC from the SimpleLink wireless family. It often tells you the part’s design heritage and strengths.

How do I know if a TI part is still in production?

Check the part’s lifecycle status on its product page. “Active” is safe for new designs, “NRND” means not recommended for new designs, and “Obsolete” means end of life. Verify this before committing a part to a long-lived product.

What is the difference between TI analog and embedded products?

Analog parts move and condition real-world signals: amplifiers, data converters, power, interface and sensing. Embedded products are programmable, the microcontrollers and processors that run code. Most boards use both, with analog handling the signal chain and embedded handling the logic.

Are TI parts automotive-qualified?

Many are. TI qualifies a large share of its catalog to AEC-Q100, the automotive IC stress-test standard, and marks those parts with a -Q1 suffix. For any design that goes into a vehicle, confirm the specific orderable part carries that qualification, because the commercial-grade version of the same chip usually does not.

What does a TI package suffix like DBV or RGE mean?

The letters after the base part number encode the package and pin count, and a trailing R usually means tape-and-reel. DBV is a SOT-23-5, for example. Two parts with identical silicon but different suffixes have different footprints, so order the suffix your assembly process supports.

Are TI parts hard to assemble?

Most are routine surface-mount parts. The ones that need care are fine-pitch QFNs, BGAs and wafer-level packages, which require accurate laser-cut stencils, controlled reflow profiles and X-ray inspection. That is a manufacturing question as much as a design one.

Source and Build Your TI Design with pcbsync

Pick the category that matches your stage in the signal chain, drill into its guide for specific part numbers and specs, and when the BOM is ready, send your Gerber and BOM for a DFM review and quote so the Texas Instruments components you chose actually yield on the line.

Reference: component acceptance and land-pattern standards are published by IPC.