I recently browsed at my local electronics shop at looked through their IC collection. What suprised me was how familiar most of them were from 30 years ago. LM 317 voltage regulator, LM 386 amp, 555 timer etc. With the incredible advances in large scale ICs, has evolution passed these by forever? Have they reached their optimal point?
I think in a way they have stopped evolving. These days, if you need some new function, it’s much cheaper and easier to just program an FPGA or DSP chip to do the job. Why bother to invest in a silicon design? I think the real evolution going on now is in things like FPGA cores.
Oh, I don’t know - Maxim, Linear, Microchip, and Analog Devices come out with new chips almost daily. There just is no need for new Digital “popcorn” chips, like those that TI and National made.
Most of what is being produced these days are purpose built chips. The entire device is built into the chip which is then glued to a board with a couple of support components tacked on for power management.
TV remote? It’s a chip tied to an LED or two.
Calculator? A chip tied to an LCD display and a keyboard.
Digital camera? Three or four chips depending on functions.
Discrete circuitry has pretty much fallen into the realm of the hobbyist.
Micro processors like PIC and others are so cheap that it is easier and cheaper to get a computer to do what 30 years ago would have been done with around 30 discrete digital ICs.
They probably don’t carry surface-mount devices, as used in close to 100% of modern circuits. So it may be that you’re looking at an old-technology subset there.