Packaging and Identification

The Motorola MC68xx family of ICs had a (mostly) mostly common, identifiable, naming convention. The base prefix was either “MC68” or “MCM68”, with the latter indicating a multi-chip module (MCM) package.

Important

Note all ICs in the family followed this convention. For example, the MC6846 did not have a suffix letter to indicate packaging, while others used different letters (all explained within their relevant data sheets).

The suffix letter indicated the type of packaging used for the IC:

Suffix	Description
L	Ceramic
P	Plastic
S	CERDIP

Some of the Motorola range were offered with different performance or access time levels. These are indicated by a letter inserted after the “MC68” or “MCM68” prefix:

Performance	Description	Example
A	1.5MHz	MC68A50P
B	2MHz	MCM68B10P

Note

Some second source manufacturers used different performance level indicators. For example, Hitachi used “C” to indicate 3MHz or 3.5Mhz parts (HD63C09EP)

The "BETTER Programme"

Additionally, some ICs had additional suffix components to indicate specific variants of the base IC (as per the “BETTER Programme”):

Suffix	Level	Summary
I	S	100% temperature cycling per MIL-STD-883A.
II	D	100% burn-in to MIL-STD-883A.
III	DS	Combination of I and II.