This article describes the nomenclature for integrated circuits manufactured in the Soviet Union. 25 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union this designation is still used by a number of manufacturers in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, and Uzbekistan. The designation uses the Cyrillic alphabet which sometimes leads to confusion where a Cyrillic letter has the same appearance as a Latin letter but is romanized as a different letter. Furthermore, for some Cyrillic letters the Romanization is ambiguous.
The nomenclature for integrated circuits has changed somewhat over the years as new standards were published:
1968 – NPO.034.000 (Russian: НПО.034.000)
1973 – GOST 18682—73 (Russian: ГОСТ 18682—73)
1980 – OST 11.073.915—80 (Russian: ОСТ 11.073.915—80)
2000 – OST 11.073.915—2000 (Russian: ОСТ 11.073.915—2000)
2010 – GOST RV 5901-005—2010 (Russian: ГОСТ РВ 5901-005—2010)
Throughout this article the standards are referred to by the year they came into force. Before 1968 each manufacturer used its own integrated circuit designation. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the standards were not as strictly enforced anymore and a number of manufacturers introduced manufacturer-specific designations again. These were typically used in parallel with the standards. However, integrated circuits for military, aerospace, and nuclear applications in Russia still have to follow the standard designation. Underlining this, the 2010 standard is explicitely labelled a Russian military standard. Beside Russia the 2010 standard is applied in Belarus as well. Companies in Ukraine mostly stayed with the 1980 standard and prefixed the designation with the letter У (U), e.g. УМ5701ВЕ51.
In general, devices already in production when a new standard came out kept their old designation. However, in some case devices were renamed:
When the 1980 standard was published, devices named after the 1968 standard and still in production were renamed, e.g. К1ЛБ553 to К155ЛА3. As in this example, the renaming was often fairly straightforward: The two parts of the serial number were combined (1 and 55 to 155), the functional group remained unchanged or was converted as in the table below (ЛБ to ЛА), and the variant number remained unchanged (3). In some series the renaming was more complicated. This change affected many series (e.g. 101, 116, 118, 122, 133, 140, 153, 155, 174, 237, 501).
Before the introduction of a package designation in 1980 the suffix П (P) was used in some series to indicate a plastic package (as opposed to the then more common ceramic package). In 1983 the package designation was changed for the 531 series (e.g. К531ЛА19П to КР531ЛА19). Other series were similarly renamed at some point (e.g. К501ХЛ1П to КР501ХЛ1).
Before the definition of group В (V) in 1980 computing devices were all assigned subgroup ИК (IK), e.g. microprocessors (КР580ИК80А), peripheral devices (КР580ИК51А). With the introduction of group В the devices in the 580 series were renamed (to КР580ВМ80А and КР580ВВ51А, respectively) in 1986.
Starting in 2016, certain newer devices were renamed according to the 2010 standard, e.g. 1967ВЦ2Ф to 1967ВН028 and 1586ПВ1АУ to 1583НВ025 (note the change of the series).
Elements:
1 – Prefix (zero to three letters)
1a – Export designation: The letter Э (E) here indicates an integrated circuit intended for export with a pin spacing of 2.54mm (1/10") or 1.27mm (1/20"). If this element is empty then the device has the Soviet (metric) spacing of 2.5mm or 1.25mm between pins.
1b – Application area: The letter К (K) here indicates an integrated circuit for commercial and consumer applications. If this element is empty then the device is intended for military or aerospace applications.
1c – Package designation (1980) (Note that the letters Э and К are not valid package designations. If this element is empty then the package is simply not specified in the designation, i.e. it could be any of the packages.)
2 – Series (three or four digits)
2a – Manufacturing technology (one digit):
Monolithic integrated circuits: 1, 5, or 6
Monolithic integrated circuits – bare chip without package: 7
Hybrid integrated circuits: 2, 4, or 8
Other integrated circuits (e.g. thin film): 3
2b – For four-digit series the second digit of the number of the series has significance as well:
Series for household electronics: 0
Series of analogue devices: 1
Series of operational amplifiers: 4
Series of digital devices: 5
Series of memory devices: 6
Series of microprocessor families: 8
2c – Number of the series (2 digits): The numbers of the series are assigned sequentially and have no further meaning. Devices in a series have some characteristic in common although it varies from one series to another which characteristic that is (e.g. logic family for logic gates, instruction set for microprocessors).
2d – Number of the series (2 or 3 digits): The 2000 / 2010 standards do not assign a special meaning to the second digit of a 4-digit series.
3 – Functional Group (two letters)
3a – Group
3b – Subgroup within the group: All groups have the subgroup П (P) for "others", that is for devices that fall into the group but not into any of the other defined subgroups.
3c – Functional Group (2010): The functional groups for the 2010 standard are in a separate table since the change from 2000 to 2010 is far more drastic than any of the previous changes.
4 – Variant within the functional subgroup (one to four digits): Usually the variant numbers are assigned sequentially for devices within the subgroup (e.g. ЛА1, ЛА2, ЛА3, etc.). In some series the variant number matches the last two or three digits of the designation of its Western counterpart (e.g. К500ЛК117 and MC10117).
4a – For the 2010 standard, the variant is always 2 digits in length, with a leading zero if necessary. When there is no version letter then the variant appears to be 3 digits in length (e.g. 1906ВМ016) but the third digit is actually the package designation (element 5e).
5 – Suffix
5a – Version (one letter, А to Я except З and Й): This optional element indicates versions of an integrated circuit with different electrical or thermal characteristics (e.g. switching speed, voltage range, etc.). It can also indicate an improved version of a device (e.g. К580ИК80 vs. К580ИК80А). Before 1980 the suffix П (P) was sometimes used to indicate a version in a plastic package instead of a ceramic package (e.g. К145ИК2П, К531ЛА19П) or a round metal can (e.g. К144ИР1П).
5b – Version (one letter, А to М except З and Й): This element is omitted if there is only one version of a device.
5c – Package designation (2000) (one letter, Н to Я): If this element is empty then the package is simply not specified in the designation, i.e. it could be any of the packages. Note that the letter ranges for version and package designation do not overlap.
5d – Manufacturer designation (two letters)
5e – Package designation (2010) (one digit or letter Н)
The package of an integrated circuit was generally not indicated in the 1973 designation, with two exceptions:
Bare chips without a package received a series number in the 7xx range, e.g. K712RV2-1 (К712РВ2-1).
The suffix П (P) was sometimes used to indicate a version in a plastic package instead of a ceramic package (e.g. К145ИК2П, К531ЛА19П) or a round metal can (e.g. К144ИР1П).
A manufacturer designation was introduced only with the 2000 standard. The table below is incomplete, many manufacturers still do not use their assigned designation. Manufacturer logos are more common.
Other manufacturers which as of 2016 used a version of the Soviet integrated circuit designation include NTC Module, MCST, ELVEES Multicore, Fizika, Optron, Sapfir, NPK TTs, and Progress, all of them in Moscow, as well as PKK Milandr Zelenograd, NIITAP Zelenograd, NIIET Voronesh, SKTB ES Voronesh, Proton Oryol, Vostok Novosibirsk, Orbita Saransk, SIT Bryansk, NZPP-KBR Nalchik, Planeta Novgorod, Iskra Ulyanovsk, NIIEMP Penza, Almaz Kotovsk, Eltom Tomilino, DELS Minsk, Kvazar Kiev, Kristall Kiev, Elektronni Komponenti Ivano-Frankivsk, Dnepr Kherson, and Foton Tashkent.
The Romanization of Russian is standardized, only there are at least 11 standards to choose from. Fortunately, the Soviet integrated circuit designation uses a subset of the Cyrillic alphabet where rather few letters are ambiguous:
Ж: Ž, Zh
Х: X, H, Ch, Kh
Ц: C, Cz, Ts, Tc
Ч: Č, Ch
The more common romanizations in bold are given as alternatives in the above tables.
Е and Э are both romanized as E.
It should be noted that the French romanization of Russian and the German romanization of Russian differ in some letters from the one used in English. For instance, the Russian КР580ВМ80A becomes KR580VM80A in English and French but KR580WM80A in German literature.
