Its a Fake

Its not easy or even possible to find good quality or REAL IC chips on seller sites like Amazon, Ebay, or Alibaba.
if you want the real thing, you will have to go to sites like Digikey, Mouser. as they are the official distributors of Several chip manufacturers and will most likely not have a slew of fake chips for your final product or prototyping.

Let us start with something i discovered when looking over some chips i purchased from radio Shack, only months before the store near me went into liquidation (it was still an active store). the other night, i decided to look over all the different 555/556 chips i had in my storage.
before i go too much into what i found, have a look at this site, then see where i doubt that any of my chips are real. I would hope the ones i got from Adafruit are real, but i cant find any confirmation of what a real one looks like. the saddest part of it all, Radio Shack sold the .25c FAKE items for a markup that would make a fountain drink dispenser blush (service industry food cost joke).

labeled as 556 (dual 555) purchased from Radio Shack, the original chip has been scrubbed so this may not even be a timer or from TI.
another chip labeled as 555, also from Radio Shack, also scrubbed
same as above, purchased on the same day, from the same bin.

When you buy one of those 50pk 555 for 8$ from ebay/amazon/Shenzhen, you are NOT getting the real thing, they may kinda look legit, but no. some people have claimed these scrubbed chips are far from a 555, but in fact may be cheap op amps.


Left: 1 of the 50pk 555 chip — Right: Purchased from Adafruit and the closest thing i can find to being a real ne555p IC since supposedly they get their stock from official sources.

In short, im going to see if there is an easier way to get the word out about fake chips of any type, and it would be a good thing if Chip makers had more than this joke of a page. come on TI, bang the rocks together and let us help you get real devices to users.
https://www.ti.com/support-quality/quality-policies-procedures/anti-counterfeit.htm

this is sort of a rant post, more of a “we need to make it easier to get maker tools and supplies for those starting out, or those prototyping the next big thing noone can live without.” We also need to call out those sellers that sell fake chips, and make it harder for them waste your time.
and i dont mean by doing this…
FTDI on counterfeit chip bricking: “Our intentions were honorable”

As soon as i get time, i might make a 555 tester/stress’r and see how many survive or work to spec. In the mean time, have a look at some projects you can do with real 555’s

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