Plastic or ceramic ICs?
I've recently been repairing an item of equipment I built about thirty years ago. This makes use of several HEF-series ICs and I thought it might be a good idea to obtain some spares in case they become more difficult to obtain with time.
The data sheets indicate that these were available in ceramic DIL packages as well as plastic although there doesn't seem to be any difference in electrical or thermal specifications. Nowadays you can buy mil-spec ceramic ones for a pound or two if you so desire. Does anyone know whether there's any particular advantage in specifying the (originally presumably much more expensive) ceramic version? I could understand it in the case of something like a microprocessor, in which better heat dissipation might be an issue, but a 4049 hex buffer is hardly likely to get into thermal distress!.
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