The NOR gate that doesn't quit at 125°C
It runs on a 3V to 18V supply — that wide range is the whole point: you can power it straight off an unregulated battery or an automotive rail without a local regulator. Each of the four gates sinks or sources 3.4 mA, and the quiescent current sits at 1 µA max, so it's fine for always-on sense circuits that can't waste standby power.
Why the 3V–18V supply range matters on your BOM
Most logic families — 74HC, 74HCT, 74AC — are tied to a narrow supply window. The CD4001BPWR's 3V to 18V range lets you use it as a level translator between a 3.3V microcontroller and a 12V sensor bus, or as a glue-logic gate in a system that already carries a 12V or 15V rail. The input logic thresholds scale with supply: low is 1.5V to 4V, high is 3.5V to 11V, so it's compatible with both TTL and CMOS drive levels across the voltage range. If your design already has a 5V or 12V rail, you don't need a separate logic supply — one less regulator, one less capacitor, one less line item on the BOM.
Speed vs. noise immunity — the 4000B trade-off
Propagation delay is 90 ns at 15V with a 50 pF load. That's slow compared to a 74AC gate (7.5 ns at 5V), but the 4000B series trades speed for noise immunity and wide supply tolerance. If your signal path runs at a few hundred kilohertz — keyboard scanning, panel switch debounce, sensor polling — the 90 ns delay is invisible. The real win is the noise margin: at 15V supply, the input threshold window is about 4V, so a noisy industrial backplane won't glitch the output. If you need sub-10 ns propagation, look at the SN74AC32DR (OR gate, 2V–6V, 7.5 ns), but you lose the wide supply and the full military temperature range.
Package and footprint — 14-TSSOP on a 0.173" body
The CD4001BPWR comes in a 14-TSSOP with a 4.40 mm body width and 0.65 mm pin pitch. That's a fine-pitch surface-mount package — you'll want a hot-air station or a reflow oven for soldering, not a soldering iron. No exposed pad, no thermal vias needed — the 1 µA quiescent current means it barely gets warm. The tape-and-reel option (Cut Tape also available) means it feeds straight into a pick-and-place line.
If you're dual-sourcing, the CD4025BM96 is a three-input NOR gate in the same 4000B series and 14-TSSOP package, but with three inputs per gate instead of two — not a direct pin-for-pin swap, but a functional alternative if your logic equation can absorb the extra input.