Active production — still a current TI line item
The CD74FCT373M96: One catch for lead-free assembly lines: the part is marked RoHS non-compliant, meaning the tin-lead finish is still standard. If your reflow profile or customer spec requires full RoHS exemption documentation, factor that into the procurement review.
What the FCT bus driver does on the board
This is an FCT-series octal D-type transparent latch with 3-state outputs — a bus driver that passes data from D inputs to Q outputs while the latch-enable (LE) pin is high, and holds the last state when LE goes low. The output-enable (OE) pin puts the Q outputs into high-impedance when pulled high, letting multiple drivers share the same bus without contention. FCT logic is a high-speed, low-power derivative of the original FAST (F) family, typically running from a 5 V supply with propagation delays in the 4–6 ns range. On a repair bench, a scorched or shorted bus driver often shows up as a stuck-high or stuck-low data line on the address or data bus — the CD74FCT373M96 is a straightforward swap if the footprint matches.
Package form and board-fit note
Supplied in Bulk — loose tubes or trays, not tape-and-reel. For a pick-and-place line, that means a tube feeder or tray shaker rather than a reel carrier; for a repair bench, it means the part arrives in an ESD-safe tube ready for hand soldering. The package is a standard SOIC-20 wide-body (the 'M96' suffix indicates the SOIC-20W variant). The 1.27 mm pin pitch and 300-mil body width match the industry-standard footprint used by many 20-pin octal latches and flip-flops, so the board layout is usually a direct drop-in for other 20-pin SOIC bus drivers from the same era.