12 ns propagation delay at 6 V — the speed floor for the 74HCU unbuffered inverter
The CD74HCU04E is a hex unbuffered inverter from TI's 74HCU series, packing six independent inverter gates in a single 14-pin DIP. Each gate accepts a single input and inverts it, with propagation delay rated at 12 ns max into a 50 pF load at 6 V supply — this sets the maximum toggle rate the downstream logic sees before the output edge degrades. The input logic thresholds scale with VCC: low-level threshold is 0.3 V to 1.1 V, high-level 1.7 V to 4.8 V, so the gate switches cleanly across the full supply range.
Wide temperature range and low quiescent draw suit industrial and remote hardware
Quiescent current draws just 2 µA max, so the gate adds negligible standby drain in battery-backed or energy-harvesting designs. Each output sources or sinks 5.2 mA, enough to drive one standard LSTTL load or a low-power LED indicator. For heavier fan-out, buffer the output with a discrete transistor or a dedicated line driver.
Through-hole 14-DIP package — breadboard and legacy board fit
Housed in a 14-lead plastic DIP (0.300-inch row spacing, 7.62 mm body width), the CD74HCU04E mounts through-hole and fits standard 0.100-inch pitch prototyping boards. The 14-PDIP supplier package code confirms the leadframe and mold compound are the same as the generic 14-DIP outline — no footprint surprise when laying out a new board or replacing a pulled part. Delivered in tube packaging, so the leads stay co-planar through shipping and the part feeds directly into a manual insertion station or a tube-fed auto-insertion machine without re-reeling.