Overview

When selecting replacement parts for your HP products, you may notice that many manuals list only an HP part number for the part, even though it appears that this part is manufactured by one of the large semiconductor manufacturers.  Service personnel often ask why only HP part numbers are listed.

It is recommended that HP replacement parts be used to ensure that the original performance of the product will be obtained.  While some parts used in HP instruments are identical to that which can be purchased at a local electronics distributor, many times parts will be selected for certain characteristics, such as gain, bandwidth, capacitance, etc.  There may also be slight mechanical differences, such as the shaping or length of leads.  In some cases special quality checks are employed to ensure that high reliability parts are used at the factory and at HP field offices.

Therefore, we suggest obtaining replacement parts from HP to maintain the quality that you have paid for in your instrument. There may be situations however where HP replacement parts are not in stock and substituting parts will allow you to return the product to service immediately. In these cases it may be worthwhile to see if a substitute part will work in the circuit. Perhaps an HP part could be ordered and installed at some later date.

To help you in these situations, here's a cross-reference of HP integrated circuit part numbers to manufacturers "generic type" part numbers (whom in most cases is the originator of the part).  Even though the cross-reference only lists one manufacturer, there may actually be several approved sources for an HP part.  While every attempt was made to ensure the accuracy of the list, it is advisable to compare the description of the device being replaced with the description of the substituted part.  For example, if the service manual describes the device being replaced as a "dual J-K flip-flop," check this against the description of the replacement part.

• HP Manufacturers Code Number Cross Reference
• HP Replacement Part Cross Reference  From Ralph D. Miller, AA4DF  (22.9M PDF)  (Text Version)
• HP Replacement Parts and Supplies  1973-1974  (35.3M PDF)
• Hewlett-Packard Service Parts and Price Lists
• Large Collection of Hewlett-Packard Technical Documents