Electronic – Is Texas Instrument wrong with their pin number on TO-92 package

datasheetpinout

The official JEDEC standard to number pins on a TO-92 package is the following:
enter image description here

But in many datasheets from Texas Instruments, this order seem reversed. For example, this is a screenshot from the datasheet for the LM185 :

TO-92 from LM185

Link to the full datasheet :
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm185-1.2-n.pdf (page 1)

Texas Instruments's official TO-92 documentation doesn't help since there is an ambiguity as if the drawing is from the top or the bottom : http://www.ti.com/lit/ml/msot002d/msot002d.pdf

In all the datasheets where the pinout is reversed, they used a view from the top or the bottom. In some datasheets the pinout is correct, but they used an isometric view which eliminate all ambiguity. This could be the source of the confusion, but I just don't see how I could misinterpret "Bottom view" or "Top view" for a TO-92 package.

Is Texas Instruments wrong or I don't understand what a bottom view is?

To prove that this is not an isolated mistake in a single datasheet, here are few links to some Texas Instruments datasheets where this happen :

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tl431.pdf (page 4)

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm285-2.5.pdf (page 3)

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm4040-n.pdf (page 4)

Best Answer

The LM385 was originally produced by National Semiconductor. The earliest reference I can find is from their 1980 Linear Databook. It shows the same 'wrong' pinout. Other manufacturers whose datasheets have the same pinout include Motorola and Telcom Semiconductor.

So it seems the 'wrong' pinout originated at National Semiconductor, and has been copied by second-source manufacturers. Texas Instruments acquired National Semiconductor on September 23, 2011. This would have given them the opportunity to use National's datasheets for parts they were second-sourcing.

LM385-1.2 NS Linear Databook 1980

NS Z03D package drawing