In my circuit, I am using all the 8 pins of Port B and pin 6 of Port A as
inputs to detect the closing of 9 PB switches. The PIC used is 16F628 with
internal RC Oscillator. Port B weak pull-up is enabled and PortA.6 has a
4.7K pull-up resistor.

As I am running short of I/O pins, I want to use an IC to reduce the number
of pins used by the PIC for detecting key pressings. After a  search through
CMOS data book, I found 74HC147 (10 to 4 Priority Encoder) almost ideal for
the purpose. With this IC, I will need only 4 pins of the PIC and as many as
5 pins will become available.

Now, my question: Is there a better IC for the purpose?
Please let me know if there is.

Thanks & Regards,
Bala

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