An Enduring, Versatile Little Chip

At a billion units produced every year, the 555 is certainly ubiquitous, but I wonder how (and by how much) one might improve on the design whilst preserving the original functionality. There are circuit-design competitions among 555 *users,* but one to see who can best improve on the part itself would, I think, be most worthwhile.

Actually there are already dozens of variations on the 555 IC already in production and use that's what the prefix and postfix number and letter designations are for in many cases.

They serve the same function but internally the circuits where changed in some way.