The CD74HC165M96 is an 8-bit parallel-in serial-out shift register from Texas Instruments in SOIC-16. It reads 8 parallel data inputs (D0-D7) and shifts them out serially on the Q7 pin, controlled by the SH/LD and CLK pins. Operation: (1) Load phase – pull SH/LD LOW: all 8 parallel inputs (D0-D7) are asynchronously loaded into the internal register. This happens regardless of the clock state. (2) Shift phase – pull SH/LD HIGH: on each rising edge of CLK, the data shifts one position. The SER input enters at the D0 position, and D7 exits at Q7. This allows daisy-chaining: the Q7 of one device connects to the SER of the next, reading 16, 24, or more inputs with a single MCU SPI port. The CLK INH pin provides clock gating without affecting the shift register state. The complementary Q7 output is useful for differential clocking or as a status indicator. The device reads parallel data at speeds limited by the SH/LD pulse width (typically 20ns at 5V) and can shift data at up to 60MHz at 5V. The HC (High-Speed CMOS) family operates from 2.0V to 6.0V, with CMOS input thresholds (50% of VCC). The output can source/sink 5.2mA at 5V. The M96 suffix specifies SOIC-16, tape-and-reel. Applications include: reading multiple switch inputs with one MCU pin, keyboard scanning, parallel-to-SPI conversion, and expanding GPIO on microcontrollers.