26 Oct
2005
26 Oct
'05
12:38 p.m.
Paul Koning wrote:
There's at least one company that builds SMT to
DIP adapters, so you
can plug SMT packaged chips into DIP prototyping systems and the like.
Of course manufacturers don't want to use DIPs. They are electrically
inferior. For that matter, they are also obsolete -- if they made DIP
packaged chips they would certainly be very low volume products.
I get a kick out of the back-to-the-future aspect of SMT packages,
considering the lineage/similarity of SMT to the flatpak IC cases
(TO-85,91,etc.) of the early '60s, which predated DIPs.
Across the history of ICs, DIP packaging begins to look like a
25-to-30-year sidebar.