>pin to pin capacitance about 10 pF row to row in 5 pin long parallel rows. This is enough to upset any CMOS circuit that uses AC of any sort. Been there. Anyway most correctly designed PIC applications are not impressed by this if no input pins are ever left unconnected. The aluminium backing should be grounded at all times. I found that otherwise new and unexpected coupling paths can happen. Peter -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.