Hello everyone,

It has been some time since I have been on the PIC List, so g'day to
everyone.

I would appreciate any bright ideas that anyone has for prototyping SMD
chips.  I have been using, for example, the FT232BM USB chip from FTDI on my
latest PIC designs (with great success I may add, they work great !), but
boy are they fiddly to prototype with.

My method has been to epoxy them right side up to a veroboard (actually I
don't use "veroboard" as such, but the boards with copper donuts on the
holes only and make my interconnections with Kynar and/or plain wire
traces).  I then run thin Kynar wires stripped of their insulation to the
pins of the SMD chip and solder with a needle point and a magnifying glass.
I can then run the Kynar to appropriate spots on the veroboard for
interconnection.  Whilst this works, and looks pretty neat, it is horribly
time consuming.

I would like to proto chips like the PIC18F8720, but the thought of using
the method above on chips such as this scares the hell out of me.  The FT
chip is only 0.8mm spacing, but I can see my method not working when getting
down to 0.5mm pin spacing.

Does anyone make "header" boards for these chips, something like a solder
pad for the chip with tracks out to pads for prototyping, if you get my
drift ?  I cannot find any such thing from local suppliers.  I have however
found sources of ZIF sockets for some TQFP and SOIC chips, but they are
outlandishly expensive.  I also remember a friend doing this with a HC16
chip and they are not exactly "zero insertion force" anyway, he had to use a
vice to get the damned socket closed over the chip with no real guarantee
that all pins were making good electrical connection to the socket.

Any ideas will be greatly appeciated.

Rgs
Ian.

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads