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More or less in response to this question: Reliability of anti-static packaging

A few comments were made (which made sense) on manufacturers not really shipping many DIP packages in comparison with SMD devices. So my question is, should we expect this type of package to end eventually at some point, and is it just a matter of "whats left" in production.

It makes sense for a manufacturer of chips not to really care about hobbyists which only make up a small portion of their sales. But do you think the package itself will be phased out completely? (especially with Popular Boards like Arduino becoming even more popular?)

Community
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    This is polling speculation from the community. There is no way to select a correct answer. – Kortuk Nov 01 '11 at 04:40
  • For more information on why this sort of question is not considered constructive by Stack Overflow, see: [New close reason: “Question asks to predict the future”](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/20668), [Are strongly on-topic questions about predicting the future allowed?](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/56480), and [Help wanted: clean up the \[future\] tag](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/110042). – Kevin Vermeer Nov 01 '11 at 11:17
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    While idle speculation about the future isn't helpful, I would have regarded this question as saying, essentially, "what indications have various manufacturers given to suggest that various types of chips will or will not be available in DIP packages", and is there any particular pattern as to which types of existing chips may lose support, or which types of future chips might have support? How should a circuit designer factor such issues into his designs?" – supercat Nov 01 '11 at 16:00
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    Voting to reopen, because (although not the best formulated question) it asks for future trends in industry which *is* relevant to circuit design (otherwise any question on second-sourcing and parts availability would be irrelevant to circuit design, which is not the case). – LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike Jan 05 '16 at 12:02

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I haven't used a DIP component in 15 years. Even for 1-off hacks I would prefer smd stuff. Whenever I see a DIP part I can't help but shake my head. Unfortunately, there are still lots of companies using DIPs. That's why they are still made. Even so, few if any if the new stuff us made in DIP.

DIP parts will probably be around for another 10+ years, slowly getting phased out. That's my best guess. The 555 in DIP will probably outlive all of us.

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I think they will probably be around for quite a few years yet.
It's true the use of DIP packages (and through hole in general) as declined sharply in the last decade or so, but they are still widely produced even for new chips. They are still used a lot for prototyping and hobbyist use - I'm sure many find it useful to be able to quickly prototype a design using the DIP package version of their chip, then switch to the e.g. TQFP package for the final version.
For example Microchip produce a DIP version of pretty much all their ICs bar top end stuff like the PIC32. As long there is some reasonable demand out there I'm sure they will continue to do so.

Oli Glaser
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