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I have a project, But the required IC is available in my home is in SOP design. How do I use SOP ICs on breadboard?

user984715
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  • Possible Duplicate of http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/8000/how-to-use-multiple-terminal-surface-mount-chips-in-amateur-project and http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/21635/prototyping-with-smd-components/21639#21639 – B Pete Nov 10 '11 at 20:04

3 Answers3

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You could use an adapter board. Futurlec have a broad selection of them, and - by far - the cheapest prices I've seen. Theirs tend to be less than a dollar, where a corresponding part from Sparkfun or Digikey could be > $5.00.

http://www.futurlec.com/SMD_Adapters.shtml

mindcrime
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There are two obvious solutions: The cheap and the not so cheap.

The cheap solution is to solder wires directly to the IC and then connect the wires to a breadboard. The downside of that is primarily physical: The IC won't stay securely attached to the breadboard, the wires may develop intermittent faults. I don't think that the wires themselves will be a bigger problem to the signals going through them compared to the breadboard itself. Then there's also the problem of soldering appropriate wires to the IC and then connecting them to the breadboard. Another option which I've seen is to solder the wires to a pin header and then insert the pins into a breadboard, but this is also very fragile.

The other option is to use a SOP to DIP adapter. They have a small PCB on which you solder the device. The PCB will also have holes spaced like a DIP component to which you solder pins and then just insert the adapter into a breadboard. Here's an example of such adapter.

AndrejaKo
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The wires-to-a-header method can be made more robust if you solder the header pins into a piece of copper-ringed-perfboard, for example making a module that is perhaps 800 mils wide with the small IC perched (glue is possible but probably not needed) in the middle.

Making a toner-transfer PCB to breakout the pins is another viable "need it today" option. If the pin count is low, you can avoid drilling any holes by breaking it out to a single row and "surface mounting" a 100-mil header on the edge of the board.

Obviously the pre-made breakout PCBs or carriers are the best solution - if you have one on hand, or can get one in a reasonable amount of time without paying several times the value of the item in shipping fees.

Chris Stratton
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