The zig-zag in-line package (ZIP) is a packaging technology for

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

s. It was intended as a replacement for dual in-line packaging (DIL or DIP). A ZIP is an integrated circuit encapsulated in a slab of plastic with 16, 20, 28 or 40 pins, measuring (for the ZIP-20 package) about 3 mm x 30 mm x 10 mm. The package's pins protrude in two rows from one of the long edges. The two rows are staggered by 1.27 mm (0.05"), giving them a zig-zag appearance, and allowing them to be spaced more closely than a rectangular grid would allow. The pins are inserted into holes in a

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

, with the packages standing at right-angles to the board, allowing them to be placed closer together than DIPs of the same size. ZIPs have now been superseded by

surface-mount Surface-mount technology (SMT), originally called planar mounting, is a method in which the electrical components are mounted directly onto the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB). An electrical component mounted in this manner is referred ...

packages such as the thin small-outline packages ( TSOPs), but are still in use. The

quad in-line package QUaD, an acronym for QUEST at DASI, was a ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) Polarization (waves), polarization experiment at the South Pole. QUEST (Q and U Extragalactic Sub-mm Telescope) was the original name attributed to the bolome ...

uses a similar staggered semiconductor package design, but on two sides instead of one. High-power devices (such as high-voltage op-amp ICs, voltage regulators, and motor driver ICs) are still being manufactured in a package with a zig-zag pinout (and normally screwed onto a heatsink). These zig-zag packages include variations on the TO220 such as "TO220S", "staggered leads TO-220-11", "staggered leads TO-220-15", and HZIP. The trademarks Pentawatt or Hexawatt are also used for chips in multi-leaded power packages like TDA2002/2003/2020/2030 and L200.http://www.st.com/st-web-ui/static/active/en/resource/technical/document/datasheet/CD00000053.pdf Image:Zip_chip_socket.jpg, ZIP chips in ZIP sockets Image:zip_chip.jpg, ZIP chips As for computers, dynamic RAM ZIP chips are now only to be found in obsolete computers, some of these are: *

Amiga 500 The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, was the first popular version of the Amiga home computer, "redefining the home computer market and making so-called luxury features such as multitasking and colour a standard long before Microsoft or Apple ...

expansion packs * Amiga 3000 on-board memory and some expansion boards * Commodore CDTV on-board memory * Acorn Archimedes 300 and 400 series on-board memory * Acorn Archimedes A3010 and A3020

References

Chip carriers {{compu-hardware-stub

See also

References