Dual in-line package
type of electronic component package
In microelectronics, a dual in-line package (DIP or DIL) is an electronic component package with a rectangular housing and two parallel rows of electrical connecting pins. The package may be through-hole mounted to a printed circuit board (PCB) or inserted in a socket. The dual-inline format was invented by Don Forbes, Rex Rice and Bryant Rogers at Fairchild R&D in 1964, when the restricted number of leads available on circular transistor-style packages became a limitation in the use of integrated circuits. Increasingly complex circuits required more signal and power supply leads (as observed in Rent's rule); eventually microprocessors and similar complex devices required more leads than could be put on a DIP package, leading to development of higher-density chip carriers. Furthermore, square and rectangular packages made it easier to route printed-circuit traces beneath the packages.
A DIP is usually referred to as a DIPn, where n is the total number of pins, and sometimes appended with the row-to-row package width "N" for narrow (0.3") or "W" for wide (0.6"). For example, a microcircuit package with two rows of seven vertical leads would be a DIP14 or DIP14N. The photograph at the upper right shows three DIP14 ICs. Common packages have as few as four and as many as 64 leads. Many analog and digital integrated circuit types are available in DIP packages, as are arrays of transistors, switches, light emitting diodes, and resistors. DIP plugs for ribbon cables can be used with standard IC sockets.
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