PCB Design Tips 2 - Surface Mount Breakout Boards

A challenge we electronics hobbyists face today is the growth of surface-mount packaging.

Once upon a time, IC's came in nice chunky DIP packages, with legs perfect for slotting into your breadboard. 

Sadly those days are gone :-(  

Demand for ever-smaller, ever-lighter electronic gadgets has driven the electronics industry to adopt surface-mount packaging. For a while, many IC's were available in both DIP and surface-mount packages, but a growing numbers of chips are available surface-mount only.

Of course, reflow ovens offer a route for the hobbyist to prepare surface-mount boards, but there are days when you just want a quick-and-dirty way to hook up that surface-mount IC.

One approach to rapid prototyping I've recently enjoyed some success with is breakout boards. These give you a pattern of solder pads, routed-out to a series of (plated) holes into which you can solder connector-wires. 

The photo shows some from Adafruit (I've no connection to the company) I picked up off eBay recently for a couple of quid (that's "bucks" to my US readers). 




These particular boards are double-sided, with an SOIC-8 (=1.27mm pad pitch) pattern on the front and an MSOP-8 (=0.65mm pitch) footprint on the back. 

Five minutes with my soldering iron, and I had my chip down.

A few minutes later, I'd some flying-wires attached, and was all ready to plug the chip into my breadboard. 

As for identity of the chip itself...well, that's another story for another day.