Integrated circuits and certain other electronic components are put into protective packages to allow easy handling and assembly onto printed circuit boards and to protect the devices from damage. A very large number of package types exist. Some package types have standardized dimensions and tolerances, and are registered with trade industry associations such as JEDEC and Pro Electron. Other types are proprietary designations that may be made by only one or two manufacturers. Integrated circuit packaging is the last assembly process before testing and shipping devices to customers. Occasionally specially-processed integrated circuit dies are prepared for direct connections to a substrate without an intermediate header or carrier. In flip chip systems the IC is connected by solder bumps to a substrate. In beam-lead technology, the metallized pads that would be used for wire bonding connections in a conventional chip are thickened and extended to allow external connections to the circuit. Assemblies using "bare" chips have additional packaging or filling with epoxy to protect the devices from moisture.

Through-hole packages

Through-hole technology uses holes drilled through the printed circuit board (PCB) for mounting the components. The component has leads that are soldered to pads on the PCB to electrically and mechanically connect them to the PCB.

Surface mount

Chip on board is a packaging technique that directly connects a die to a PCB, without an interposer or lead frame.

Chip carrier

A chip carrier is a rectangular package with contacts on all four edges. Leaded chip carriers have metal leads wrapped around the edge of the package, in the shape of a letter J. Leadless chip carriers have metal pads on the edges. Chip carrier packages may be made of ceramic or plastic and are usually secured to a printed circuit board by soldering, though sockets can be used for testing.

Pin grid arrays

Flat packages

Small outline packages

A small outline integrated circuit (SOIC) is a surface-mounted integrated circuit (IC) package which occupies an area about 30–50% less than an equivalent dual in-line package (DIP), with a typical thickness being 70% less. They are generally available in the same pin-outs as their counterpart DIP ICs.

Chip-scale packages

According to IPC's standard J-STD-012, Implementation of Flip Chip and Chip Scale Technology, in order to qualify as chip scale, the package must have an area no greater than 1.2 times that of the die and it must be a single-die, direct surface mountable package. Another criterion that is often applied to qualify these packages as CSPs is their ball pitch should be no more than 1 mm. Chip-scale package

Ball grid array

Ball grid array (BGA) uses the underside of the package to place pads with balls of solder in grid pattern as connections to PCB.

Transistor, diode, small-pin-count IC packages

Dimension reference

Surface-mount

Through-hole

Package dimensions

All measurements below are given in mm. To convert mm to mils, divide mm by 0.0254 (i.e., 2.54 mm / 0.0254 = 100 mil).

Dual row

Quad rows

LGA

Multi-chip packages

A variety of techniques for interconnecting several chips within a single package have been proposed and researched:

By terminal count

Surface-mount components are usually smaller than their counterparts with leads, and are designed to be handled by machines rather than by humans. The electronics industry has standardized package shapes and sizes (the leading standardisation body is JEDEC). The codes given in the chart below usually tell the length and width of the components in tenths of millimeters or hundredths of inches. For example, a metric 2520 component is 2.5 mm by 2.0 mm which corresponds roughly to 0.10 inches by 0.08 inches (hence, imperial size is 1008). Exceptions occur for imperial in the two smallest rectangular passive sizes. The metric codes still represent the dimensions in mm, even though the imperial size codes are no longer aligned. Problematically, some manufacturers are developing metric 0201 components with dimensions of 0.25 x, but the imperial 01005 name is already being used for the 0.4 × package. These increasingly small sizes, especially 0201 and 01005, can sometimes be a challenge from a manufacturability or reliability perspective.

Two-terminal packages

Rectangular passive components

Mostly resistors and capacitors.

Tantalum capacitors

Aluminum capacitors

Small-outline diode (SOD)

Metal electrode leadless face (MELF)

Mostly resistors and diodes; barrel shaped components, dimensions do not match those of rectangular references for identical codes.

DO-214

Commonly used for rectifier, Schottky, and other diodes.

Three- and four-terminal packages

Small-outline transistor (SOT)

Other

Five- and six-terminal packages

Small-outline transistor (SOT)

Packages with more than six terminals

Dual-in-line

Quad-in-line

Grid arrays

Non-packaged devices

Although surface-mount, these devices require specific process for assembly. There are often subtle variations in package details from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even though standard designations are used, designers need to confirm dimensions when laying out printed circuit boards.