lectronic Construction

Component Identification

Integrated Circuits Integrated Circuits or ICs can have any number of legs from 8 to several hundred. The are often symmetrical and can be placed into a circuit in more that one orientation. However only one orientation will work and putting the IC in the wrong way can permanently damage it. The IC has two indications of its orientation. IC pins are numbered in an anti-clockwise direction and there is a small dot to indicate where pin one is. There is also a little nick in between pin 1 and the opposite pin. On PCBs it is normally the nick that used to show which way the IC should be placed.