Prototype Area for ICs

The following image highlights an area especially designed to hold standard 300 mil wide DIP packages. Note that 600 mil wide DIP packages can be added using a combination of this area and proto area C.

The dip chips should be positioned so that they straddle the center area which contains both 5 volt power and ground traces. Each pin will be soldered to a pad connected to two addition pads by the copper layer. You can see the groups of three pads that are connected by red highlights in the image. Jumper wires are used to connect the additional pads (and the connected IC's pin) to the rest of the circuit that is being developed. This is called point to point wiring and is essentially the same method that is commonly used when prototyping on reusable breadboards.

Decoupling caps can conveniently be soldered in the pairs of vias positioned in the center region. 5 volt power and ground connections can be conveniently be jumpered from the vias in the outside power and ground traces. The ground traces are on top (back of the board) and the power traces on the bottom (front of the board) in this image. Remember that DIP chips are normally positioned upside down on the SUPERPROTO board making power and ground connections very easy to make.