The zig-zag in-line package or ZIP was a short-lived packaging technology for integrated circuit

Integrated circuit

An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...

s, particularly dynamic RAM

Dram

Dram or DRAM may refer to:As a unit of measure:* Dram , an imperial unit of mass and volume* Armenian dram, a monetary unit* Dirham, a unit of currency in several Arab nationsOther uses:...

 chips. It was intended as a replacement for dual in-line packaging

Dual in-line package

In microelectronics, a dual in-line package is an electronic device 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 or inserted in a socket.A DIP is usually referred to as a DIPn, where n is...

 (DIL or DIP). A ZIP is an integrated circuit encapsulated in a slab of plastic, measuring about 3 mm x 30 mm x 10 mm. The package's pins protrude in two rows from one of the long edges. The two rows are staggered by 1.27 mm (0.05"), giving them a zig-zag appearance, and allowing them to be spaced more closely than a rectangular grid would allow. The pins are inserted into holes in a printed circuit board

Printed circuit board

A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...

, with the packages standing at right-angles to the board, allowing them to be placed closer together than DIPs of the same size. ZIPs have now been superseded by surface-mount packages such as the thin small-outline packages (TSOP

Thin small-outline package

Thin small-outline packages, or TSOPs are a type of surface mount IC package. They are notably very low-profile and have tight lead spacing ....

s) used on single-in-line memory modules (SIMM

SIMM

A SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant...

s) and dual-in-line memory modules (DIMM

DIMM

A DIMM or dual in-line memory module, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computers, workstations and servers...

s).
ZIP memory devices are now only to be found in obsolete computers, some of these are:

• Commodore
  Commodore International
  Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
  
   Amiga
  Amiga
  The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
  
   500 expansion packs
• Commodore Amiga 3000 on-board memory and some expansion boards
• Acorn
  Acorn Computers
  Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro, and the Acorn Archimedes...
  
   Archimedes
  Acorn Archimedes
  The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer to be based on their own ARM architecture.Using a RISC design with a 32-bit CPU, at its launch in June 1987, the Archimedes was stated as running at 4 MIPS, with a claim of 18 MIPS during tests.The name is commonly...
  
   300 and 400 series on-board memory

As of 2008, some high-power devices (such as high-voltage op-amp ICs, voltage regulators, and motor driver ICs) are still being manufactured in a package with a zig-zag pinout.

These zig-zag packages include variations on the TO220

TO220

The TO-220 is a style of electronic component package, commonly used for transistors, silicon-controlled rectifiers, and integrated circuits. The "TO" designation stands for "transistor outline". TO-220 packages have three leads. Similar packages with two, four, five or seven leads are also...

 such as "TO220S", "staggered leads TO-220-11", "staggered leads TO-220-15", and HZIP. The name pentawatt or hexawatt is also used with chips like TDA2002/2003/2020/2030 and L200.

See also

• Types of chip carriers – list of chip package types