"Cheap" Ubicom SSOP Programming Fixture

SSOP chips are a pain in the butt to program, so many are designed into circuits with ISP capability.In circuit programming was not practical in my application, so I needed some kind of adapter to get my SX-KEY programmer/debugger to connect to a SSOP package. SSOP programming sockets are really expensive and hard to find. The best I could do was $50 from a company called Microengineering Labs - they sell a little adapter that works with their line of PIC programmers. I chose the 28-pin model, in the hopes that I could build something that could program 20 and 28 pin SSOPs.

So, figure 1 shows the result. After an unsuccessful attempt to desolder the socket, which was just as well, I had to cut some traces on their PCB to isolate all of the pins (after all, this was originally designed to program PIC's on their programmer). Switching the DIP switches permits 20 or 28 pin programming. The SX-KEY connects near the middle; power is a wall wart/7805 combo. BTW, the SX-KEY seems to work well on my serial/USB adapter.

This was a pain to build, but well worth it.

Figure 1. Kinda Semi-Homebrew Ubicom SSOP Programming Fixture