I'm soldering together a board that has some ICs which are meant to have a notch on the side so you know what direction they should be. The schematic shows a notch, but the chips only have a small dot in one of the corners. Does this dot in any way correspond to where the notch should be?

 

A dot should point to pin 1. Some chips also have one side slightly slanted, this shows the side with pin 1. Can you post a picture?

 

I think I found the answer. It seems like the notch should always be on the same side as the dot.

 

There is no slant or anything else about the chip other than the dot.

It seems like the notch should always be on the same side as the dot.

Can anyone confirm this?

 

Yes, that is correct. But beware that some large chips have more things on them that look like the dot, so it is good to make sure which is which before you solder them in.

 

Should be OK, these are simple 8 and 16 pin chips and I see no other markings on them.

Thanks for the help!