There is currently a shortage of ICs in much of the electronics industry and that means we need to be extra cautious about testing to verify the parts we are buying are actually what we paid for.

An IC socket and a dev board can quickly test chips from multiple alternate vendors. We start with a regular dev boarddesigned around the same chip we want to test, remove the chip and solder 0.1mm wires between the pads on the dev board and a test socket. Now we have an easy way to swap the chip without additional soldering.