devices the encapsulant serves to hold the contacts in place after the carrier has been removed application_number US 13583605 A description the present invention relates generally to the packaging of integrated circuits in micro array style packages referring initially to fig2 a and 2 b a carrier panel 100 in accordance with a first embodiment of the invention will be described in this embodiment the panel 100 includes a carrier tape 102 that supports a multiplicity of contacts 110 a leadframe 120 is provided to give the panel structural rigidity in the illustrated embodiment the leadframe includes rails 122 that extend around the periphery of the carrier tape 102 and cross bars 125 that divide the panel into a plurality of sections 105 however it should be appreciated that the crossbars may be eliminated if a sufficiently rigid structure is provided indeed even the rails could potentially be eliminated if a sufficiently rigid carrier tape is used the contacts 110 which may be punched from the leadframe 120 are held in place by an adhesive on the carrier tape 102 such that the contacts 110 are physically and electrically isolated from one another as will be described in more detail below the contacts can be positioned on the carrier tape in a variety of manners in the illustrated embodiment the carrier panel 100 is arranged as a strip having three sections 105 with each section 105 having a two dimensional arrays of contacts 110 positioned thereon the strip format is similar to a leadframe strip and has the advantage that once the contacts are positioned conventional leadless leadframe or micro array leadframe handling equipment.