The pins on an IC chip provide connections to the tiny integrated circuits inside of your electronics. To determine which pin is which, you look down on the top of the IC for the clocking mark, which is usually a small notch in the packaging but might instead be a little dimple or a white or colored stripe. By convention, the pins on an IC are numbered counterclockwise, starting with the upper-left pin closest to the clocking mark. So, for example, with the clocking notch orienting the chip at the 12 o’clock position, the pins of a 14-pin IC are numbered 1 through 7 down the left side and 8 through 14 up the right side.
