From: John De Armond

> How do you remove chips from a circuit board?

Depends on whether the chip is to be salvaged or not.  if the chip is bad,
simply go down the sides of the chip with flush cut dykes and snip
each lead.  Remove the carcass.  If appearance matters, remove each
pin individually and clean the holes with solder wick and lots of activated
rosin flux.  if appearance does not matter, simply set the new chip down
with its pins inside the old ones and solder the new pins to the old
residue.  Looks grody but is very sturdy.

If the chip is to be salvaged, my preference is to use solder wick with
a HOT (800 deg F or greater) iron and a lot of activated flux.  The flux
is the secret.  I use Kestor Formula 1544 liquid activated rosin flux.
This stuff is water thin and makes  that reluctant wick suck like 
a cheap whore :-)  A very hot iron is also necessary so the wick can
be quickly touched and removed before the substrate is heated.  I just
lay a strip of wick along the pins and rake it quickly with the iron tip.
That does all the pins at once.  

I like the wick method even better than the desoldering stations that 
use suction.   I generally do less board damage.