Book Reviews

A book for the Electronic Pathologist which is what this reviewer used to call himself some time ago, an alternative title would be the first level failure analysis engineer. There are a limited numbers of books for the budding FA engineer but this book is a gem if you are in the business of finding out how things fail in manufacture or service with many tricks of the trade.

Chapters cover component reliability, analysis techniques like microsectioning, acoustic and infrared scanning, SEM and chemical characteristics. The main section of interest is the type and methods of failure assessment which cover soldering, wires, switches, connectors, semiconductors and high power devices. There are also good sections on how to conduct investigations illustrating the best methodology for recording information like, film, high speed photography, video etc. There are some interesting examples of lighting that can yield the best results during investigations. Each section is a how to do it rather than just a reference source but it also features some interesting failure mechanisms for the archive.

To a limited degree more recent defects are also included like cracked chip capacitors, BGA faults, plastic package cracking. Flip chip and some of the new stuff related to x-ray inspection and the basics and the how to us it in production. A large text with over 1000 pages well illustrated with techniques and problems galore. Buy it its worth it !!!

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