Microchip Fabrication - A Practical Guide to Semiconductor Processing By Peter Van Zant Mc Graw Hill 16 chapter over 500 pages including diagrams and illustrations Review by Bob Willis

Now this book is a little out of my field of expertise but if you can read through a text book knowing a little on the subject and find it easy to read and understandable its got to be useful for other engineers. Most people in the assembly industry never come directly into contact with semiconductor processing. The nearest engineers come is when things go wrong with devices or when considering flip chip and different bumping techniques.

I often say in my reviews there are not enough photographs in text book. In this case the remark is well founded as you will hard pressed to find any in this text. There are good sections on the industry, business and the infrastructure of the semiconductor market which complements the technical side. The author has drawn on his experience from his work with AT&T, IBM and British Telecom and working in various consultancy roles. The chapters start from first principles taking readers through the theory of how parts work, the basic types of substrate and why silicon is used.

There brief descriptions on MEMS microelectromechanical systems which is fascinating along with the production of micromachines, flat panel displays and of course the devices used in many projectors today for data projection from laptops.

I have often said that printed board assembly is a simple and uncomplicated process compared to PCB fabrication. The semiconductor processes put both in the shade for complexity. The chapter on device inspection and monitoring process yields is very interesting and again gives an insight to the complexity of the process used for devices we take for granted. Although complicated the explanation for most of the process stages is logical and easy to follow and a strong reference book.

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