Bob Willis' Top Ten Reference Books

What can you say about one of the top reference books on printed circuit board manufacture now in its 5th edition. Its page count has gone up by some 100 pages and now it has 61 chapters with a price tag of just below £100. Not only do you get a great text book but also a CD-ROM version of the book. It is fully illustrated and great for those people who live out of their laptops.

There are wealth of great chapters which make a new appearance in this edition like the section on PCB documentation and process information. This is often an area where simple mistakes can be made, especially now we all send design data by e-mail. We often forget vital information, this section written by Clyde Parrish picks up on many of the issues like aperture lists, correct nomlicature sizing, and of course what standards are being specified. The complementary chapter from Steven Allen is a must read if you are going to sub-out assembly. Its good basic stuff but how many things are also forgotten when dealing with a contractor.

The subject of microvia is covered in many chapters with a little bit of overlap but it is not a problem, it just serves to push home the issues of size reduction. The small vias get the issues of plating, copper preparation and reliability come into play. Although most people are aware of the different techniques of laser, plasma and photo via fabrication. They may often not be aware of the massive development in materials to make these techniques work successfully.

Although there are some very good text books directly dealing with flexible circuits Dominique Numakura's chapters dealing with material and manufacturing issues were very good. The only weak area was the assembly issues which no one has really covered fully in detail, an area where improvements could be made; especially with the growing interest in flexibles and polyimide out skims and the potential for failures of microvias it is a must understand technology.

McGraw Hill do have a great collection of text books specifically for our industry and probably have a collection second to none. They even have Advanced Printed Circuits by Charles Harper which could be considered a competitor to the world famous Coombs title. But no, Coombs wins I think.

The book has always been in my top and still remains so after more than 10 years, If you have not got a copy buy one. If you still have version 3 its worth updating you copy and passing your old copy to a colleague.

Back to Book Review Index