Book Review

Fundamentals of Microsystems Packaging

by Rao R. Tummala, Georgia Institute of Technology

Publisher McGraw Hill, 2001, pages = 967. ~ $90.

More Universities are attempting graduate classes in Microelectronics Packaging. There are only a few books that try to cover the broad discipline and project the vision an engineer must have to navigate their projects through the packaging. Many professors and many experienced engineers have used Transaction articles and trade journal review articles to get up to speed, however this new book offers a more inclusive and integrated approach. In a way a book like this is needed to make our discipline visible to the general engineering and management community.

The book establishes quickly a sense of the importance to the economy and design of packaging. The history of electronics is also carefully outlined so that the importance of the advances in all levels of packaging can be understood. These are perhaps the most important parts of the book in establishing perspective and the heft of the discipline, but alas, most university classes will be too rushed to do anything but skip over these introductory chapters.

The stage is set by introduction to reliability concerns including thermal issues. Then chapters are dedicated to most of the important areas of concentration: single chip, IC assembly, wafer level packaging, passive devices, opto-electronics, RF, MEMs, and encapsulation. The board level and higher system assemblies are also addressed to the extent that they dictate constraints on Microsystem packaging.

The book has good problems at the end of chapters and highlights review pages of word definitions and important constants and material properties. It makes and excellent text. In addition, the writing is smooth with a nice sense of humor which makes it also a good evening read for those already having a day job.

There is nothing that seems to be lacking (except the time to absorb it all), but it may be of use for future editions to include a CD ROM that could have some video clips of packaging production lines. There is nothing like the blur of a wire bonder, the sounds and sight of a package molding machine pumping out parts, or the endless row of cell phones emerging from a manufacturing line to inject reality into pages of design rules and details.

-- reviewed by the editor