By Karl Puttlitz and Paul A Totta
Publisher Kluwer Publishing
28 chapters, 1200 pages with photographs, illustrations and diagrams
ISBN 079237919 5

This is just a great text book but it has been kept a big secret to this reviewer, I have seen no reference to it since its launch, where was the marketing?

The first major book on Ball Grid Array Technology was written by John Lau in 1995 and I remember reading the book during a trip in Finland. This book is twice the size and written by engineers who lead the way in area array design, manufacture and assembly, IBM. Some engineers may think all the issues are done and dusted with BGA, they are not and here is the reference for you if you are new or a seasoned engineer. There is of course the issue that area array has a far wider scope than just the ball grid array parts that many engineers are familiar with.

The number of contributing IBM authors is very impressive Marie Cole is featured which is good news. The text is very well illustrated and provide a unique insight into the processes and procedures used within the organisation on component production and assembly. There are lots of nice tips to consider and possibly use in your own facility; learning from others that have already solved problems is always useful.

There is an excellent chapter on underfill and flip chip jointly written by IBM, Dexter and Motorola. This steps the reader through the materials, process and assembly stages and reliability assessment. There are examples of the type of equipment that can be used to assess effective assembly with some intriguing failure modes.

I guess the enthusiasm for the title comes across in the review; it's just disappointing that this title has not got the exposure since its first release. Sorry to John Lau but I have had to add this to my top ten books for this year but he has been in the chart since 1999.