The "Printed Circuits Handbook" is THE printed circuit answer book, resolving more workaday questions than any other single source in electronics, covering the fundamentals of printed circuit design, fabrication, assembly, test, and quality. Top contributors from Motorola, Cisco, Compaq, Agilent, Hewlett-Packard, and other major companies have authored chapters.

This handbook does everything correct. Even with almost 50 chapter authors, the book refers to material in other chapters, has minimal repetition between chapters, is well written and edited, and contains a comprehensive glossary and an index that is useful. AND it includes a CD-ROM with the entire book in searchable format, which is very cool, because when you need an answer, there are few things more frustrating than being unable to find the answer that you KNOW is in the book.

As the reader would expect by the time a book reaches this level of refinement, improvements to the "Printed Circuits Handbook", which is an outstanding book, are incremental. Owners of the fourth edition should determine if the improved chapter-to-chapter flow, the rewritten and focused chapters, and the updated and expanded content of this edition suit their needs.

The book contains 60 chapters grouped in the following ten sections:

Section 1: "Introduction To Printed Circuits" introduces electronic packaging and high-density interconnect, semiconductor packaging, advanced packaging [i.e., SOP/SOC, MCM, etc.], and the types of printed wiring boards.

Section 2: "Materials" discusses base materials and their components, fabrication processes, and properties; issues of increasing densities; properties of base materials that require qualification; HDI microvia materials; and laminate qualification and testing.

Section 3: "Engineering And Design" overviews physical characteristics of PCB; design process; electrical and mechanical design parameters; controlled impedance; multilayer design considerations; and manufacturing issues of planning, information requirements, and contract assembly.

Section 4: "High-Density Interconnect" covers HDI generally and the specifics of build-up and microvia technologies.

Section 5: "Fabrication Processes" focuses on drilling, imaging, plating [i.e., electroplating, direct plating, electroless copper], etching and resists, machining, and testing of bare boards.

Section 6: "Assembly" concentrates on the production processes for printed circuit assemblies.

Section 7: "Soldering" addresses design for soldering and solderability, solder materials and processes, no-clean assembly process, lead-free soldering, fluxes and cleaning, and press-fit connections.

Section 8: "Quality Control And Reliability" describes acceptability of fabricated boards and assemblies, assembly inspection, design for testing, loaded board testing, and printed circuit assembly and component-to-PWB reliability.

Section 9: "Environmental Issues And Waste Treatment" reviews the changing environment for process waste minimization and treatment for board fabricators.

Section 10: "Flexible Circuits" outlines applications and materials, design, manufacturing, termination, special constructions, and quality assurance of flexible circuits.