Folks,
It is hard to imagine, but it has been just a little short of 13 years since Jim Hall, Phil Zarrow and I approached SMTA’s JoAnn Stromberg with a proposal to develop a certification workshop for SMT Process Engineers. The inaugural SMTA Process Engineer Certification workshop was held in the fall of 2002 at SMTAI in Chicago. Since then, many hundreds of women and men have been certified as SMTA process engineers.
Shortly after the certification workshops started, it occurred to me that a textbook that covered the same material could fill a need in the electronics assembly industry. Although there are many excellent books that cover design, packaging, advanced technology, etc., it did not appear that a book existed that would explain how to setup and perform the many SMT processes. As I began writing, I recruited Jim Hall and Dartmouth grad students Kathy Hickey and Jennifer Tate to be my co-authors.
Our resulting book, entitled Handbook of Electronic Assembly and A Guide to SMTA Certification, has just been released by SMTA. It is ideal for someone new to the industry who wants to know how to design a stencil, set up a reflow profile from a solder paste specification, time-balance a line, trouble-shoot failures, and many other practical aspects of being a successful SMT process engineer. It should also serve as a good reference for experienced SMT process engineers.
I hope that you find it helpful.
Cheers,
Dr. Ron