Many books, including this one, tell you how reflow soldering should work. Dr. Lee's book goes beyond those basics, to tell you in great detail what most other books do not long dwell upon: what to do when reflow soldering does not work as expected. How to identify the problems. How to cure or compensate for problems to achieve good solder reflow interconnections. How to use the defects themselves to eliminate defects and to optimize your solder reflow process.

The first four chapters are a clear and complete exposition of reflow soldering and of surface mount assembly processes. They cover surface mount technology in general, solders and solder pastes, and the beginning-to-end steps in surface mount assembly. Nourishment for the technical mind ranges from the organic chemistry of fluxes to equations relating surface tension and solder spread. These four chapters provide an excellent summary of how reflow soldering is supposed to work.

The next seven chapters place a strong focus on trouble-shooting. Not on how things go when all is well, but on what things can go wrong, and how to fix, to compensate for, or to work around them when they do go wrong. The logical structure is clear: three chapters on reflow problems, titled "Before Reflow," "During Reflow," and "After Reflow." Three chapters on the special techniques and the potential problems encountered in solder bumping area array packages, in assembling and reworking BGA & CSP packages, and in reflowing solder-bumped flip chips. Each chapter first covers the required materials and processes, and then details all of the potential problems that might be encountered, and how best to solve them.

The capstone chapter describes how to optimize a reflow process through the proper analysis of the defect mechanisms encountered. This chapter requires 39 sub-sections to systematically step through identifying, analyzing, and correcting defects. It turns defect analysis into a powerful tool for optimizing the reflow process. Further discussion extends this optimization approach to other alloys and systems, and suggests that your creativity might carry it still further.

The final chapter is a now-obligatory look at the "lead-free" juggernaut bearing down on the industry, with some recognition that this juggernaut carries its own baggage of potential problems.

Dr. Lee makes good use of the large (7 by 10 inch) format to place multiple graphics on almost every page. At less than one inch thick, this 280-page book can be easily slipped into an ordinary briefcase, and carried without muscle strain. Some current reviews incorrectly state that this book has 384 pages. Apparently they copied another book's page count from the multiple back cover blurbs, instead of opening the book themselves.

An extensive list of references to technical literature follows each chapter, although only a specialist or a nut case would need to dig deeper than the material included in Dr. Lee's book. My major criticism of the book is that the title doesn't do full justice to Dr. Lee's unique approach. "Troubleshooting Reflow Soldering for Health and Happiness" would be my choice.