Title: Introduction to Microfabrication Author: Dr. Sami Franssila Publisher: Wiley ISBN: 0-470-85105-8 (HB)

Reviewed by Ron Iscoff, Editor [chipscale@gmail.com]

This book is a long-overdue and outstanding addition to the field of microfabrication. Collectively, we've been tossing the term, "microfabrication," around for a couple of decades without really giving much thought to what it means beyond making things on a micro level!

Dr. Sami Franssila, director of the Microelectronics Centre at the Helsinki University of Technology, has brought a sense of cohesiveness to the field with this work. First published in 2004 as a hardcover, Wiley has reprised it in a soft-cover edition at about half its original price.

It is, the author admits, primarily a textbook. Still, due to the extensive ground Dr. Franssila covers, it performs double duty as a formidable reference source on microfabrication, as well. This topic, says the author, is generic and its applications include a range of devices including ICs, MEMS, microfluidics, micro-optics, nanotechnology "and countless others."

Dr. Franssila eschews what he terms a "common feature of older textbooks," a concentration on physics and chemistry, plasma potentials, boundary layers, diffusion mechanisms and so forth. "Microfabrication is an engineering discipline," he observes, "not physics and chemistry."

According to the author, the central theme behind his book and the unifying idea is to look at the common and generic features in microfabrication. Another major emphasis is on the materials employed. Materials, after all, are universal, and, says Franssila, "not outdated rapidly."

We would like to see more graphics in Dr. Franssila's book, but the shortage of graphics is our almost universal complaint and one we make about the majority of books in the electronics field.

Major categories discussed include materials, basic processes, structures, integration, tools for microfabrication, manufacturing and the future of microintegration. Detailed "Contents" and "Index" sections will assist the reader in need of a brief refresher on various aspects of microfabrication.

As useful as this book should be to many users, it is likely that students and working engineers will still need to refer to the more traditional works that do center around physics and chemistry for the complete picture. [wiley.com]