-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueIntelligent Test and Inspection
Are you ready to explore the cutting-edge advancements shaping the electronics manufacturing industry? The May 2025 issue of SMT007 Magazine is packed with insights, innovations, and expert perspectives that you won’t want to miss.
Do You Have X-ray Vision?
Has X-ray’s time finally come in electronics manufacturing? Join us in this issue of SMT007 Magazine, where we answer this question and others to bring more efficiency to your bottom line.
IPC APEX EXPO 2025: A Preview
It’s that time again. If you’re going to Anaheim for IPC APEX EXPO 2025, we’ll see you there. In the meantime, consider this issue of SMT007 Magazine to be your golden ticket to planning the show.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
The Authors of the Printed Circuits Handbook 'Speak'
August 30, 2016 | I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Editor’s Note: The seventh edition of the Printed Circuits Handbook was published this spring, which was also the 50th anniversary of the first edition. For this issue—“Voices”—we asked the many authors of the handbook for their thoughts—their voices. We asked a few questions to get them started; though not everyone spoke strictly about the handbook, we found their comments interesting and thought-provoking, and we hope you do as well. We begin with a wonderful history of the Handbook by the main man himself, Clyde Coombs.
Clyde Coombs Editor-in-Chief (Chapter 1)
The Printed Circuits Handbook is now in its seventh edition, and we are observing the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first edition. This long-term level of importance in an industry is remarkable, but the need for this book seems obvious today. This is to put the concept of the book into the context of the industry when the first edition was published, and try to explain why there was a book in the first place, and what led to this long string of successful subsequent editions.
Touring a modern, technology- and capital-intensive, highly-automated printed circuit factory of today, supported by a staff of trained specialists, many with advanced degrees in science, engineering and systems, would be a totally different experience than touring a printed circuit shop of 1959. For the most part, those shops were the creation of entrepreneur artisan platers or silk screeners, and the facilities were called “bucket shops” for good reasons. With the exception of IBM, Collins Radio, RCA, and a few others, along with the founding members of IPC, the estimated several thousand shops in the United States (numbers at the time ranged from 4,000 to 7,000) were operated by rules of thumb, years of experience in related trades, and generally considered an art, not a technology.
Shops were divided into two categories: captives, which made boards as a part of a vertically integrated OEM, and independents, which made and sold boards to OEMs that did not make their own. Both categories of shops could be justified since it was generally accepted that it did not take significant technical skill, or a large capital expenditure to start a shop. However, in 1959, the printed circuit world was on the brink of a major revolution that few shops were prepared to cope with, and most shop managers did not understand. The spark for this was the sudden introduction, and swift adoption, of the transistor into electronic devices. As vacuum tubes disappeared, and more functionality was designed onto much smaller boards, there was a sudden need to be able to connect circuits on both sides of a board reliably.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the August 2016 issue of SMT Magazine.
Suggested Items
Hunting for Clues: Feng Xue Solving Circuit Board 'Crimes' With AOI Standard
05/08/2025 | Linda Stepanich, IPCWhen residents in sleepy English villages needed a top-tier detective to solve a murder, they called on Belgian super-sleuth Hercule Poirot, author Agatha Christie’s fictional detective famous for using his “little grey cells” to solve crimes. In the same way, IPC standards development committees, when creating a standard to detect defects in circuit boards using Automated Optical Inspection (AOI), call on IPC A-Team, Hercule.
IPC Strengthens Global Focus with Promotion of Sanjay Huprikar to Chief Global Officer
05/08/2025 | IPCIPC, the global electronics association, announces the promotion of Sanjay Huprikar to chief global officer. This newly created position reflects the association’s forward-looking strategy and industry needs to strengthen the electronics supply chain.
Navigating Global Manufacturing in an Era of Uncertainty
05/07/2025 | Philip Stoten, ScoopThe EMS industry faces unprecedented challenges as global trade tensions rise and tariff announcements create market uncertainty. In an overview of IPC Europe’s podcast, MADE IN EUROPE, industry experts from GPV and Zollner examine how these developments impact our businesses and customers, and what strategies will prevail in this new landscape.
Nick Koop Launches IPC Flex Design Class
05/06/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineNick Koop is director of flex technology for TTM Technologies, and he’s been a staple of IPC’s flex committees for decades. He’s also a longtime flex design instructor, and he’s about to debut a new IPC class, Flex and Rigid-Flex Design for Manufacturability, which will run May 12–21. In this interview, Nick tells us about this new class and what attendees can expect to learn.
The Government Circuit: Trump’s Trade War Disrupts the Electronics Ecosystem
05/06/2025 | Chris Mitchell -- Column: The Government CircuitThere is certainly no shortage of work to be done in the IPC Government Relations department, as the U.S. waged a tariff campaign on practically every industrial country in the world and several countries embarked on high-tech initiatives with a mix of approaches to the crucial foundations of electronics manufacturing. Indeed, the breadth and speed of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign continues to be a serious challenge for our industry.