Book Reviews – Jerry E. Sergent, Ph.D.
“Hermeticity of Electronic Packages”
by Hal Greenhouse, Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, New Jersey, William Andrew Publishing, LLC, Norwich, NY, 2001
Many of us consider the leak rate of a package as simply another test to be performed providing another data point with little comprehension of the test or how it relates to performance. The book, “Hermeticity of Electronic Packages,” by Hal Greenhouse, at long last, clears up a little-understood aspect of reliability.
The book does not deal with package sealing or failure modes as such, but with the mechanisms by which gases of various types flow in and out of packages. For those of us who have dealt with leak testing of hermetic packages for many years, this book provides an understanding of the helium leak test and how it relates to practical situations. Hal has accumulated a vast amount of data that previously has been scattered about in numerous references and presents a number of practical examples in detail that relate to almost every situation.
The book is very well written and easy to understand. He begins with the fundamental gas laws and from there to gas flow in and out of packages. He progresses from there to a detailed explanation of how the helium leak test is performed and how to interpret the data. He finishes with a treatise on residual gas analysis and how it relates to reliability.
I highly recommend this book to everyone dealing with hermetic packages.
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