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August 2016 • The PCB Design Magazine 27 The result was no standard and low confidence. Rising to meet these issues, however, a series of patents filed in the early 1960s introduced a chemistry that had a time-controlled reduction and resulted in copper deposited on the surface that did not require a sanding process. I've al- ways felt that this was one of the most impor- tant technical advances of the twentieth cen- tury, and also the least appreciated. It became a commercial product from Shipley Chemical. We made two instruments with boards plated with this chemistry, and after full stress test- ing and evaluation, all discussion of eyelets stopped, and within six months all HP active boards were being made this way. The rest of the electronics industry took a little longer, but the plated through-hole has been at the heart of almost all electronic devices ever since. At this time, the San Francisco Bay area was dominated by relatively large captive shops, with a number of small independents. I took this opportunity to leverage the Hewlett-Pack- ard name and get invitations to visit as many of these shops as possible. The captives were just proud to show what they could do, while the independents saw us as a possible customer, but, in any case, not competitors. As a result, people were quite candid in telling me what they were doing. After a few visits, it became obvious that everybody was doing it the same way, thinking they had something unique. But it also became clear that what we were talking about was just chemistry, and of course it was basically the same. Since the people I had met did not feel competitive, I suggested that print- ed circuit association for our area might offer an opportunity for suppliers and users to get to- gether to discuss technology issues confronting each. The result was the California Circuits As- sociation (CCA). I had no idea how this would play out, but it grew from the five charter mem- bers in the Bay Area to three chapters, includ- ing two in Southern California, and more than 150 members at its peak. The biggest thing for me, however, was that I got to know who was doing what, and, more important, who really knew what. One of the early efforts by the CCA was to hold a one-day seminar on all aspects of through-hole plating, featuring a PhD from Stanford Research Institute, Ed Duffek, and his technical assistant, Ernie Armstrong. It included the chemistry of getting a reliable coating down in the holes. The event sold out immediately, and we could have used a much bigger audito- rium and charged much more. That's how hun- gry people were for real information. As part of the cost of admission, we provided a summary of all the information Ed and Ernie presented (this later became the basis for the chapter on plating in the first edition). With the success of the Plating Seminar, we asked if there were other parts of the printed circuit process that would yield similar interest and we decided that just about all parts of the process would get a big reception. However, be- ing a volunteer organization, we did not have the resources to repeat this effort very often, and we decided to concentrate on monthly meetings. The need for real information was still there, however, and those with expertise in each pro- cess step were clear, so I decided that it was time to rectify the problem that there was no author- it ative book on printed circuits in print. Every book that was available was done by a single au- thor and tended to concentrate on that person's field. I felt that a contributed handbook, which is a McGraw-Hill specialty, could allow the use of a leader in each area. I made a formal propos- al to McGraw-Hill based on this approach, and they sent it to a board of review for comment. One reviewer said he thought it would be OK, another said it represented a discussion of an unimportant issue and would be a huge mistake, a third said it was a great idea and McGraw-Hill would probably find they couldn't print them fast enough. The third rev iewer was right. " Every book that was available was done by a single author and tended to concentrate on that person's field. " THE AUTHORS OF THE PRINTED CIRCUITS HANDBOOK SPEAK