Book excerpt: This book discusses the building blocks of electronic circuits - the microchips, transistors, resistors, condensers, and so forth, and the boards that support them - from the point of view of mechanics: What are the stresses that result from thermal expansion and contraction? What are the elastic parameters that determine whether a component will survive a certain acceleration? After an introduction to the elements of structural analysis and finite-element analysis, the author turns to components, data and testing. A discussion of leadless chip carriers leads to a detailed thermal analysis of pin grid arrays. For compliant leaded systems, both mechanical (bending and twisting) and thermal stresses are discussed in detail. The book concludes with discussions of the dynamic response of circuit cards, plated holes in cards and boards, and the final assembly of cards and boards.