Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science and Personalities (EDN Series for Design Engineers)

This is an excellent thought-kindling book, with depth on how EEs think, solve problems, and hammer out clever yet practical solutions. Every professional EE, electronics student and some scientists who depend on electronics, as well as anyone who loves tinkering with circuits, will get much out of this book. Processes of solving problems and creating solutions are in the foreground while essential concepts such as Kirchoff's Laws, transfer functions and semiconductor physics don't go away.There are five parts, though the 30 chapters could just as well be organized other ways. The variety of electronics topics covered is vast, though of course within the analog world and not much digital. But there is some digital: there is a great chapter with covers various ways to design a D2A. I usually toss together a simple R-2R ladder but there are subtleties to this craft I hadn't though of before. BTW, the readers most likely to derive insight and pleasure from this book, already know what "D2A" and "R-2R" refer to. Beginners with less knowledge may yet find career inspiration from most of the chapters, and use curiosity about unfamiliar concepts as launching points for personal study.The challenge of engineering is that engineers must kow-tow to the laws of physics and the cruel strictness of mathematics. There are also manufacturing and economics limitations. In other fields of Human endeavor such as politics or retail marketing, the main limitations are man-made, fuzzily-defined, and variable. Engineering must work within the hard realities of the physical world. One chapter is "Reality-based Analog Integrated Circuit Design". Given a tough new problem, how can an engineer come up with a superb solution when the great masters of the past have published and patented some very good designs for similar problems? Have we pushed up against what physical or manufacturing reality allows? There is always room for novel solutions applicable to any given niche. The great engineers of today will indeed surpass the great engineers of the past, with the right kind of thinking and a good understanding of new technologies. This is the main point of the book.This book won't become obsolete soon. The stories told may involve old technologies, even vacuum tubes. One chapter, "Reflections of a Dinosaur", acknowledges this, though actually that chapter doesn't show any vacuum tube schematics. (In fact, it covers the aforementioned D2A converters.) The thinking process, how to make use of what one has available to solve tomorrow's problems, is a decade-independent art.Physically, the book is well-built, hardcover and not falling apart after only a couple years like some books do.Enjoyable reading (for engineers), and a way to peer inside the minds of good engineers. A taste of real life as an EE, rather than the theory and processes of textbooks. This is among my few most favorite books.

This book is not directly about analog circuit design so much as it is about the founding members of analog design and how their backgrounds and individual philosophies and experiences shaped their work and influenced others. It is highly technical in areas, but a fascinating read which puts the all-important human face on technical development.

Excellent information

The chapters of this book, written by different authors, don't constitute so much a "how YOU can become a legendary analog designer" as they do "how I became a legendary analog designer". And that's a good thing. A cookbook that can make every reader a guru in any subject, analog circuit design in this case, just isn't going to happen. Seeing what worked for other people, and being able to ferret out the common threads with how their own brain works, will help the potential analog designer spot approaches that resonate with his or her own skills, and perhaps figure out their own personal path to expert level. Not everyone will, or can, reach the level these authors reached; they are all exceptional. But if just a little bit of understanding of what they they've done and how they did it rubs off, then this book will have served the reader well. But if you expect that reading it will make you a guru, you'll likely be disappointed.I especially enjoyed Chapter 17, Richard Burwyn's "How to Design Analog Circuits without a Computer or a Lot of Paper" because it smacks of practicality and parsimony. It describes practical methods and a relatively small number of things to memorize that'll save you loads of time later. But there are many good chapters -- for example, I got a much better understanding of how several common IC circuits *really* work (e.g., the Gilbert cell) after reading the chapters written by their inventors. Most people will like a few chapters a lot, and others not so much -- but it'll be different chapters for different people.I first encountered this book at my company's library several years ago, then after I left there, bought a copy for myself and recently, a copy for a friend. It's not a perfect book, but I think most people will find at least a few things in it that will make reading it worth their time.

Full of stories by and about the people who started the electronics age, and packed with circuit wisdom from the masters.

Great book for learning circuits design, use and troubleshooting at all levels. Kept at an easy pace, with lots of practical information.

Practical advice and very interesting reading.

I agree completely with the reviewer from SLC: there are some interesting insights, but too much ego invested in personal memoirs and irrelevant anecdotes of personal history.