Reviews (1)

Reviews (2)

If your looking for derivations - this is the wrong book
If your looking for derivations - this is the wrong book for you
There is also a shortage analysis techniques.

This book is packed with quick formula and would might be quite useful as implied by the "design handbook" name. Some of the later chapters cover some interesting details but could use more discussion which is quite brief throughout the text. See contents.

Isbn: 0750633557
Sales Rank: 851168
Subjects:  1. Electromagnetic compatibility    2. Electronic Circuits    3. Electronics - Circuits - General    4. Electronics - General    5. Engineering - Electrical & Electronic    6. Printed circuits    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Technology    9. Technology & Industrial Arts    10. Telecommunications    11. Communications engineering / telecommunications    12. Technology / Electronics / General   

Reviews (6)

Excellent book!
Superb reference with large numbers of practical circuits,
design ideas, and test measurement techniques. This is THE
book for any engineer interested in learning about RF techniques.
The "Horowitz and Hill" of RF circuits.

Must-Have for all RF folks
A great book with lots of practical information.
The software is working fine and I use it a lot,
espically the lowpass filter design program saves
me a lot of time.

Reviews (23)

Mostly a very solid book
Great book.BTW, the author lists a LOT of errata on his website, enough to take over an hour to mark up my copy (5th printing).Although it's nice he documents this so well, it's a pain in the rear, so you may want to verify the edition you're buying to avoid this extra effort. On page vi, above ISBN, look for reverse sequence; example: "10 9 8 7" indicates 7th printing (cryptic, I know).Most recent printing is 15th edition (least amount of errata).The book is loaded with equations and diagrams.It would be nice to see more derivations, but at least the equations are there in the text, and in the appendix.I thought a few other reviewers were a bit harsh.The book is not perfect, but nevertheless a great resource.His second book is impressive, but more advanced; this original title is my "workhorse" book.also, check out his website (sigcon.com) for lots of articles and resources.

one of the best books around
I dont know what the other reviewers are blabbing about...being an ASIC designer myself..I felt this book was the best introduction I could get to cross-talk, signal integrity, EMC and Metastability. Been through and done that a lot of times, but still this is one of the best things around

Useful book if you need a cook book, however ........
This book is useful if you want to have a long series of equations available in one place to jog your memory. But if you want to learn something useful and practical- and real-world -then perhaps you would be better off doing a web search for application notes, tutorial papers, and articles, particularly from semiconductor manufacturers, and vendors of high-performance test equipment such as Agilent, Tektronix, and others.

To take one example (page 134,) Johnson purports to describe problems associated with a wire-wrapped prototype processor board containing TTL devices operating at high edge rates ( 2 ns.) According to Johnson, the design engineers failed to realize that the circuits would ring excessively, making the board unusable. To "prove" this he posits a model consisting of a 30 ohm TTL driver, with a 2 ns rise time, a 4" length of wire with 89 nH of self inductance, and a 15pf load - a series LRC circuit. Yes, this circuit will ring wildly, but the model is totally incorrect. The TTL input is not considered, which has a relatively low input impedance in the low state since it is current operated. This circuit -effectively a parallel LRC - does not ring nearly as much, as any experienced engineer knows. As a reality check, remember that wire wrap was successfully used for years by thousand of engineers. To listen to Johnson, though, this technology is almost unusable. Wire wrap circuits do ring, but under his example, the real amount of overshoot/undershoot is well within the limits of TTL. Further, no real circuit produces textbook looking traces, so the role of experience is to learn what worst-case design means, and what is acceptable for good manufacturing yield. Lesson: real experience teaches you how to produce correct, functional models. An incorrect model will cause you grief.

Much could have been done here, to be useful, by way of analysis and of recommendation. The wire should have been modeled as part of a transmission line, not as a lumped element, which any high speed digital design engineer would know, and the idea of terminating a transmission line should have been introduced. This is standard fare. Even with the series LRC, instead of deriving the formula for critical damping, he instead says: "This approximation (reduce Q to .5)is derived from the solution to a second order linear differential equation describing an RLC low pass filter. First find the point at which the derivative of the solution passes through zero (a maximum point) and then evaluate the solution at that point."

Got that? Take the derivative of a solution you want to find? Any book on circuits will reduce this to the solution of a quadratic equation. Obfuscating something that's really elementary does not help produce genuine insight. But this is what Johnson does throughout the book.

Reviews (9)

Dissappointing. Good subject, poorly covered.
I was very disappointed with this book. It covers a very useful subject, but it is not well written. Almost every section was done better in other books covering the same material. It will be hard to prove how bad this book is, since on the surface everything seems to be there. However, as somebody who have read many books on this subject it was painful to read this one. It is more like a cut and paste job putting together well-known material without any new insights.

Despite its shortcomings, people who are not familiar with this subject can find this book remarkable and very useful.

Suggested Reading:

Howard Johnson's "Black Magic" and "Advanced Black Magic" books are definitely more pleasant to read while at a similar basic level. More advanced books on the same subjects include the classic work " Electromagnetic Compatibility" by Clayton Paul and of course most books on Microwave engineering.Brian Young's "Digital Signal Integrity"-although being less practical is a nicely done basic book discussing modeling and simulation of signal integrity.

Excellent Book for Beginner and Experienced Engineers
Well organized book that does not skip on details. It explains in a clear and concise manner transmission line issues such as reflections, the why's and how's of matching impedance, and crosstalk among others.

Reviews (1)

Isbn: 0412122715
Sales Rank: 1466400
Subjects:  1. Design and construction    2. Electronic Apparatus And Devices    3. Electronic apparatus and appli    4. Electronic apparatus and appliances    5. Electronics - General    6. Engineering - Electrical & Electronic    7. Heat    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Technology    10. Technology & Industrial Arts    11. Thermal Properties Of Materials    12. Thermal properties    13. Transmission    14. Technology / Electronics / Circuits / General   

Reviews (8)

What's wrong with me ? I now find thermal flow interesting !
Curse Mr. Kordyban - he's get me all interested in thermal flow now. This book is great ! It flows [huh] really well, is relatively humourous (no, really), and gets across some basic lessons in electronics cooling.A must read for all you overclockers who are having to put bigger and bigger heatsinks on everything.I followed a few simple recommendations in this book, (just repositioning a few components and adjusting airflow) and now my computers run much cooler (and more stably). Now I can't walk into a datacenter without looking for the ac units, and checking for fans, drive positioning etc. This is a field that I'm convinced is going to be much more important in the future - this handbook is a great introduction to the field and some real practical things you can use right now.If you are looking for some honking big text book, this isn't for you.But who is ?

Great Read, Good Practical Information
As a practicing electronics design engineer I found the information in the book very interesting.So often the only way to really grasp engineering is through encountering real world problems and having to figure out what is going on.This "opps" engineering approuch is a slow one.This book takes a wealth of real world thermal engineering problems and presents them in a fun, easy to read format giving you the information so you don't have to make the same mistake.It also gives some history behind various industry standards and myths.

The only addition I would have liked would have been a discussion of horizontally mounted PCB's and how heat transfers from these boards.

A great read.

Refreshing Thermal issues
Started reading, simply could not stop.Direct and to the point, this book based on real facts is simply refreshing, a great source of valuable technical information presented in a very easy to understand and "humorous" fashion, that will keep you going and going and going.

Reviews (3)

Quality of design
N. Edward Walker, The Design Analysis Handbook. A Practical Guide to Design Validation. Newnes, 1998 A Review This is a very daring and matter-of-fact book. It deals with a very important issue: how to handle the uncertainty involved in the design of electronic circuits. This uncertainty has several sources: 1. The equations one uses in design are based on assumptions that simplify the real life situation; 2. The actual values of the electronic components differ from their nominal values; 3. The human error in handling the complex equations can seldom be avoided. The effects of these uncertainties often become visible in the late stages of product development, when correction measures are costly, if not ineffective, so that the final product does not meet the quality requirements.Ed. Walker's approach is consistent with the principles of concurrent engineering. He advocates the cooperation within a team of design and quality engineers, in order to get the product right the first time, by avoiding the bugs in the R&D and design phases. The first chapter examines the state-of-the-art of the design and Q&R engineering practices, pointing to the extending gulf between the two disciplines. The importance of robust design validation is emphasized and the disadvantages of the present tools and methods are mentioned. These will be examined in detail with some excitingly polemic overtones in chapter 5, under the heading "bad science". In the second chapter, a new kind of worst-case analysis is introduced, more efficient than the classical Monte Carlo simulation approach. The outcome of this analysis is a procedure for risk assessment and a methodology for design correction and optimization. Next, in the third chapter, several design validation topics are considered and computer-aided solutions are presented, notably the software tool Design Master that accompanies the book. I used this software in a teaching environment and I was impressed by its high quality. The author practices what he preaches, so that the software product he delivers has all the "abilities" involved by the "total" quality concept: usability, reliability, supportability, portability and so on. However, quality validation of software products is a topic not examined in-depth. The safety analysis presented in chapter 4 introduces in simple and straightforward manner methods like FMEA and FTA, which are extensively dealt with elsewhere, but within an excessively sophisticated framework. The last chapter offers useful and interesting tips for electronic circuit quality analysis. The "difficult" subjects, such as Power and Thermal analysis, Grounding and Layout and EMI / Noise control, usually avoided in textbooks, are duly examined in detail. The case studies concerning Rectifier Circuits, Power Supplies, Digital circuits are completely worked-out, so that everyone can use them as an available guide. The appendices provide templates for analysis reports, a framework for the application of the original methods proposed in the book and a whimsical overview of engineering projects.Th book is a no-nonsense, straightforward approach to difficult and sophisticated quality issues that can arise in an engineering environment. It provides useful guidelines, powerful tools and effective methods for total quality improvement and assurance.

An outstanding alternative to monte carlo simulation
The first four or five chapters of this book explain in detail the statistical analysis technique WCA+.The text is easy to read and requires only a limited probability and statistics background to understand how to apply the technique.The remaining chapters give concrete examples from the electrical engineering field.As a mechanical engineer I found the first few chapters very helpful and I have applied the technique successfully many times. Statistical design engineering is a must today and the WCA+ method is an excellent alternative monte carlo simulation. If you are concerned with the response of your system at the extreme values of the inputs then, this book is a must because monte carlo simulation just doesn't suffice.

Reviews (3)

Utter Disappointment
This book is a complete disappointment from preface to index.

If you're a math-geek who's intent is to design a network analyzer, this book may be for you.However, if your intent is to design-in an OpAmp and make it work, buy any other text out there.

If you're used to the ol' -Rf/Ri (inverting) or 1+Rf/Ri (non-inverting) formulas for amplifier designs, you'll be as dumbfounded as I was when you see how the author spins the formulas around into expressions that are completely unusable for quick estimation.The author assumes we (as engineers) don't have access to network analyzers or software circuit simulators, and still keep slide-rules in our top-drawer.

Additionally, the author's sections on PCB layout is esoteric and not much help beyond the obvious.

Get yourself a decent OpAmp "cookbook", you'll learn far more from a "this is how they did it" approach than this author's methodology.

Optimizing Op Amp Performance Made Easier
This book is an excellent treatment of this subject that is intuitive and not overly theoretical.It draws together a lot of material available in magazines and on vendor websites, but not available in book format.The author starts with the traditional op amp symbol, and derives Black's classic feedback model for various configurations (inverting, non-inverting, etc) of the op amp.A generalized expression for the closed loop gain is eventually obtained where the numerator is the ideal closed loop gain, and the denominator contains the frequency response that can be analyzed with the aid of the Bode plot.Practical design issues are logically addressed using this simple formalism including bandwidth, phase compensation for input and output capacitances, power supply by-pass requirements, distortion, etc.Care is taken to indicate what conclusions apply to all op amp configurations, and which address specific design issues.As a writer, the author is very pointed in his approach and thorough with his analyses; and will not win any awards for fiction suited for a general audience.However, I highly recommend the book to anyone trying to learn how to use op amps in a systematic way.

Reviews (6)

excellent book to start real-world circuit design
This book contains good amount of practical information and is clear and easy-reading.For people who are fresh out of college, this book bridges the textbook education with the real-world circuit design.Get it now to help you make your first job easier.

Must have reference for everyone...
Everywhere I have worked I've made sure we have lots of copies of this on hand... Many of them walk away because it's such a good reference.If you ever need to design or build a product or just a fun project and have itwork, start from here.Everything you won't learn in school, and industryjust calls "experience".Combine this with High Speed DigitalDesign: A Handbook of Black Magic and you have an extremely powerfulcombination of references, covering all the details you need to know.Veryhighly recommended.

Reviews (4)

Save your money
An expensive book with little meat. Whole chapters dedicated to basic electromagnetism. Nice if it was a primer on electromag but this is supposed to be a focused book.
Buy"Noise Reduction tech. in Electronic Systems" Henry W. Ott. Much better book for the money.

The classic text on analog grounding and shielding.
The first 3 editions of this book had "In Instrumentation" in the title, the name change reflects an added focus on digital electronics, but the emphasis on analog is still there. The book was and is outstanding in its explanation of how to calculate the magnitude of interference from all kinds of external sources on analog signals between sensors and instrumentation or between instruments, and how to thus select a grounding and shielding system which meets requirements. I have used its methods to solve grounding and shielding problems many times during 20+ years as a field engineer troubleshooting new machinery control installations. It may not the best book for learning digital signal integrity design issues, but does introduce the subject clearly.

Reviews (7)

Very good active filters book
Is a good active filters book but, for a good understand, I recommend to work with synthesis software like FiltersCAD at www.filterscad.com

A hands-on, real-world active filter cookbook...
I bought the second edition cookbook in the early '90s. I have used Mr. Lancasters' book to design many audio active filters. I am ordering another copy of the "Active Filter Cookbook" because I gave away my other copy to an engineer in Asia (while on a business trip) who desparately needed it. The math is kept to a minimum, but very accurate if good quality parts (Op-Amps, resistors, caps etc) are used. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific topic, which makes reading very easy. Mr. Lancaster arms the reader with the tools neccessary to understand, build and/or modify existing designs. I would only recommend this book to readers who have built previous projects, as Mr. Lancaster does not go into any construction details/techniques.

Reviews (21)

A Book Where Brain, Knowledge and Sense of Humor Meet
This book was the reason i enjoyed my undergrad logic design class (which used another [bad] textbook): this is a strong book with strong explanations, thinking reasonings, nice examples, thorough VHDL and Verilog sections, lots of 'real-world' information.The author is precise, logical, goes deep but very straightforward, and funny (!).Where our textbook had gabs, where my professor's lectures were vague, where all other explanations seemed cheesy to me - Wakerly just filled me up.

Too rigid, too formal and very dry
There is no doubt that Wakerly' book is the most popular digital design book used for U.S universities, but that doesn't mean that his book is the best. In my opinion, Wakerly' book is too formal. He doesn't make it easy for you to understand simple concept. For example: He describes a multiplexer with a sigma notation. While it is technically correct, it is not the most intuitive way to teach a beginner. Moreover, as the author admitted himself in the preface, he put a lot of unnecessary and seldom used topic just to make his book thick. A lot of advanced topic introduced much too early, making his book very intimidating and confusing for beginners. A lot of schematics in the book are given as is without clear explanation. This book is too much for beginner and too little for experts. A new edition is coming up later this year, hopefully the author listens to my suggestion.

Reviews (1)

This book saved my life
This text is an excellent introduction into the world of EMC. It provides valuable knowledge, rules of thumb, and techniques garnered from decades of experience in the agency certification arena.

While the book's focus is mainly on FCC certification for notebook computers I found it easy to relate with the DO-160D guidelines I was attempting to meet.

Terrell and Keenan provide the reader with as nice a read as the material inside. For an engineering text it is wonderfully written and provides brief moments of wit and humor that make it very easy to move through.

Reviews (3)

Want to understand .options?
Among all the books which I have come across about SPICE, this is about the best book you can find. Similar to any analog circuit design, setting all the optional parameters appropriately is always a game of trade-off among simulation speed, accuracy, and stability. I came across this book while I was working on a crystal oscillator. It has done a decent job in explaining the intricate spice parameters, such as timestep control options and numeric integration methods, without asking the reader to first become a mathematician. Nevertheless, finishing this book does not mean you will be able to solve all the convergence problems. In my opinion, the best approach to understanding spice is to experiment with the settings frequently to gain a true feeling of how they interact. I give it 4 stars because there are a lot of repeititions in the book, meaning that the author would often repeat a point using different sentences. If there is an important concept, state it once or twice, but not three or four times... The repetitive sentences gave me the feeling that he was worried the book might turn out to be too short. Having said that, I still recommend this book to any circuit designer who really desires to make their transient sims fast and accurate.

This is an excellent book
This book is a must if you plan on doing any serious work with spice.It focus on the convergence of simulation rather than the circuit.So if you are looking for an introductory book, this one might be a bit too heavy. However, I like the CD rom, which includes RSpice and Rgraph.There seemsto be no restriction in terms of number of devices used.

Over all, thisis a very good book for engineers in practice.

Reviews (2)

Excellent book on spice modeling
I have been a SPICE user for a few years, but have never really known much about it beyond what it does. I needed to model a new device, and started looking for a program to do so. After i discovered the extreamly high cost, i decided to buy this book. The book is well laid out, with a nice focus on practical work. It doesn't talk about the general's of SPICE, so you may want to try his other book as well. However I found the book to be extreamly useful, and the book is well-written so I found that I didn't need another (intro to SPICE) book to figure out the syntax of SPICE. There are several examples you can study, so probably you could figure it out from them.
The only problem is that sometimes the author refers you to using expensive equipment to measure a real devics parameters. However you do not need this, and the book shows you how to get the required information off of a datasheet. The book's pretty expensive, but nice. Make sure you check out the sample chapters to decide if the books for you!

Isbn: 0070381860
Sales Rank: 507794
Subjects:  1. Electronic apparatus and appli    2. Electronic apparatus and appliances    3. Electronic circuits    4. Electronics - Circuits - General    5. Engineering - Electrical & Electronic    6. Handbooks, manuals, etc    7. Maintenance and repair    8. Science/Mathematics    9. Technology    10. Technology & Industrial Arts    11. Technology / Electronics / Circuits / General   

Reviews (8)

Must have for serious engineers...
A fun read, and an excellent reference filling the huge gap between datasheets and most texts.A must have for anyone who touches hardware.I can't count the number of times I've gone to this book whenever I'm not quite using a device as intended, or I've got a sinking feeling I'm about to shoot myself in the foot with a design.I own *lots* of books and this book is packed with useful info that isn't found in any of them and isn't all that intuitive to start with.

Superb!
Even for a seasoned engineer, there are useful tidbits and tricks in here that can really save you.... Lots of stuff is just common sense, but it's the little nuggets of gold hidden within this book that make it a worthwhile read. If you're just starting your career as an Electrical Engineer or technician, this book will make a tremendous resource. For the amateur, there's lots of good stuff in here such as diagrams for nifty and inexpensive test equipment - learn how to build your own active scope probe for [very little]! Well written and humorous it's not a heavy technical read, but one that will definitely impart some very valuable knowledge.

Great Book!
Great book! I got this book and read it in a matter of two days, its really good!