Customer Reviews

Analog Integrated Circuit Design

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In my opinon, this is one of the better books on analog circuit design available for practicing engineers. I disagree with the reviews that state that there is not enough emphasis on rigorous calculations. Analog design is an iterative art, not a theoretical science. In short, straight forward algorithms to develop complex analog circuits don't exist - at least not in a form that would allow timely completion of robust designs. Analog design is a highly intuitive process that works best when simple hand calculations, which indicate the magnitude and direction of first (and sometimes second) order transistor effects, are combined with complex computer simulations which prove out detailed functionality over the required operating conditions.

This book accomplishes its purposes superbly by providing many different circuit topologies and describing their advantages and disadvantages based on straightforward design principles. Those who have difficulty dealing with mathematical uncertainty are not likely to develop into good analog designers and should probably stick to designing digital circuitry, which can be approached in a much more systematic fashion. But those who's livelihood's depend on inventing timely solutions to analog IC design conundrums will find themselves referring to this book time and time again.

My one complaint with this book is the price, approximately 3 times what I would consider fair market value. Nevertheless books of this caliber are rare and the price did not ultimately dissuade me from grudgingly coughing up the purchase price.

I have read or reviewed several texts and articles in the areaof analog circuit design, and find this book inadequate for severalreasons. Firstly, the section on Op Amp compensation is full of design procedures which are inherently erroneous and in many ways counter-intuitive. The procedure requires many iterations and can create instabilites (right half plane poles) using the provided equations depending on the open loop gain designed. Specifically, these errors are derived from the approximate equation (5.70) for the location of the dominant pole. This equation and the approximation depend strongly on the gain and device parameters used. All these approximate equations must be used with caution and checked for validity. For a more careful treatment I suggest the book "Design of Analog Cmos Integrated Circuits" (McGraw-Hill Series in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Electronics and Vlsi Circuits) by Behzad Razavi. But this book does have some uses (eg, the noise analysis and system level A/D conversion sections).

I have read and used this book for my analog integrated circuits design course as a graduate student. I would say that there is too much handwaving where there should be more investment into explaination. It's a decent book, but I want to attain a level of understanding that allows me to use the designs introduced as a benchmark and not as a recipe.

This is an excellent reference book for graduate students/exeperienced engineers. It gives readers a lot of practical tips on designing useful circuits. But sometimes those tips are so practical that a beginner might consider them as distractions. If you are a beginner, I won't recommend this book.

Having just completed a course in Analog Electronics, using this textbook, I must say I am disappointed. First, the two authors are renowned experts in the field. Second, the authors are from the University of Toronto, with a strong history of excellent books, most notably Microelectronic Circuits by Sedra and Smith. Therefore, I expected more. My main complaint is the rather rash assumptions and simplifications that the authors make, seemingly at random, throughout the derivations in the book. Obviously, abstraction and simplification is necessary to solve complex problems in engineering, but it seemed that some simplifications are made here to make equations more streamlined and easier to remember. Furthermore there was no consistency in derivation. In some cases, biasing current mirrors would be ideal. In other cases they're simple. In other cases they're cascode. And again, the choice was arbitrary. And by the way, the authors really really like conductance as opposed to resistance. I don't understand why. The end of chapter problems also need more insight. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe Sedra and Smith's book was just too good.

A very good book to have in any analog designer's library. It presents analog design tradeoffs in a very simple, intuitive manner. Mathematics is kept to the required minimum so this book should not be used by undergraduates who want to understand how to derive each equation. Many of the topics presented use approximations and hand waving to provide a basic understanding of a circuit. The topic coverage is excellent. In short it provides enough detail for any circuit designer to test his understanding of several topics. That said, Gray and Meyer remains the bible in this field though and Allen and Holberg is the bible for CMOS.

First used in graduate level analog ic design course. Good in covering current, practical MOS circuit topologies, however, lacks in clear explanations. Lacks good examples. Lacks interactive design aspect. Would need to supplement this book with a book such as Microelectronic Circuits or Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits for missing components or explanations if you really want to LEARN how to design analog ic's.

I am an analog IC design engineer in Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector, I have read this book in our company's library. It's really a very useful book for our designer. Particularly, the topics which include advanced current mirrors and opamps, sample and holds, voltage references give me more helpful in my pipeline Analog-Digital Converter project. It's sure this book make me familiar with more circuit structure, and improved analytical skills through the more useful example. Among our CMOS IC design engineers, many design engineer think this book is more suitable for us to design high performance analog IC.

This is a very "concrete" and well written book about analog electronics for students and practicing engineers.The choice of arguments is well made and up to date placing a special emphasis on circuits at the analog-digital interface which is really fundamental nowadays.The choice of the authors is to introduce analysis at the most easy level possible,and after having developed the basics of a certain subject present different circuital implementations.Explained examples are extensively used to develop analytical skills of the reader.I think this book is a natural choice once you reach the intermediate to advanced level in analog electronics,Very fine text!

This book has strengths and weaknesses, and overall it's just an average book. First 4 chapters present a good overview of device physics and modeling, pratical layout issues, different gain stages and noise analysis and modelling. These four chapters are well written. From chapter 5 on, everything is just a confusing collection of facts, not organized and not well explained. The authors are extremely fond of the phrase "It should be mentioned/ stated that ....", this is a clear indication that the explanations are not well thought out, not at all logically connected to the context. Examples of this is abundant throught. For a textbook, I would recommand Razavi's book, as it gives detailed explanations, and insight into design issues, and this book just pales miserably in comparison. Though this book gives more coverage, but again, the coverage is mere collection of facts. As for a reference book, this book does deserve some merit. Afterall, both authors have had quite extensive experience in circuit design. However, there are much better reference books on specific topics. Overall, the authors did not put an effor into explaining things, but merely put in the phrase "It should be mentioned that...". So again, it should be mentioned that you won't gain insight from this book.