Customer Reviews

Digital Signal Processing with Field Programmable Gate Arrays (Signals and Communication Technology)

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

 

 

From among the many books on DSP I own, I've chosen the 3rd. ed. of Dr. Meyer-Baese "DSP with FPGA", more precisely ch. 8 on "Adaptive Filters", to be the base of a module on adaptive filtering belonging to a DSP course that I teach at a University. The reason behind the choice was that, at first sight, the chapter seemed to have a good balance of conciseness and range of adaptive techniques presented.
This means I read carefully ch. 8 and implemented in Scilab some of the adaptive algorithms. As a consequence, I also examined carefully the equations, mainly those on the Widrow-Hoff LMS and the RLS techniques.
What I found was several handful of mistakes. From the silly ones (the definition of variance in p. 481 is E{(x-av)^2} instead of E{x^2}, as the average 'av' is not assumed as zero) to errors in vectors transposition in the differentiation of matrix-vector products (e.g. in the gradient definition, in the middle of page 483, there should be x[n] x^T[n] instead of x^T[n] x[n]) which, sometimes, by miracle appear correct in the next equations, and ending in the mess with the use of [n+1] or [n] indexes in many equations in the derivation of RLS algorithms in pages 518-521, the lack of exactness in the theoretical derivations converts what could be a very good presentation/tutorial chapter on the AF topic in, at times, a messy bunch of equations plagued with mistakes.
The chapter on AF first appeared in the 2nd ed. of the book (2003). So there has been plenty of time to correct at least most of the mistakes for this 3rd ed. from 2007.
I also tried to found an errata, even that of the 1st ed. of the book which is promised in the preface, but I didn't succeed. That was a severe disappointment.
That said, I cannot agree with most of the Amazon customers which rate the book with 5 stars, and recommend the author to get some picky reviewers that can catch and correct those (and other I don't mention) nasty typos and mistakes. To the reader using the book I suggest him/her to consult, for instance, the books from Widrow & Stearns or Simon Haykin to obtain correct derivations of the fundamental equations behind the basic theory of AF.

I would have to agree with JASA as an errata would definitely be nice. I am a novice on this topic and any mistake can lead to head aches for any new beginner to this topic. I bought this book on the hopes of implementing some of the material presented in Proakis's book. Reading all the positive reviews convinced me to buy this book. As I am only finished with chapter 1 and trying out the exercises (which in themselves are sort of a headache), take my review with a grain of salt.

I would have to say that Altera 6.0 Web edition included in the book works well for most of the material, but the use of the MegaCore library has been a headache because it requires a download of the MegaCore. On Altera's website, however, you need to install the 10.1 web edition. This leads to some issues and some of the features have been changed. From a beginner's point of view, this is really frustrating. The simple NCO example in the first chapter worked fine on my work Altera 7.1 full edition but trying the same project on the free 10.1 web edition proved fruitless.

Another point of contention that is not mentioned in any of the reviews is that the author heavily relies on Altera as the platform of choice for his FPGA designs. Granted for a seasoned FPGA engineer, this would not be a problem, but I had originally bought a Nexys2 Xilinx board (much much cheaper than the Altera chip used in the book [...] compared to [...]) and bought this book thinking the designs would be soley based in standard VHDL or Verilog. Now, for most (non noobies) this should not pose a problem since they can probably easily port over designs from platform to platform.

I still am looking forward to working some of the further examples in the book and hopefully provide an update to my review.

Found the Errata. [...]

Dr. Meyer-Baese covers very interesting signal processing topics using reconfigurable hardware (FPGAs) in this work. The book contains a good overview of FPGA technology and tools for implementing digital signal processing systems (DSP). Computer Arithmetic, Filter Design (FIR & IIR), Multirate Signal Processing, Fourier Transforms, Advanced Topics as Number Theoretic Transforms (NTTs), Error Control and Cryptography, Modulation are concepts very well exposed, finishing the book with a rigorous and complete chapter of Microprocessor Design that I teach at University. Every chapter has enough exercises perfectly thought to learn the basic and advanced concepts, which are very useful for self-study proposal. Also VHDL, Verilog and assembler code is provided.
In short, a high grade choice as initiation or advanced reference in the field of signal processing systems in hardware.

[I haven't (yet) purchased this book, so ignore my 'stars' rating. I've only seen the sample chapters so far.]

The older, shorter 2nd edition (2003) appears to be incorrectly dated 2010 on Amazon's website... The newer, longer 3rd edition (2007) is Digital Signal Processing with Field Programmable Gate Arrays.

p.s., Is there a URL for downloading the companion software, &/or for the errata mentioned by other reviewers?

I ordered this book new from an Amazon seller. It was obvioulsy new. It has the same ISBN as book on this page: 978-3540726128, it is the Third edition etc.
But there is no CDROM included, further the cover no longer has the "with CDROM" icon on the cover. Yet the text and back cover speaks to a CDROM. Furhter there is no "Pocket" where the CDROM would have been....so it's not that it has been removed.
On the other hand, the front cover has in place of the CDROM icon,there is now one that says "Extra Materials - Extras.springer.com" but there are no extras there - where I figured the CDROM contents could be found.

Further it appears that this book is now "Print on Demand". The copy that arrived was printed on 31 August 2010 at Berinigsville, PA, USA. I'd guess that the print on demand machines can't "print" and attach CDROMs'

I don't think this is an issue with the seller, but with the product description at Amazon...though I find it strange that the change regarding the CDROM doesn't cause the ISBN to change.

Comes from the DSP hardware Stars. Actually the only book on DSP hardware design in the market as of 2007. So there isnt much of choice, if you are into this businees. Good value for money, a hefty, detailed treatment.