Electronic Devices [Hardcover]

Thomas L. Floyd (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0136491383 | ISBN-13: 978-0136491385 | Publication Date: June 26, 1998 | Edition: 5th

This work features "Electronics Workbench" (EWB) and Pspice simulation software - exercises with an accompanying cost-free circuits disk - in select examples and troubleshooting sections.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A new full-color edition of this best-selling text! From discrete components to linear integrated circuits, this popular devices text takes a strong systems approach that identifies the circuits and components within a system, and helps students see how the circuit relates to the overall system function. Floyd is well-known for straightforward, understandable explanations of complex concepts, as well as for non-technical, on-target treatment of mathematics. His coverage is carefully balanced between discrete and integrated circuits and his extensive use of examples makes even complex concepts understandable. One of the most-visual, best-illustrated texts in the field 197 and now full-color throughout! -- Electronic Devices, Fourth Edition features more than nine hundred drawings, photographs, charts, and diagrams that help visually explain concepts. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

A new—updated and improved—edition of this best-selling book! From discrete components to linear integrated circuits, this popular devices book takes a strong systems approach that identifies the circuits and components within a system, and helps students see how the circuit relates to the overall system function. Floyd is well-known for straightforward, understandable explanations of complex concepts, as well as for non-technical, on-target treatment of mathematics. His coverage is carefully balanced between discrete and integrated circuits and his extensive use of examples makes even complex concepts understandable. One of the best-illustrated, most up-to-date books in the field today, Electronic Devices, Fifth Edition features more than nine hundred visuals to help reinforce concepts and totally new simulation software exercises.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 953 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 5th edition (June 26, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0136491383
• ISBN-13: 978-0136491385
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,793,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very simple explanation.....weak excercises!, November 28, 1999

By 

Moataz Attallah - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electronic Devices (Hardcover)

Explanations go very smoothly to the extent that somebody who has nothing to do with semi-conductor physics will understand it directly. Nice graphs, neat diagrams, etc.. but the problems are very weak in comparison to other books, such as Sedra & Smith's book (Micro-Electronic circuits). However, the explanations of the latter are on a very advanced level. I recommend Floyd's book for somebody who wants to understand, but not to practice!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Errors in "Advanced Problems", February 12, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Halmstad, Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electronic Devices (Hardcover)

I started using Floyd because it seemed to be at the right level for my students. Especially the weaker students would benefit from it, I hoped. I would rate "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill a much better book on electronics, but it is too difficult for many. However, I discovered annoying errors in Floyd's "Advanced Problems". For example 2-44, which I interpret as designing a clipping circuit for +18 V and -10 V using a single 24 V DC power supply; I don't know how to do it. Or problem 3-39, where a 110 V AC voltage is connected diodes and zeners that could never stand this. Anyway, in Fig. 3-71 it is not reasonable to have 220 Ohm resistors for both the 6.8 V Zener and the 24 V zener. Howcome errors like these can persist in the fourth edition?

20 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for university students..., February 28, 2004

By A Customer

My teacher used this book (fifth edition) in a basic electronics course (university). The book begins with some semiconductor basics, the pn-junction is explained and this chapter is OK if one just needs the very basic understanding (which in some schools might be enough). The second chapter contains some diodeapplications and power supply filters, the third chapter is about zener diode applications and some special purpose diodes. Then he goes on with the BJT, FET and the opamp. The physics behind the BJT is very superficially covered but he explains the operation of the BJT in principle. The book considers the basic transistor amplifier circuits but a lot of important material is left out. He uses the r-parameter model as the transistor smallsignal equivalent model, which is not a very common smallsignal model. The FET transistor comes as the next chapter, and here I miss the physics behind the FET. Of course one can design circuits without knowing the physics behind these devices, but knowing the physics will give you a much better understanding. It should also be mentioned that this book is limited to low frequency applications. Further, he doesn't say anything at all about feedback in transistoramplifiers which is one of the most important concepts in electronics. One should know that without feedback you are more or less limited to one-transistor amplifier stages, at least for the practical situation.
The chapters contaning the opamp is good as starting point, although the basics could be explained in more detail. Most of the material in these chapters are limited to simple opamp circuits, and you will therefore run through these chapters without the need for any deeper analysis.

What an electronics engineer should learn isn't all contained in this book, neither in any other book, but I must say this book is unsuccesful because almost everything in the book isn't deeply enough covered. You will probably not learn to design anything (at least not well enough), you just learn to calculate nodevoltages and the amplifier gain in different basic circuits. What is also left out is a general discussion about some certain problems, such as practical considerations for example. You will neither develop your basic mathematical skills using this book, because the author has left out most of the math (although very basic math), formulas are sometimes just stated without a derivation and so on. This book is just big and heavy because of the big font size and the many big pictures.
One might think that I do not need a book that consideres everything in very detail. The problem is that this book is too far from that and isn't therefore intended to students at a university level. I neither think that the author wrote a book, which can be compared to other "more serious" books in the field. This is a book for those who wants to learn the basics without any deeper mathematical insight.

There is a lot of books in this field, and I could mention a couple of good books that gave me a much better understanding of basic electronics. If you wanna learn op amp circuits, "Design with operational amplifiers and analog integrated circuits" by Sergio Franco, is just superior and contains everything you need about opamps, and is also well written. Books which covers transistors quite good are "Mircoelectronic circuits" by Sedra/Smith and "Microelectronics" by Millman/Grabel. The book by Sedra/Smith is quite easy to understand and contains very good homework problems. The only thing I'm missing here are some practical considerations.