Intuitive Analog Circuit Design [Paperback]

Marc Thompson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0750677864 | ISBN-13: 978-0750677868

This book reflects Dr. Thompson's twenty
years of experience designing and teaching analog circuit design, and is an outgrowth of course notes from his graduate-level analog circuit design course taught at Worcester Polytechnic Institute entitled "Analog Circuits and Intuition." In this class, he describes intuitive and "back of the envelope" techniques for designing and analyzing analog circuits, including transistor amplifiers (CMOS and bipolar), transistor switching, thermal
circuit design, magnetic circuit design, control systems, and the like. The application of some simple rules-of-thumb and design techniques is the first step in developing an intuitive understanding of the behavior of complex electrical systems. This book outlines some ways of thinking about analog circuits and systems that hopefully develops such
"circuit intuition" and a "feel" for what a good, working analog circuit design should be.

*Introduces analog circuit design with a minimum of mathematics.

*Gives readers an intuitive "feel" for analog circuit operation and rules-of-thumb for their design.

*Uses numerous analogies from digital design to help readers whose main background is in digital make the transition to analog design.

*Accompanying CD-ROM contains PowerPoint presentations for each chapter and MATLAB files used in the text.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

The author's approach keeps mathematics to the
absolute minimum required so readers will develop an intuitive way of thinking about analog circuit design.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Newnes (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750677864
• ISBN-13: 978-0750677868
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #343,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good guidebook on analog circuit design, February 17, 2008

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Intuitive Analog Circuit Design (Paperback)

This is a design handbook for electronic engineering students and practicing engineers interested in learning practical techniques for designing and analyzing analog circuits using the basic building blocks of transistors, diodes, and op-amps. Readers will notice that the author makes some assumptions about the reader - that he or she has been exposed to undergrad courses in electronic devices, signals and systems, and signal processing. This is not a book for hobbyists.

Chapters one and two are introductory in nature. Chapter 1 provides the motivation for analog circuit design in general. Chapter 2 covers some important signal processing concepts that are the basis of material in later chapters. Chapters three through eight cover the bipolar device physics, the BJT, transistor amplifiers, and approximation techniques for bandwidth estimation and switching speed analysis. Chapter nine covers the basics of CMOS and CMOS amplifiers. The bandwidth estimation techniques developed in earlier chapters for amplifer design work well for CMOS devices as well.

Chapter 10 covers transistor switching, as in how you get a transistor to turn on and off quickly, and how you estimate that speed. Chapter 11 reviews feedback systems and Bode plot methods of designing stable feedback systems. The next two chapters discuss the design, use, and limitations of op-amps including voltage-feedback and current-feedback op-amps. Chapter 14 covers the basics of analog low-pass filter design, including ladder and active implementations of Butterworth, Chebyshev, elliptic, and Bessel filters. Chapter 15 switches topics and goes to PC board layout rules and the use and limitations of passive components. Chapter 16 is a mixed bag of useful design techniques and tricks that don't fit into the other chapters. The book contains illustrative analysis problems and MATLAB and PSPICE design examples throughout as well as chapter problem sets.

This book is a nice companion to The Art of Electronics and other such books that act as capstone courses, since it draws on a wide body of electronics knowledge - not just one course. Highly recommended for the practical kind of information and problems you often don't see in textbooks but that you'll require in industry.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but Non-Intuitive, January 23, 2009

By 

Todd J. Blackmon (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intuitive Analog Circuit Design (Paperback)

In analog design, one must think about how the circuit works without the numbers first. This literally is an afterthought in this book, ie. it's in the appendix. While this is a generally good book in that it contains the knowledge needed to *start* to do analog design, one would be better off with a decent electronics textbook for the theory and the "Trinity" of Jim Williams two books (Analog Design:A,S,and P and The Art and Science...) and the Bob Pease's (Troubleshooting Analog Circuits) for the practical stuff.
I don't blame the author, since I think it is impossible to teach in a single book. Learning to do analog design requires a bit of a brain rewire, which just takes time and practice. You struggle with simple stuff for a while, then one day realize you actually know what the heck you are doing.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars wrong title!!, November 16, 2008

By 

D. Xue "analog_tiger" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intuitive Analog Circuit Design (Paperback)

I am very disappointed about this book. It absolutely has a wrong title. The author may have different definition of "Intuitive Design". Detailed excamples in this book are helpful for beginner. But after go through all of the equations and derivations, you can not get any ideal about intuitive design!