Customer Reviews

Microwave and Wireless Synthesizers: Theory and Design

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Most of this book is very good but the some sections contain gross errors and omissions. The short section on crystal impedance bridge oscillators refers to 2 diagrams that have been omitted. There is the occasional typesetting error where a group of words are run together. Also some sections suffer from an apparent lack of proof reading in that occasionally the wrong word is used (even though the spelling is correct!). The component labels in some diagrams do not correspond to those used in the text and in some cases the same label is used for two sparate components. Erroneous conclusions about the SSB phase noise floor of a crystal oscillator where the output signal is extracted by running the crystal current through a common base stage. Leeson's equation for the SSB phase noise floor is incorrectly applied to derive an SSB phase noise floor about 10 dB worse than that obtained in practice. Instead of blindly applying this formula a return to first principles to calculate the common base stage output noise and signal currents at frequencies outside the crystal bandwidth allows the SSB phase noise floor to be easily computed. This method also provides good insight into the important contributors to the SSB phase noise floor and how to minimise them.These shortcomings, whilst annoying, don't greatly detract from the overall utility of this book, provided that the reader has some previous experience in the field.

I pass along the review by Johann Klier in News from Rohde & Schwarz, Number 159 (1998/III):

The book gives a comprehensive picture of synthesizer technology. It not only deals with the underlying theory but also provides numerous practical examples of circuits, many of them implemented by Rohde & Schwarz. The author explains the fundamentals of phase-locked loops, describes the linear model for calculating oscillator phase noise, looks at the design of low-noise oscillators and deals in detail with further PLL components such as crystal oscillators, mixers, phase detectors, loop filters and programmable frequency dividers. The noise characteristics of these components are treated in great detail.

Other chapters are devoted to multiloop synthesizers, direct digital synthesis, the fractional-N technique and high-performance, hybrid synthesizers. With each chapter there is a comprehensive reference list including patents. The book concludes with an in-depth mathematical treatise that includes the complex theory of noise in mixers and oscillators. Thus it covers practically every aspect of synthesizer technology. All in all the book is an excellent reference source for anyone involved in synthesizer design.

I agree with earlier reviewers that the book is hard to follow and does not have a coherent line of delivery of the material. Nonetheless, the content is excellent, with many valuable insights and information. My impression is that the author has great expertise in the material but was either rushed or careless in the writing of the book.

By page eight of this book I had already found many errors, omissions and notational inconsistencies. Explanations are poor and the writing style sloppy. The book does however cover a wide range of material and has a good bibliography, but my advice would be to check everything you use from this book.

I found this book very difficult to follow. There are far too many mathematical derivations, and little explanation about what the equations derived are useful for. It is an extremely specialist book and not really for general reading. A lot of material is presented, but it is poorly described.