Customer Reviews

Principles of Transistor Circuits, Ninth Edition

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

 

 

The text and math of this book seem fair untill you try to match up what the text talks about with the figures. There are times when the text refers to figures that don't exsist or refers to the wrong figure. There are figures that are suppose to have a part a and part b. The text compares the 'difference' but there is only one figure and no parts a or b. Overall a very confusing book.

This book is a *wonderful* introduction to the understanding, analysis, and design of transistor circuits. The mathematics in this book is kept to a comfortable level and practical circuits are emphasised over the abstract transistor theory that's used in many textbooks.

However, I cannot give this book 5 stars because of one flaw: the notation used in all the schematic diagrams is outdated. For example, resistors are marked with boxes rather than the more common zigzag lines. Also, digital circuit diagrams do not use the arrow/bullet notation, opting for a more difficult-to-read box for each logic function.

Another drawback with this book is that FETs don't get treated in the same amount of depth as bipolar junction transistors. While BJTs are still in common use, FET circuits (particularly CMOS digital and analog ICs) are rapidly becoming commonplace and deserve additional treatment.

These limitations should not keep you from enjoying this book if you wish to learn all about transistors.

I was looking for a book that addressed small-signal discrete transistor amplifiers, and this book does that very well. The topics presented are all presented clearly and fairly thoroughly. However, I can barely believe that in its 9th edition the volume is published so amazingly poorly. Text in figures (component values, current labels, etc.) is often completely illegible, suffering from severe pixellation and degradation, the likes of which I have seen from poorly inlined PostScript images into TeX typesetting. This is no exaggeration -- the letters cannot be read, they're just little blobs of grey. Furthermore, a key figure in the chapter describing DC biasing of FETs (fig. 6.13) is accidentally split into two separate figures rather than having an a) and b) -- this throws the figure numbering off for the rest of the chapter, which was really confusing until I realized the error.

Summarizing, the text of the book is very good. The actual printed product is low-quality and slipshod. If you can work around the shortcomings, it's a valuable learning tool.

This book is a great start towards understanding the basis of modern technology. This book is filled with applications of quantum mechanics and how a simple semiconductor revolutionized the world.