Customer Reviews

Printed Circuit Board Design Techniques for EMC Compliance: A Handbook for Designers (IEEE Press Series on Electronics Technology)

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

 

 

I got this book because the boss said to find something to help resolve the FCC/CE and other world EMI/EMC compliance issues we have, and it was instantly used and had the answers we needed.

It covers power and grounds, signal integrity, and used with Howard Johnson's book (High Speed Digital Design), gives a strong insight to the PC board layout issues of high speed digital and analog electronics.

So far it has been useful in my designs. They seem to be better and I am sure the book has helped with certification. It has some very useful information. Unfortunatly, it does not have much supporting information or theoretical proofs. Perhaps this helps the non-math oriented user, but I can't imagine why a non-math oriented user would need such a book or what such a person would be doing designing for EMC. As an engineer, I don't take things on face value without understanding of why. The lack of general theory also makes it difficult to extend the information provided to areas not covered in the book. In short, I'd like to know a bit more about why.

This book looks perfect on paper. The subject matter is important, it talks about many practical concepts, the cover is cute, etc. But trying to read this book I was very disappointed. The author has just cut and pasted some well-known ideas but doesn't explain anything clearly. Despite knowing the subject I found it painful to follow. I wanted to throw the book away after reading a few sections, but I kept telling myself "it can't be that bad, the material is fine, let me give it another chance". But the book is that bad! It is no excuse that this is a "handbook". There are many books that are not textbooks that do a great job explaining things. I feel sorry for anybody who is trying to learn by reading this book. If you are a beginner read Howard Johnson's classic "Black Magic" book. If you are more advanced read Clayton Paul or books on Microwave design.

I donated my book to the city library, but I was very tempted to throw it away to save somebody else from struggling with it.

Most of the signal integrity/high speed circuit books focus on explaining relationship between two conductors, for example, the EM field between a trace and a plane. However, as a practicing engineer, it is impossible and unnecessary to calculate or simulate each trace when designing PCB. This is when this book comes handy. It provides quick design guidelines and rule of thumb without having to worry too much about the underlying theory. Many other reviewers see it as a drawback, but I think this book is pretty practical when used with more theoretical book such as Signal Integrity Simplified.

However, I found some parts of this book are quite difficult to follow as the author might assume that the readers are experience engineers who know all the jargons and theories. For instance, I am confused with chassis ground and system ground. Sometimes the author say should connect chassis to ground, sometimes he said it mustn't. The term "dipole antenna" appears quite often in the book, but it is not clearly explained what it is.

In conclusion, the books give decent PCB layout guidelines to prevent EMC problem. However, it doesn't provide readers the knowledge to do precise analysis and simulation to tackle signal integrity/EMC problems that might arise. I would recommend to get "Signal Integrity Simplified" as a companion book.