B.H. Vassos, G.W. Ewing, ,Analogue and Digital Electronics for Scientists (1972) Wiley-Interscience,New York 405 pages, £ 5.85.
✍ Scribed by A.A. Shamim; R.M. Reeves
- Book ID
- 104149778
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1974
- Weight
- 139 KB
- Volume
- 52
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-0728
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This book is intended as a course book or a self-tutor book for all interested in grasping the fundamentals of the practice of modern electronics. Some elementary knowledge of mathematics and physics is assumed but this should not deter the prospective reader. The student is led through basic transistor theory up to and including MOSFETs, operational amplifier theory and practice to analogue computers. The hardware aspects of digital systems are briefly outlined but reading the book, these appear almost as an afterthought and the reader would be hardpressed to implement any useful systems on the basis of this description. The discussion includes numerous diagrams of the types of circuits involved but there is a surprising lack of help in the selection of components for these circuits. This is an important consideration in an area where such a wide selection of possible devices is available to the user. Each chapter is terminated with an extensive set of problems to which comprehensive answers are supplied.
Laboratory work does not feature directly in this book as the authors feel that the best approach to experimentation in this field is through project work. Although some hints on how to implement experimental work are included in the appendix, the student would require extensive supervision to bring it to a successful conclusion in all but the simplest cases. Little indication is given of the types of snags that appear when, for example, an inadequate layout is employed and crosstalk, inherent instabilities and pickup are found.
Some comment on individual sections may be useful to prospective readers. Chapter III is valuable for many scientists as it describes impedance mismatching and the possible noise sources in particular systems involving operational amplifiers. This should help many workers realise the maximum potential in their systems through more modern instrumentation configurations. The section on filters in Chapter V is really too brief and could well be expanded and treated both theoretically and practically in depth. These are of great importance in many experimental situations and designed and implemented correctly can enhance the performance of many systems.
The current availability of IC amplifiers and their limitations in practice is never really stressed. Such fundamental factors as the choice of capacitors and resistors for particular applications receives little attention. A number of errors in the text and diagrams are also apparent. Some are clearly typographical. Other may be misleading to the reader e.g., Fig. -15 where the signs on ordinate and abscissa should be altered and Fig. -10(a) where the phase relationship is incorrect. These will no doubt be eliminated in later editions. The suggestions for further reading are carefully chosen but we would like to see some of the more important design journals listed so that readers could acquaint themselves with newer developments, e.g. CMOS devices which have appeared since the book was published.