The Art of Electronics 3rd Edition

Book Preface

This volume is intended as an electronic circuit design textbook and reference book; it begins at a level suitable for those with no previous exposure to electronics and carries the reader through to a reasonable degree of proficiency in electronic circuit design. We have used a straightforward approach to the essential ideas of circuit design, coupled with an in-depth selection of topics. We have attempted to combine the pragmatic approach of the practicing physicist with the quantitative approach of the engineer, who wants a thoroughly evaluated circuit design.
This book evolved from a set of notes written to accompany a one-semester course in laboratory electronics at Harvard. That course has a varied enrollment – undergraduates picking up skills for their eventual work in science or industry, graduate students with a field of research clearly in mind, and advanced graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who suddenly find themselves hampered by their inability to “do electronics.”

It soon became clear that existing textbooks were inadequate for such a course. Although there are excellent treatments of each electronics specialty, written for the planned sequence of a four-year engineering curriculum or for the practicing engineer, those books that attempt to address the whole field of electronics seem to suffer from excessive detail (the handbook syndrome), from oversimplification (the cookbook syndrome), or from poor balance of material. Much of the favorite pedagogy of beginning textbooks is quite unnecessary and, in fact, is not used by practicing engineers, while useful circuitry and methods of analysis in daily use by circuit designers lie hidden in application notes, engineering journals, and hard-to-get data books. In other words, there is a tendency among textbook writers to represent the theory, rather than the art, of electronics.

We collaborated in writing this book with the specific intention of combining the discipline of a circuit design engineer with the perspective of a practicing experimental physicist and teacher of electronics. Thus, the treatment in this book reflects our philosophy that electronics, as currently practiced, is basically a simple art, a combination of some basic laws, rules of thumb, and a large bag of tricks. For these reasons we have omitted entirely the usual discussions of solid-state physics, the h-parameter model of transistors, and complicated network theory, and reduced to a bare minimum the mention of load lines and the s-plane. The treatment is largely nonmathematical, with strong encouragement of circuit brainstorming and mental (or, at most, back-of-the-envelope) calculation of circuit values and performance.

In addition to the subjects usually treated in electronics books, we have included the following:
• an easy-to-use transistor model;
• extensive discussion of useful subcircuits, such as current sources and current mirrors;
• single-supply op-amp design;
• easy-to-understand discussions of topics on which practical design information is often difficult to find: opamp frequency compensation, low-noise circuits, phaselocked loops, and precision linear design;
• simplified design of active filters, with tables and graphs;
• a section on noise, shielding, and grounding;
• a unique graphical method for streamlined low-noise amplifier analysis;
• a chapter on voltage references and regulators, including constant current supplies;
• a discussion of monostable multivibrators and their idiosyncrasies;
• a collection of digital logic pathology, and what to do about it;
• an extensive discussion of interfacing to logic, with emphasis on the new NMOS and PMOS LSI;
• a detailed discussion of A/D and D/A conversion techniques;
• a section on digital noise generation;
• a discussion of minicomputers and interfacing to data buses, with an introduction to assembly language;
• a chapter on microprocessors, with actual design examples and discussion – how to design them into instruments, and how to make them do what you want;
• a chapter on construction techniques: prototyping, printed circuit boards, instrument design • a simplified way to evaluate high-speed switching circuits;
• a chapter on scientific measurement and data processing: what you can measure and how accurately, and what to do with the data;
• bandwidth narrowing methods made clear: signal averaging, multichannel scaling, lock-in amplifiers, and pulseheight analysis;
• amusing collections of “bad circuits,” and collections of “circuit ideas”;
• useful appendixes on how to draw schematic diagrams,
IC generic types, LC filter design, resistor values, oscilloscopes, mathematics review, and others;
• tables of diodes, transistors, FETs, op-amps, comparators, regulators, voltage references, microprocessors, and other devices, generally listing the characteristics of both the most popular and the best types.

Throughout we have adopted a philosophy of naming names, often comparing the characteristics of competing devices for use in any circuit, and the advantages of alternative circuit configurations. Example circuits are drawn with real device types, not black boxes. The overall intent is to bring the reader to the point of understanding clearly the choices one makes in designing a circuit – how to choose circuit configurations, device types, and parts values. The use of largely nonmathematical circuit design techniques does not result in circuits that cut corners or compromise performance or reliability. On the contrary, such techniques enhance one’s understanding of the real choices and compromises faced in engineering a circuit and represent the best approach to good circuit design.

This book can be used for a full-year electronic circuit design course at the college level, with only a minimum mathematical prerequisite; namely, some acquaintance with trigonometric and exponential functions, and preferably a bit of differential calculus. (A short review of complex numbers and derivatives is included as an appendix.)

If the less essential sections are omitted, it can serve as the text for a one-semester course (as it does at Harvard). A separately available laboratory manual, Laboratory Manual for the Art of Electronics (Horowitz and Robinson, 1981), contains twenty-three lab exercises, together with reading and problem assignments keyed to the text. To assist the reader in navigation, we have designated with open boxes in the margin those sections within each chapter that we feel can be safely passed over in an abbreviated reading. For a one-semester course it would probably be wise to omit, in addition, the materials of Chapter 5 (first half), 7, 12, 13, 14, and possibly 15, as explained in the introductory paragraphs of those chapters.

We would like to thank our colleagues for their thoughtful comments and assistance in the preparation of the manuscript, particularly Mike Aronson, Howard Berg, Dennis Crouse, Carol Davis, David Griesinger, John Hagen, Tom Hayes, Peter Horowitz, Bob Kline, Costas Pa paliolios, Jay Sage, and Bill Vetterling. We are indebted to Eric Hieber and Jim Mobley, and to Rhona Johnson and Ken Werner of Cambridge University Press, for their imaginative and highly professional work.

Paul Horowitz
Winfield Hill
April 1980