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 enlarge | Authors: Paul Horowitz, Winfield Hill
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $105.00
Buy Used: $55.00
You Save: $50.00 (48%)
New (33) Used (32) from $55.00
Rating:  126 reviews
Sales Rank: 14970
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1125
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.3
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 7.2 x 2
ISBN: 0521370957
Dewey Decimal Number: 621.381
EAN: 9780521370950
ASIN: 0521370957
Publication Date: July 28, 1989
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Light-mild wear. Some edge wear and wrinkling on dust jacket, a tiny rip in jacket, otherwise light wear, no rips, folds, creasing or page markings.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not great, but still better than the rest.... July 24, 2006
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Most, if not all, general electronics textbooks start from basic principles such as circuit analysis and low-level components before briefly covering system design. Unfortunately, such texts drown readers in (mostly) useless theory and math that most engineers will never use.
Modern technology has progressed to the point that no one can know or possibly understand all of the details. In this day and age, when only a minority of design engineers actually design at the transistor-level and most engineers are system-engineers (designing at the IC datasheet level), a new approach is needed: ideally, a general electronics textbook should START by explaining electronic systems at the high, conceptual-level, before working down to the functional block and transistor-level. At minimum, it should explain how to interpret IC datasheet spec.s and how to properly "hook" chips together. (Instead, textbooks start with the gory details of pn junctions, etc. instead of first explaining the applications of a transistor as a switch/amplifier and then constrasting BJTs vs FETs; and only then going into the low-level device physics.)
AOE isn't that book, but it's certainly a good step in that direction. Unfortunately, AOE also starts from low-level details before working up to applications- however, even though the 2nd edition was published way back in 1989, it's still used today because it minimizes the math while emphasizing the practical aspects of electronic design. AOE isn't intuitive or conceptual enough for electronic newbies, but it deserves its reputation as one of the best electronics reference books/intermediate texts around. My main beef with AOE is that its encylopediac coverage means that basic concepts aren't emphasized as much. (In many ways, the Student Manual for AOE is better in this respect.) Also, due to its age, there are many obsolete sections and hot issues of today like signal integrity that are barely touched upon.
By the way, the long-awaited 3rd edition won't be available for at least a year (according to one of the authors) despite one of the reviews below.
 Tree Killer June 23, 2006
9 out of 50 found this review helpful
This book is way overated. Its way-out, wacky treament of electronics could definitely not be that of any well thought-of engineer. It's frankly just a bunch of goofy unsystematic mumbo-jumbo by some over-educated self-proclaimed "physicists." So imagine my surprise when I read a translation of this in Russian. I think the whole world must have been duped. Do yourself a favor. Go read the Smith book (see my other reviews) and avoid this one like the plague.
Update: This text is the academic literary equivalent of Sanjaya Malakar from Idol. One suspects that its ecstatic fans must be born-dupes who have finally found someone who will deceive and even lie to them in just the right way.
The Art of Electronics March 20, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
A brilliant and lucid text that supplies enough theory over a wide range of topics, but also manages at the same time to emphasise the practical application of devices and circuit ideas. Worked examples and useful data support this enabling book.
Just Get It March 18, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is the best book on basic electronics out there. I have quite a few and wish I found this one sooner. It dosent cover everything but it covers enough to be usefull as a good desk referance and general idea genarator.
 Good as a reference, abyssmal as a textbook February 20, 2006
18 out of 31 found this review helpful
I pity the students who have to actually learn elecronics from this textbook. The text "assumes you have no prior knowledge of electronics" while "trying to keep the math to a minimum". Although the theory behind this is to create an intuitive understanding of circuit behavior, in practice it fails abyssmally if you are a beginner with little to no understanding of electronics. Here is an overview of the first chapter:
-Omh's law is introduced in the second section, but the first example is not until the third section (voltage dividors). At this point the author expects you to be able to find the voltage and current in any part of any circuit, however complicated, consisting of batteries and resistors. Many readers at this point will not even understand that voltage is measured "across" two points whereas current is measured "through" two points.
-The next section (section 4 if you are keeping track) explains voltage and current sources. Although the author does not give any examples of current sources, he is gracious enough to mention that a battery is a voltage source (most readers can figure this out on their own since batteries are classified by their voltages).
-Section five (this is still the first chapter) is on Thevenin's theorem. A short list of formulas is followed by an example which is not worked out along with its resultant diagram. If you can understand Thevenin's theorem from this section then you really don't belong in an introductory electronics course. If you are like most students, your professor would likely have assigned problems of their own creation that you have no clue how to complete (did I mention that this textbook has almost no exercises to work?).
-The rest of the chapter deals with topics such as Zener diodes, signal waveforms, differentiator circuits, and rectifiers. This is far too advanced for the student who barely understands Kirchoff's Laws (which are given a few paragraphs on page 3).
The problem with this book is that the author cannot bring himself down to a level where neophytes can grasp what he is trying to explain. The lack of examples and exercises reminds the reader of a professor who simply likes to hear himself talk and doesn't care that his students are lost and confused. (This reminds me of another book, "Introduction to Electrodynamics" by Griffiths, which I despise for the same reason).
My electronics professor took one look at this book (which was required for my course) and has never picked it up again. He highly recommended "Circuits, Devices, and Systems" by Smith and Dorf.
I give this book two stars because, as a reference book for an experienced electrical engineer, it is filled with very good information, diagrams, and charts. As a textbook I could not dislike it more.
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