Description
Moore’s Law continues to assert itself, unabated, since thepublication of the second edition a quarter century ago. In this new third (and final!) edition we have responded to this upheaval with major enhancements:
an emphasis on devices and circuits for A/D and D/A conversion (Chapter 13), because embedded microcontrollers are everywhere
illustration of specialized peripheral ICs for use with microcontrollers (Chapter 15)
detailed discussions of logic family choices, and of interfacing logic signals to the real world (Chapters 10 and 12)
greatly expanded treatment of important topics in the essential analog portion of instrument design:
– precision circuit design (Chapter 5)
– low-noise design (Chapter 8)
– power switching (Chapters 3, 9, and 12)
– power conversion (Chapter 9)
And we have added many entirely new topics, including:
digital audio and video (including cable and satellite TV)
transmission lines
circuit simulation with SPICE
transimpedance amplifiers
depletion-mode MOSFETs
protected MOSFETs
high-side drivers
quartz crystal properties and oscillators
a full exploration of JFETs
high-voltage regulators
optoelectronics
power logic registers
delta–sigma converters
precision multislope conversion
memory technologies
serial buses
illustrative “Designs by the Masters”
In this new edition we have responded, also, to the reality that previous editions have been enthusiastically embraced by the community of practicing circuit designers, even though The Art of Electronics (now 35 years in print) originated as a course textbook. So we’ve continued the “how we do it” approach to circuit design; and we’ve expanded the depth of treatment, while (we hope) retaining the easy access and explanation of basics. At the same time we have split off some of the specifically course-related teaching and lab material into a separate Learning the Art of Electronics volume, a substantial expansion of the previous edition’s companion Student Manual for The Art of Electronics.1
Digital oscilloscopes have made it easy to capture, annotate, and combine measured waveforms, a capability we have exploited by including some 90 ‘scope screenshots illustrating the behavior of working circuits. Along with those doses of reality, we have included (in tables and graphs) substantial quantities of highly useful measured data – such as transistor noise and gain characteristics (en, in, rbb ; hfe, gm, goss), analog switch characteristics (RON, Qinj, capacitance), op-amp input and output characteristics (en and in over frequency, input common-mode range, output swing, auto-zero recovery, distortion, available packages), and approximate prices (!) – the sort of data often buried or omitted in datasheets but which you need (and don’t have the time to measure) when designing circuits.
We’ve worked diligently, over the 20 years it has taken to prepare this edition, to include important circuit design information, in the form of some 350 graphs, 50 photographs, and 87 tables (listing more than 1900 active components), the last enabling intelligent choice of circuit components by listing essential characteristics (both specified and measured) of available parts.
Because of the significant expansion of topics and depth of detail, we’ve had to leave behind some topics that were treated in the second edition,2 notwithstanding the use of larger pages, more compact fonts, and most figures sized to fit in a single column. Some additional related material that we had hoped to include in this volume (on realworld properties of components, and advanced topics in BJTs, FETs, op-amps, and power control) will instead be published in a forthcoming companion volume, The Art of Electronics: The x-Chapters. References in this volume to those x-chapter sections and figures are set in italics. A newly updated artofelectronics.com website will provide a home for a continuation of the previous edition’s collections of Circuit ideas and Bad circuits; it is our hope that it will become a community, also, for a lively electronic circuit forum.
As always, we welcome corrections and suggestions (and, of course, fan mail), which can be sent to [email protected] or to [email protected].