(Part 2) Best electronic design books according to redditors

• it uses less chemicals when etching. No need to remove copper that doesn't need to be removed.
  
  
• it can reduce warping of the PCB - if you remove a lot of copper from one side and not the other, you can create different stresses that can buckle or twist the PCB. See copper balance
  
  
• if used correctly, the copper ground plane can act as a shield or an effective AC return path for signals. This requires proper analysis and understanding of your circuit and the signals. The example you gave is a bad example of a ground pour. Notice how the islands of copper are only connected at one end, and some aren't connected at all? To make them effective, they need to be connected in the corners, usually with vias, to stitch the top and bottom copper pours together. There is more to it than this, but I won't go into detail. Read this
  
  Recommended text is any by Montrose: http://www.amazon.com/Emc-Printed-Circuit-Board-Design/dp/078034703X
  
  EDIT: correction, the image provided by the OP doesn't show the vias which might be used to stitch the copper pours together and make them all the same (ground) potential.
  

I'm a semiconductor process engineer. I am so glad I asked the questions you're asking now - it changed my life.

It's a whole different world. The first time I stepped into an industrial cleanroom it felt like entering a spaceship. Robots everywhere, plasma etchers and vapor deposition tools and SEMs and AFMs and every toy the space age could offer. We literally push atoms around. It's never managed to become mundane.

Anyway, I've heard about Silicon Run (http://siliconrun.com/) but I don't know if you can get that for free. There are obviously lots of books and resources (this comes to mind), but TV series are harder to think of.

If you have any particular questions I'd be more than happy to answer them.

Edit: Here's a couple videos. Can't vouch for quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQmtITMdas (more of a complete overview of semi processing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFpmtgCdMkg#t=00m22s (pretty good mashup, actually)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Q67HI1_1w (no, that is NOT sped up)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sr7TA33jr4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJgVs-D1wi0

Some are using a legitimate capacitance detection circuit where your body's capacitance to earth and/or the circuit changes the response of a detection circuit. This could be a circuit that looks a change in frequency response (relaxation oscillator), or even something like a charge-transfer capacitive sensing circuit.

Others use what is called a 'line-hum' circuit. The 'line-hum' circuits are looking for the body's capacitance to couple AC noise into the circuit. Think of the equivalent when you touch an oscilloscope probe - you will usually see the 50/60Hz sine wave on the scope.

One book I've enjoyed on the subject - Here

I can highly vouch for the DE0nano board from Terasic. Its cheap but still features a full fledged Cyclone IV FPGA (incl. Memory and PLLs). The I/O features are not as rich as other boards, but you still have a range of GPIO pins for whatever you like.

Regarding the VHDL part, I learnt it with this book. Keep in mind that VHDL should be merely a description of a digital circuit you have modelled beforehand with different methods, which is a totally different approach compared to your regular SW-programming languages as C++. And I think this book really teaches you well from a hardware designers perspective.

Shoot me a pm if you have questions.

In general making less poles per OPAMP can give you other advantages: less sensitivity in terms of components values, in case of bandpass filters Q with smaller component spread and so on. For filters theory, I can recommend two books: Modern Filter Design and Analog Filers Design by Van Valkengburg - 1982 classic. I read them while preparing my master thesis and learned a lot from them.

If you want to plot the transfer function of any filter (I assume you mean gain and phase in function of frequency), it's quite easy. You either need assumed transfer function (with jomega or s as variable) or analyse given circuit using phasors method. Then, just calculate the absolute value of transfer function and plot it using any plotting software (Matlab, Octave, Gnuplot, you can even use Excel).

Once you know the transfer function, there is also a method for drawing an approximated frequency response using Bode plots.

Here are several textbooks on the subject which I used back in the day and still have a proud spot on my bookshelf:

Acoustics by Beranek (classic acoustical engineering theory from an MIT professor)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/088318494X

The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill (for low level lessons on circuit components like DACs and op amps)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/

Introduction To Electroacoustics and Audio Amplifier Design by Leach (more theory by a professor) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0757572863/

JBL Audio Engineering for Sound Reinforcement (practical applications) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GQZQ8UE/

I am doing Edexcel Electronics and honestly, our syllabus is nearly blank. We have a revision guide, which tbh isn't that helpful but it goes over a lot of stuff. I have a pdf of it. It covers OCR and AQA too, in case you don't have it.

It's this one. But note that the cover is different from the picture.

Our syllabus also has a huge overlap with Resistant Materials, which has a textbook, so that has helped me.

The questions are honestly very basic and straight forward, so I feel okay, but I will still revise a good bit for it.

This is the book we're 'using' in class. Really he just printed out a couple chapters for us to read. It's a pretty old school book (like '79), but it's all still relevant and it is a pretty well written text. Here's another but my personal recommendation would be the former.

For answers to your questions on stability try reading Op Apms For Everyone - Sections 8. Stability can be a complex issue and is (in my opinion) best understood with control theory. I could never explain it any better then that link in a Reddit post. Also check out section 10 for a discussion on Op Amp noise. The coverage on noise in Op Amps for every one is decent but if you have the time and resources I check out this book.

I've never been a fan of general handbooks. They tend to skim over details I get hung up on. I like deep theory and physics. I have a background in semiconductor design at the materials level, so I'm not afraid of getting my brain dirty.

Would anything like these be worth grabbing?
https://www.amazon.ca/Passive-Active-Filters-Theory-Implementations/dp/047182352X
https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Filter-Handbook-McGraw-Hill-Handbooks/dp/0071471715

https://www.amazon.com/Transient-Electronics-Pulsed-Circuit-Technology/dp/047197773X

Not a lot of pcb design

Have to use ipc class 3 soldering and also have adequate separation of parts.

Not really general, but not application specific.

Dynamic Translinear and Log-Domain Circuits

I was an IEEE reviewer for his manuscript (collected papers + original research by Razavi) on PLLs. I enthusiastically recommended they go ahead with publication; they did. Still think it's a nice introduction. LINK

Forest Mims III books

• https://www.amazon.com/Forrest-Mims-Engineers-Notebook/dp/1878707035
  
• https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/5b3a09/science_ama_series_im_amateur_scientist_and/
  
  College Level:
  
  
• Electrical Power Equipment Maintenance and Testing - Paul Gill
  
• Power Cable Technology - Sushil Kumar Ganguli, Vivek Kohli
  
• Introductory Circuit Analysis - Robert Boylestad (2003 ed.)
  
  
• NFPA 70 (NEC)
  
• Ugly's Electrical References.

Check these ones out:

http://www.amazon.com/Radio-Frequency-Integrated-Circuit-Design/dp/1607839792/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

http://www.amazon.com/Design-Radio-Frequency-Integrated-Circuits-Edition/dp/0521835399/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=31M1OSOv3PL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=0AZ8KKGCHTWRYNWFGB7J

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Circuit-Design-Wireless-Systems/dp/1580535224

There were tons of nomographs (and called by that name) in Strip Line Circuit Design. God, that's been a while...

I'm going to offer a slight departure from everyone else here.

If you're after learning about filters, specifically of time-varying nature, go grab your old Differential Equiations textbook. You're going to start with the Laplace transform.

Most filters are crafted in the S-Domain. The Laplace transform converts from time-domain into the S-Domain. So if you can describe your stimulus in the time domain, you can transform it into the S-Domain. Have a filter polynomial and solved the product with your stimulus? Great. You'll have to brush up on Partial Fraction Expansion (PFE), break it out into components and you can get the time-varying output from the system.

So differential equations gets you from the time-domain world into the S domain. It gets you from the S-Domain into the time domain. Where Oppenheim, or Haykin come in is using the S domain to craft filter responses. Personally, I would short-cut the business involved with the development of the frequency domain analysis if you're after filter math specifically and pick up The Design of Analog Filters by Schaumann. He gives the math of filters specifically, though still in the S-Domain.

I'm not the right person to tell you anything about proper filter design, but the next level involves more specific criteria for the frequency/time response, such as Chebyshev filters. I've been told that Mitra and Temes book is good on the subject of filters: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Filter-Theory-Design-Gabor/dp/0471851302

As Pocok also said you need to be concerned with the series resistance and output impedance of the filter, if it's going into a high impedance input then the impedance of an RC filter is probably fine, if it's for something else then you may need LC.

So I'm super late for this

So assuming you know about address translation, which memory level do you mean? One not found in L1-L3 cache, having a cache miss and going to DRAM/Main Memory, or going to larger and slower system memory?

Those three levels consist of SRAM, DRAM, and then Nand flash or Magnetic Disk?

These data requests go through each level as a miss, and with any memory there is a controller. In your basic arch class when you talked about Cache, once the cache controller addressed the appropriate tag bits and data located. You can look at an
SRAM https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/SRAM_Cell_(6_Transistors).svg cell to get an idea of what the transistor layout of cache looks like. I suppose another way to look at a cache cell is like a D Flip Flop, just holding the data. The controller signals the array/pulses the array that holds the data, which outputs from the appropriate location.

In general think of it as a bunch of DFFs combined with output gates, and a simple control logic circuit. The DFFs are in an array, the output tristate buffers that hold the data are appropriately signaled, given an enable pin request to the DFF and an output pin signal to the Tristate. That's really simplified though. In this super abstract thought process, you can assume the control logic to be some standard FSM, corresponding to some sequential circuit, consisting of transistors. The DFF again is a 6 transistor register essentially, and the tristate is a however many transistor setup.

I'd recommend looking at this course by Bruce Jacob, a prominent researcher in Memory Systems Architecture
and this [book] (http://www.elsevier.com/books/memory-systems/jacob/978-0-12-379751-3) also by him. That book is a systems perspective (architects) on Cache, DRAM and Disk. Highly recommend the book to any Architect.

Additonally, for a more IC based perspective you can look at this book, which has an accompayning course on cmosedu.com.

Sorry I don't really have a TLDR, since there are multiple levels of memory, and I can't give a generalized tofu memory array since it doesn't really describe any practical or real system for a transistor level understanding.

Hope this helps and I'm sorry if I've been speaking pseudoscience and this is all wrong, I don't claim to be correct!

This looks like a good book

http://www.amazon.com/MAKE-Electronics-Learning-Through-Discovery/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-3

This IS a good book but deals with advanced theories.


http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-16


And this looks pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/Circuitbuilding-Yourself-Dummies-Ward-Silver/dp/0470173424/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769941&sr=8-21


Go to the book store, pick up some books. Go the the library and see what they have. Pick up old radios and junk off of the street take them home and pull them apart but be careful of the capacitors, if you dont know what a capacitor is then read one of the above books.

Look on craigslist for free electronics and start taking them apart. Be careful of anything that uses Alternating current, anything that plugs into a wall deals with large voltages so be sure to start small.