props for stumbling upon material regarding buck converters that nonchalantly informed me that had i gone through with a plan of mine, i'd have started a major fire. It’s at the same time an expanded discussion of many of the topics covered in AoE3 and a self-contained reference manual on a variety of topics in electrical engineering. When I was taking EE at university and resenting all the calculus they were stuffing down our throats, and wondering when all the good stuff would come … I was shocked and more than a little angry when i discovered that the Physics majors had this one electronics course where they got all the useful, applicable information in one term.

Clear, direct, and well written with all the needed charts and drawings to illustrate needed concepts.The Art of Electronics: The x-Chapters expands on topics introduced in the best-selling third edition of The Art of Electronics, completing the broad discussions begun in the latter. Or, if not a lie, it at least sets you up for an extremely steep learning curve, not helped any by the authors' annoying habit of using concepts long before they're introduced, and you very much do already need to have a solid enough grounding (haha) in electricity to be able to read circuit diagrams (there's an appendix about them but it's about how to draw good ones rather than bad ones, not fundamentals) and to have some familiarity with how it behaves: though the first chapter starts with Ohm's law and the concept of the electron, it skips over a pretty significant middle bit as it throws you into the deep end. As an example, the book devotes a section of a few pages to tunnel diodes, an esoteric subject with largely nostalgic interest for the authors. My only ‘twinge’ is that it discloses and explains (in glorious graphical detail and with real part numbers) many topics that I thought were my personal trade secrets. Chapter 5 details every circuit artifact that I’ve encountered in the past 30 years in a thorough, pragmatic, and straightforward way.

There are also application circuits for measuring MOSFET gate charge and FET transconductance, with tabulated results for a variety of types. Go for an easier one to start with, such as Practical Electronics for Inventors, book 4, and Learning the Art of Electronics then drift into this superb volume.

Whether it is dealt with in sufficient detail, or whether the author will actually be helpful, that may be different, but there is some commentary on nearly anything. I have found it very helpful, and look forward to the day that I will have enough liquidity to afford a copy of “AoE” to see the comparison.

The Art of Electronics brilliantly conveys its authors' enthusiasm and experience of practical engineering and is an inspiring read. As others have noted, the paper used is quite thin, but it would have to be, given the page-count - 1260-ish. But it's very well-written and explains things in an intuitive way that I never really learned in college.He is the author of some 200 scientific articles and reports, has consulted widely for industry and government, and is the designer of numerous electronic and photographic instruments. I believe the strength of this book stems from the authors' background in physics … The key being that electronics is not their primary interest.

I especially like the comments about interpreting specifications and the deconstruction of the Agilent voltmeters is just, well, wonderful. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of different types of diodes, including some esoteric types, and their practical failings. So, having had the book in hand — almost continuously — for a few days, I think I’ve got a decent idea of what it’s all about.

I never heard of the book until the age of the popular internet, maybe 1996, but then it seemed referenced “everywhere”, I always assumed because many had it as a university text book.