EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Beginners => Topic started by: Leopoldo on September 22, 2017, 06:46:52 pm
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Hi everyone,
this year I'm supposed to go to my local university to study for my second year in electronics engineering. But I feel really underwhelmed.
In my course, loads of subjects and exams are not related enough with what the course is supposed to be teaching. And it's not going to get any better as years go by.
That's why I thought about purchasing books related to subjects that should actually allow me to build up my knowledge in electronic circuits.
My question is:
Given that my experience in electronics is fairly advanced (not to a degree-level, of course, but I've been taught about pretty complex stuff while I was in high school), do you have any recommendation about books I could purchase that would give me knowledge about (mainly) these topics?
- High speed digital AND analogue circuit design
- Embedded systems (generic)
- Control theory
- Electromagnetic compatibility, radio propagation and interference
- Signal processing
As you might imagine, these are subjects that are not only already taught at univeristy courses, but that I also feel like will come very handy over the course of time. Clearly I intend to keep myself updated, but for now, I think I should be good with those.
And speaking of subjects that are likely to become relevant over the next years, do you have any suggestion?
Thanks so much for any contribution!
Leopy.
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You're missing a few especially if you're into control theory and signal processing - before you process you must detect ... there were a couple of really good papers that came out of CERN re the design of the sensors / triggers - but you need to add this topic also. This will get you into physics and chemistry so do you consider those relevant ?
In my course, loads of subjects and exams are not related enough with what the course is supposed to be teaching
I thought that until I hit year 4 (Computer Science) when a lot of it came together, and I was too darn busy from year 3 onwards.
Now I don't want to put you off, I read loads of books I wasn't specifically required to but when I did my degree we were writing the books - there was no internet - so I did all kinds of stuff related to it such as vibration analysis, semiconductor materials, capacitance, aerodynamics and all kinds of stuff that is nothing to do with 'computers' but without which there wouldn't be any.
So don't get disheartened and stick with it, don't shrug it off or it is likely to catch you out, read all the books you want but remember that you need to pass the course and you will only do that by answering what they want, how they want it answered.
Out of 36 that started with me only 6 finished ....
Found one of them - knock yourself out http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-0221/4/04/P04012/pdf (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-0221/4/04/P04012/pdf)
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I thought that until I hit year 4 (Computer Science) when a lot of it came together, and I was too darn busy from year 3 onwards.
I felt the same way (the beginning was boring) so I started college backwards. One mistake I made was the first course I took was a graduate class and I did not make it (on the 68000). So then I started with senior level courses because they were interesting. I got good at crashing classes and was kicked out only once. Somewhere along the line I had to see a counselor and he said "what the hell are you doing" :-DD My diploma does not show that I went through school in reverse.
So you do not have to do things like everyone else. You probably can take one interesting course and this will make going to school easier.
For books try and read this
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/electronics-primers-course-material-and-books/msg28589/#msg28589 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/electronics-primers-course-material-and-books/msg28589/#msg28589)
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I'd take a good analytical look at filter design. It will help you with digital processing as well since it gives you a more subtle sense of tradeoffs between the analog frontend and DSP, and what exactly you're likely to be acquiring. Also, in some sense all circuits are filters - particularly high-speed ones.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Filters-Electrical-Computer-Engineering/dp/0195373944 (https://www.amazon.com/Design-Filters-Electrical-Computer-Engineering/dp/0195373944)
(Look for the international/Indian edition on eBay.)
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Not only are there loads of free .pdf books on electronics, math/phys/etc and eyerything else, there are lots of un-free books available
But what I HAVE NOT found near enoungh of in any subject is text books with WORKED EXAMPLES like in highschool books, and I suppose the early year university books that cost a ton
Which reminds me, time to buy those oit of date books made of paper
I have more books (ebooks) then I'll probably ever read
I hope I live in THE MATRIX and can upload this stuff soon, because I haven't even started the DEATH STAR yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9mEqFE2P7Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9mEqFE2P7Y)
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Embedded systems I used the first edition of this book for my embedded class. I liked that it directly references Cortex-M3, instead of being wishy-washy or talking about some hypothetical processor/architecture. The examples are pretty basic and easy to follow.
Embedded Systems with ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers in Assembly Language and C (https://www.amazon.com/Embedded-Cortex-M-Microcontrollers-Assembly-Language/dp/0982692668/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1506128317&sr=8-2&keywords=embedded+systems+with+arm+cortex)
Electromagnetic compatibility The gold standard (imo) is Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering by Henry Ott.
Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering (https://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Compatibility-Engineering-Henry-Ott/dp/0470189304/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506128667&sr=1-1&keywords=electromagnetic+compatibility+engineering)
Signal Processing I have an early version (from 1988 I think) and I thought it was one of the better texts on DSP. Still has a ton of math but I thought it was pretty well put together with good explanations and use of figures. I have only looked a few DSP books so take this suggestion for what it's worth.
Digital Signal Processing (https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Signal-Processing-John-Proakis/dp/0131873741/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506128714&sr=1-1&keywords=Signal+processing+proakis)
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The first couple of years are boring because you should be learning the math it takes for the last two years. There's a reason that Field Theory comes late in the program. Same with Control Systems. You can't do Control Systems without Laplace Transforms and LT depends on Differential Equations which depends on Integral Calculus which depends on Differential Calculus. And so on.
Way back when I was in school (graduated '73). To me, the best years were the first two or maybe two and one-half. Toward the end it started to wear on me. I was working full time and going to school at night. I swear, if it took one additional semester, I would never have graduated.
Grad school, OTOH, was fun!. It's only 31 or 32 units and I got to pick the classes that interested me. There were two math classes I would have rather skipped but, as it turns out, these days I am a lot more interested in the material. Forty years later...
Hang in there. It really will be worth it.
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Mathematical background:
Differential Equations - G.F. Simmons
Ordinary Differential Equations - Birkhoff & Rota (more theory)
These will help with signal processing and controls:
Introduction to Probability - Bertsekas & Tsitsiklis
Linear Algebra - Gilbert Strang
Physics background (perhaps less essential than mathematics, but useful)
Electricity & Magnetism (Berkeley Physics) - Purcell
Now the actual EE stuff:
Signals & Systems - Oppenheim & Willsky
Signals, Systems and Inference - Oppenheim & Verghese
Discrete-time Signal Processing - Oppenhein & Schafer
Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits - Gray, Hurst, Lewis, Meyer
Design of Analog CMOS Integrated Circuits - Behzad Razavi
Operational Amplifiers - James Roberge
App notes by Jim Williams - http://www.linear.com/doclist/?au=Jim+Williams (http://www.linear.com/doclist/?au=Jim+Williams)
The Art of Electronics - Horowitz & Hill
Will add more as I remember...
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"In my course, loads of subjects and exams are not related enough with what the course is supposed to be teaching."
Uni I was at, 75% of the course was abstract mathematics regardless of which course you took. Really sickened me off. In fact when the prospect of a job in electronics came up I took it. I'm not advising you to do the same, but that was my response.
When I say abstract maths, I don't mean how to calculate the position of Jupiter when Voyager arrives at it, or whatever that might be vaguely useful. I'm talking about lengthy proofs of why the number one is not the number two, or whatever algebraic self-gratification.
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In my course, loads of subjects and exams are not related enough with what the course is supposed to be teaching. And it's not going to get any better as years go by.
To be honest, this is something lots of people say because they don't really realize what is needed. Granted - often this might be the case to some extent, but seldom to the extent the then-students think.
I thought this too at some point! "Oh, why do we need to know about this annoying statistics stuff, I'm doing electronics!" And then you get to noise and noise performance, or matching of IC components and you need the "annoying statistics". Differential equations? Need them for a lot of filter problems, control theory, transmissionline theory, etc. Linear algebra/calculus: Needed for (adaptive) filters in DSP and such.
Keep in mind that many students might not need all of it in their careers - but all of them will require some of it, and since you can't teach people only exactly what they need to know because often they don't even know themselves what they want to do in their career, everyone ends up learning everything. It's easy to say "oh I will never need this!" but to be honest, you can't possibly know - you have no experience at all.
What I'm trying to get to is: Getting annoyed that you need to do these classes and telling yourself "I don't need this anways" is not going to help you. Just accept that perhaps you might not, but it is worth putting effort into it anyways, because you need to pass it, and who knows, one day you might be able to come up with a novel solution to a problem precisely because you understand a field that your colleagues don't.
As far as actual books go, first a quick note. There are two kinds of books: Course books and reference books. They take different approaches, and somethign I have noticed people with a lot of experience do, is suggest reference books to people who need course books. The difference: A course book is built up in such a way as to teach someone new to the field. It starts basic, with introductions, some abstract examples, and builds up the level as it goes along. You usually want to go through these from front to back. A reference book on the other had is built up to be a reference - something people with experience can go to and look up how something worked, the details about something that they might not remember well anymore, etc. The chapters are less related, and you will often find that people using these will only read a single chapter. A clear example of a reference book is one of the many Antenna books. Each chapter focuses on a single antenna type or topic, and often is written by a different author.
For analog circuits, Razavi's books are classics. I would however also really like to suggest Willy Sansen's (full disclosure, I know the guy) book, Analog Design Essentials. It is published by Springer. The thing I like about this book (and a couple of others by springer) is that they are much more of a lecture-style of writing: Each page has 2 slides, and next to them are a textual explanation of what is going on in the slides.
When it comes to RF: For pure RF concepts, such as transmissinlines, matching, etc., Pozar's "Microwave Engineering" is also a good resource. It's a heftier book, but covers a lot of stuff in a very approachable manner.
While I like TAoE, I feel like it is overrated as a course book for EE's. It's a great book to grab for people who aren't EE, or as a first-order reference book, but I feel like it doesn't really go into enough detail on any topic for an EE - it feels like it's a book for people in other fields who need to know some basic electronics because they are working with electronics.
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Worked examples ... interesting concept ... that's the difference between University and school, you are expected to figure it out, this is what sorts the wheat from the chaff.
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+1 to what TheUnnamedNewbie and BenKenobi said.
Each of the fields that the OP listed will need the theoretical foundation that is laid out in the first 2 - 2.5 years of a degree. No way around it. Period.
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Most Unis have secondhand bookshops, & even better, regularly sell off the "old" versions of their texts.
Digging through one of these sales often yield better texts than the current required one.
I am not a EE, but years ago, when I was doing an "in house" course to upgrade from Tech to Technical Officer, I found that the maths text provided wasn't all that good in some areas.
I was all at sea on a couple of things till I found some Uni "throw outs"which covered the subjects adequately (for a few dollars).