Fundamentals of Microelectronics Hardcover – 8 April 2013

I liked it all, very good illustrations and interesting excercises

Our Library (including school library) puchases database shows that Adel Sedra and Ken Smith's books are outselling this fine Fundamentals text by about two to one. Perhaps it is because S and S have been around longer, but this is tragic! S and S are ok, but this text is FAR BETTER for undergrads and even advanced High School students! The explanations are the clearest I've ever seen in ANY electronics, signal or circuit text. This is THE ONE.The other commonly used ME texts show a lot of math, problems and solutions, but aren't nearly as complete and intuitive as Fundamentals. The second edition of this gem is MUCH more complete on the analysis side as well.Both aspects of ME circuits can and do have complete courses and texts built around them-- design vs. analysis. The reason this text is over 900 pages is that covering both in one text is a huge deal and a major undertaking. If the authors just spent half on one and half on the other it would be a waste of your time and money. Fortunately, the INTEGRATION of the two topics is wonderful here (and in real life you oscillate between design and analysis with your projects all the time).The best thing about this new edition in addition to the pedagogy bonuses other reviewers have mentioned is the beefed up sections on software. I'm an EE in Robotics design and patents, and we use VHDL/ Verilog, PSpice, the GNU free versions of Matlab with Simulink, numPy and many others all day long, and this text now takes the time to go over the real life applications in detail. The software versions and code examples also are more up to date than any other Micro text out there.The text starts out very basically/ easy with the usual Ohm's and Maxwell, but evolves all the way to Signals and Systems. Signals and Systems is the "cut course" for Junior/Senior undergrads that culls EE candidates out who can't make the grade. It is VERY tough, as you have to understand all the aspects and a ton of math, from physics to circuits to time, frequency, s and z domains, as well as differential equations, linear algebra, Fourier and Laplace transforms, and today, with the new focus on dynamical systems and stochastics, even Lagrangians.I sure wish I'd had THIS text to prepare me for those tougher tasks when I was in undergrad! The authors do just a superb job of using "multi modality" explanations to be sure we get each example-- pictures, diagrams, schematics, English descriptions, MANY real world examples, etc. The other competing texts will show you a moving average, but fail to tell you that all those equations are what turn a moving average into what is called a filter! Voltage is an information signal, which we'd not learn until advanced courses, but THIS fine text demonstrates that right out of the box. It is an amazing mix of gentle basics and advanced material, using too many real world circuits as examples to describe.Frankly, if I were even a computer sci engineering student, I'd get this book! It also is wonderful for autodidacts/ self study because the pedagogy is self contained. I shouldn't put it this way, but even if you have a crummy or distracted teacher, you will still do great if he/she chooses this text. With any of the 3 other big ones, we'd be lost!Highly Recommended. I hope some teachers and profs read this as well, and do their students a HUGE favor by choosing this over the other top contenders. If you are a great teacher, why make your students lives miserable with a non-intuitive "show off" math text? I'd even use it instead of many of the circuit texts in CA classes because it covers them better, and also includes all the other ME topics. The only thing that saddens me is the price, but at almost 1,000 pages with the number of proprietary graphics and code snippets / formulas I guess I get it.I'm using this text for an online tutorial in circuit design patents for self educated engineers, and have found the typos to be minimal, and not in crucial areas. I do expect some typos in an edition this recent, but the up to date examples and currency of the math and software examples and circuits are well worth the small number of goofs. Just one example on recency: Scala is the hottest new high level language today, and possibly the successor to Java, working both in embedded and parallel, and fully compatible with the JVM. Yet, most ME texts are still stuck back at C! Even iphone is C++, and Netflix, LinkedIn, some of the venerable Amazon, and many others are now running Scala in many apps. I use it all the time in embedded robotics, in place of Linux. Tough to keep up with all this change today, but outstanding texts like this help a ton.Library Picks reviews only for the benefit of Amazon shoppers and has nothing to do with Amazon, the authors, manufacturers or publishers of the items we review. We always buy the items we review for the sake of objectivity, and although we search for gems, are not shy about trashing an item if it's a waste of time or money for Amazon shoppers. If the reviewer identifies herself, her job or her field, it is only as a point of reference to help you gauge the background and any biases.

You learn step by step.In the 2nd edition, new chapters like chapter #17 on MOSFETs are highly valuable (for studying MOSFETs specifically before bipolar transistors).A lot of exercices are proposed with their corrections in the body of the text.Illustrations with real applications are all the most interesting.

Great book, I wish there were solutions to the problems for independent learning. Beware many problems will include vocabulary not defined in the text!

Bought for $180 new here on Amazon, while my college co-op sold for $180 used, so great deal. Really good book, as it derives, from the ground up, how the physics of PN junctions are used to make diodes and transistors, and how the physics of these devices affect their performance. Also goes over lots of practical examples in how these circuits with diodes and transistors are used. For example, using the reverse bias of a diode as a voltage-controlled capacitor ( AKA Varactor), which is used in RLC circuits to be able to adjust for different incoming frequencies. This concept is used in mobile phones, which I thought was super cool.