Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits

Citation

Agarwal, A., & Lang, J. H. (2005). Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits. Morgan Kaufmann.

Chapter Summary

The book has sixteen chapters. Its organising idea, in the publisher's words, is "abstraction": the authors present electrical engineering and computer science as the art of creating and using successive abstractions to manage the complexity of building electrical systems, with computer systems as one kind of electrical system. The stated aims are to combine circuits and electronics in a single, unified treatment and to connect them firmly to contemporary digital systems. The publisher also says the book concentrates on contemporary MOS technology, uses real devices to illustrate concepts, and supports the circuits and electronics course on MIT OpenCourseWare.

Chapters 1–4: The Circuit Abstraction; Resistive Networks; Network Theorems; Analysis of Nonlinear Circuits

The opening four chapters cover what circuit analysis is, starting from the circuit abstraction itself. They proceed to resistive networks and network theorems, and then to the analysis of nonlinear circuits.

Chapters 5–8: The Digital Abstraction; The MOSFET Switch; The MOSFET Amplifier; The Small Signal Model

The second block places the digital abstraction before the devices that implement it. The MOSFET is then introduced first as a switch and then as an amplifier, and the small signal model follows.

Chapters 9–12: Energy Storage Elements; First-order Transients; Energy and Power in Digital Circuits; Transients in Second Order Circuits

Energy storage elements open the dynamic part of the book. First-order transients are followed by a chapter on energy and power in digital circuits, and then by transients in second-order circuits.

Chapters 13–14: Sinusoidal Steady State; Sinusoidal Steady State: Resonance

Two chapters treat the sinusoidal steady state, the second devoted to resonance.

Chapters 15–16: The Operational Amplifier Abstraction; Diodes

The final two chapters present the operational amplifier as another abstraction and finish with diodes.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4: Circuit analysis

• Circuit abstraction: modelling a physical system by lumped elements and their connections.
• Resistive networks and network theorems: the standard analysis tools for linear circuits.
• Nonlinear circuit analysis: methods for circuits that contain nonlinear elements.

Chapters 5–8: Digital abstraction and MOS devices

• Digital abstraction: representing signals as two levels so that digital systems tolerate noise.
• MOSFET as a switch and an amplifier: the same device used in two modes.
• Small signal model: a linearised description for amplifier analysis.

Chapters 9–16: Dynamics and further devices

• Energy storage elements and transients: first-order and second-order responses.
• Energy and power in digital circuits: transients considered from the viewpoint of digital design.
• Sinusoidal steady state and resonance: response to sinusoidal inputs.
• Operational amplifier abstraction and diodes: the last two topics in the book.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A single thread of abstraction. The chapter titles themselves reflect the idea: circuit abstraction (Chapter 1), digital abstraction (Chapter 5) and operational amplifier abstraction (Chapter 15). A reader can follow one organising concept across a whole introductory sequence.
• Digital and analog together. The authors introduce the digital abstraction and MOSFETs early, at Chapters 5 to 8, rather than treating digital logic as a separate course. A reviewer cited by the publisher, Dumitru Stanomir, describes the book as initiating a new approach in which analog and digital electronics are presented together to give deeper insight into real electronics.
• Contemporary devices. Per the publisher, the book focuses on MOS technology and illustrates concepts with real devices.
• Open to self-study. Elsevier gave students of the edX course 6.002x free access to an online version of the book, according to announcements the publisher quotes.

Limitations

• Late arrival of some classical topics. Sinusoidal steady state and resonance do not appear until Chapters 13 and 14, and diodes come last, in Chapter 16. A course that expects diodes early, as many electronics texts do, must reorder the material.
• An unconventional order. The book places the digital abstraction and the MOSFET (Chapters 5 to 8) before energy storage elements (Chapter 9), so it suits a course designed around its approach better than one that follows a circuits-first, devices-later sequence.
• Age. The publisher's listing shows a single edition, from July 2005, so later developments in the field are not reflected.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is an integrated first course in circuits and electronics. Storey's Electronics: A Systems Approach is a gentler introduction that begins from whole systems, and Fundamentals of Electric Circuits is a comprehensive circuit-analysis text that goes further in classical techniques. Agarwal and Lang cover the same early territory more compactly but add the digital abstraction and MOS devices. Microelectronics: An Integrated Approach goes deeper into semiconductor devices and electronic design, so it is a natural follow-on to Chapters 6 to 8, and Practical Electronics for Inventors complements the theory with building and testing. Hayt and Buck's Engineering Electromagnetics supplies the field theory beneath circuit models, and Computer Organization and Design continues the digital thread toward processors.

How to Use This Book

The book is aimed at electrical engineering and computer science students and at designers of digital and analog systems. Calculus-based physics with electricity and magnetism and single-variable calculus are the expected background.

Read Chapters 1 to 4 in order, then Chapter 5 to understand the digital abstraction before Chapters 6 to 8 on MOSFETs. Chapters 9 to 12 form the dynamics core. Chapters 13 to 14 and 15 can be taken as needed for analog work, and Chapter 16 on diodes can be read earlier by anyone who needs it sooner. Because the book is organised around a course on circuits and electronics, working through problem sets alongside the chapters, and using the MIT OpenCourseWare materials the publisher mentions, will give the best results.