this book is thick and covers a lot of topics quite in-depth, definitely not very good book to start with on microelectronics, but it does make a good ref text!

this book is thick and covers a lot of topics quite in-depth, definitely not very good book to start with on microelectronics, but it does make a good ref text!

As most of the people say I agree, this book is not for beginners, and I think further that this book should not be used for the people who think to continue in Academia.

This book is for engineers, when they need to recall something, they will open and use as a reference.

I recommend the `Introduction to Electronic Circuit Design - by Spencer and Ghausi` for a circuit design course instead of Sedra&Smith`s book and Gray, Meyer, Hurst, Lewis book on Analog IC for further topics.

This book is written with the big assumption that the reader is quite versed in the topic already and is very sophisticated in math manipulations to get the results that Sedra ends up with !

Well for a beginner student intersted in this topic this is a book that he or she would struggle with for sure!

But this is the common problem with tech writers who use information and formulas that they never first explain and then assume the reader already knows the material being presented. This is why tech writers rarely get the Pulitzer Prize in writing !

Could Sedra correct this flaw ?

Sure, but often these authors are so set in their ways that it is a struggle even to bring it up to them, so the only answer to new students in the field is to keep searhing for texts that do meet the student half way at least.

Gerard J Sagliocca, P.E.
gerard_sagliocca@yahoo.com

I had to get it for a class but i wouldn't get it on my own. The book lacks explainations and examples that would normaly be expected in this level of a book.

I purchased the item and my credit card was charged, then a few days later I received a letter saying they no longer had any in stock (apparently they sold more copies than they had available) and my money was refunded. This delayed my process.

One of the best Electrical Engineering texts I have had. A lot of other electrical engineering texts reference this book. Also covers a lot of material at over 1000 pages.

To be honest, this book spends a lot of time with useless information about the concept of the devices. The devices are made to be simple and intuitive when using them in electronic designs and implementation. The book goes into very deep information that is useless to circuit theory and design. I believe that the fundamental nature of each concept should remain in the book as the main core, while the "deep-analysis" details should be separated and used as references for those that actually care about that kind of material (I literally X'd each section that I felt were unimportant with a permanent marker). I also didn't bother with the questions at the back of each chapter, they were too time consuming and full of dead-ends, it would take a person with long experience to know how to solve them. The reader should not feel that he/she is being tugged with a rope around the neck and forced to read paragraphs of nearly 50 characteristics of a device represented by variables, especially when most of these characteristics do not even play an important role in circuit design; and especially when the reader is expected to keep track of what is happening to each characteristic within the device. The longevity of the analysis to explain the main points would take considerable amount of understanding; which would drive away interests from students as well as dulling any attempt from a reader wanting to pay attention to the material. Students simply don't have the time to waste with all that. Its very sad to say that this book has been given to many introductory courses with a lot of dissatisfied results.

Personally, the only book that should be allowed to teach the concepts presented in this book is "Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory" by Robert L. Boylestad and Louis Nashelsky. If you're a beginner student, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. If you are a professor teaching beginner students, DO NOT recommend this book to them, it would be a frustrating task on your part summarizing what the book failed to do. Its best used for people who already are aware of the fundamentals, doing research, or have experience with the microelectronic industry.

I've had a lot of experience with this particular book and its previous edition. I learned amplifier design through Sedra and then later taught using Sedra. I honestly have mixed feelings about this book, because I think it could use a lot more work on being complete and providing a wider diversity of examples. Even as an undergraduate, I felt that it was lacking. Don't get me wrong, this is a great introduction and with an experienced guide, you will start on the path of knowledge. I can't say I have much experience with a book that would be a better replacement at the undergraduate level. When the underlying knowledge of solid-state circuit analysis is laid, you will want to immediately replace this book. I cannot give any higher praise of "Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits." However, it is far more suited to a graduate level course in circuit analysis or to put in your reference library.

This book is very well written. Concepts are well explained and example are plentiful.

I used this book in my college and was entirely lost. And in my opinion not just me but other students at my school. I believe this is not a good book at all. First off I find the author dwells way too much into the math for an introductory subject, and as a result makes it really impossible to answer the questions at the end of the chapters. It seems this book is more for someone who has had a couple years of experience. You never get a real feel for what the whole topic of microelectronics is and what is the point of the op-amp and transistors. After trying to read this book several times I started to realize maybe it was not me and maybe it was the book. And after trying out different books out there I realized it was not me!!! Now I can say when I first read this book I was not great at electric circuit analysis, but after getting good at that and coming back to this book I was still as confused as I was in college. I would recommend Microelectronic Circuit Design by Jaeger or Introduction to Electronic Circuit Design by Richard Spencer and Mohammed S. Gaussi. This book really lowered my confidence in myself, but luckly their are other books out there that make you believe that any subject can be learned and it is not about intellectual aptitude as it is more just of effort. I would also strongly, strongly, strongly suggets reading Roland Thomas "The Analysis and Design of Linear Circuits" to understand circuit analysis. This book is amazing and gave me confidence again that I could learn electronics. The way this author goes over thevinin and norton, node-voltage analysis, phasors, laplaces equations, fourier series, and solving differential equations is amazing!!!!! And it is an excellent, excellent start to learning the math of electronics. It actually has problems that are worked out in the book!!! And it has not just difficult questions but also questions that are easy to get you warmed up. You almost start to feel you are in high school again, the good old days when math and science was actually easy!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also the other thing about this book that I did not like was that the book was not fun to read. I never got excited reading this book. It is really amazing to me that this is the book of choice not only in colleges but the work place as well.

If you are having problems try reading the other books I have mentioned, and then see. The one thing that is good about this book is that it shows you basically everything you need to know about electronics, but unfortunately I found you can't learn any of it by reading this book. I could safetly say you could read this book several times months upon months and maybe understand .01% of it.

I used this book for a junior level circuit analysis and design course. I have mixed feelings about the book. The main things i like about the book are: 1) it's very methodical and goes through everything in detail (sometimes excruciatingly so), 2)it's fairly comprehensive, and contains all the fundamental BJT and MOSFET circuit analysis stuff 3) there are lots of examples which are worked out in detail.

My gripes with the book are: 1)it jumps around a bit too much for my taste, and i'm not sure i like the order that the authors decided to cover the topics in 2) as a consequence of being very detailed and meticulous and including a lot of examples the book is a beast, it's also not the most entertaining read in the world.

Essentially, my success in this course was responsible almost entirely to the 5 days I devoted solely to working through this book. However, those were probably the worst 5 days of my life thus far... I guess it's a trade off.

I used an earlier version of this book as an undergrad. I am happy with the experience and the knowledge I gained of the theoretical underpinnings of electronics. On the other hand, it never really helped me take the next step in using or applying the information. I kept the book as it was one I felt would help me long term and I liked it, but once working in electonics, I find it really wasn't useful. Most of the problems I see on a day to day basis were never addressed and the methods I learned in graduate level classes were much more powerful.
I do wish more students had the underlying knowledge of electonics, so many engineers these days don't know why or how semiconductors work!
The way I saw the book is that it teaches one how to drive a car by exlaining the gas pedal, the engine, the transmission, the tires, and the road. Great to know, but it never gets around to clearly saying why something is the way it is or clearly summarizing the important points.

Its an excellent book for undergraduates entering into the world of Microelectronic ckts. Also for grad students trying to refresh their memory on Analog concepts -- great book.

For Analog guys definitely the book to have on their shelves.

This is a great book to own as a reference for designing electronic circuits, but you will need an additional practice book as this one is focused on theorical aspects of building electronic blocks.

While content is well explained and complete with a lot of examples, this book misses some complete design examples for practical electronic. Coverage of MOSFETs and BJTs is great and easy to understand. Semiconductor theory is well explained too, for diodes and transistors. They are a lot of chapters about signal conditionning circuits and the coverage of the book is pretty wide.

So, the book is good to understand concepts about numerous aspects of electronics, but when it comes to building physical circuits, you will have a hard time searching all the information. Only general circuits are used to explain how amps, power supplies and signal generators work. But, specific design is too much left aside.

If this is a book you would like to buy for a course in engineering, it is a good choice. However, be sure to spend extra money for an additional reference in practical circuits if you work as a designer.

In my theory the reason behind the great success of this book is that it is written for students in the way students like! As a matter of fact, learning from Sedra might be as tedious or maybe impossible as learning Greek from a Spanish text assuming that you know neither! It starts with bode plots and Op-amps. If you really have no idea about the very basic circuits and circuits' analysis (mesh analysis and node analysis) you will have a big trouble reading this book!

The text assumes that you understand the theory of operation of the reactive components and how for e.g. the RLC different configurations really work. Surly, if you are already familiar with the basic concepts of circuits' analysis you will find yourself enjoying the time all through the text.

However, the text is thorough by nature as it covers Op-amps, basic electronics (p-n junction and transistors), analog electronics and lastly digital electronics. Not every thing is perfect and ideal just like every text. Needless to say it is written by a human!

As a student, this text has a huge number of `solved' problems and exercises for you to practice which is preferred by students as it is the best way to check their understanding of concepts.

The Op-amps are thoroughly covered in the very beginning of the text which might not be preferred by those die hard bottom to up students. Despite the fact that Op-amps are not relevant before the analog electronics part it gives the reader motivation to go further in the subject. However, it connects your signals background with the analog implementation in such a comprehensive way that makes you need no other text whenever you are designing some Op-Amp based circuit which ,in turn, make this part a very useful part to consult whenever you are refreshing your memory beside that it is good and to the point to learn from!

For the first part of the text (Basic electronics), the presentation of information is not just intuitive, it is also a practical as it makes you see the big picture and not focused on the solid state physics which are taught in more advanced courses. In this part, the fast overview on solid state physics and the first time student friendly coverage of the analysis and design of simple circuits filled with a collection of relevant problems test some times the student insight and some other times the student knowledge of the theory make the student able to adapt with more advanced topics as fast as it is required for those increased pace courses. Moreover, it exposes the student to some advanced topics related with the industry which might motivate readers.

The Analog part of the text covers almost all topics needed in the undergraduate level as it covers thoroughly advanced topics like frequency response, filter design, Power amplifier classes and also there is one nice chapter devoted for Op-amp complete design.

The digital part is slightly covered compared with the analog part this text is more devoted to. It assumes that you are familiar with the very basic topics of electronics for e.g. Boolean algebra, logic gates ...etc. Although the digital part is not as thorough, the eye opener style gives the reader the ability to detect potential problems in digital integrated circuits in various ways as it gives you an example of implementing some digital integrated circuit then walks with you through it step by step then gives you the chance to see the problem then it solves it with you then shows you the modified (enhanced) circuit and do it the same way till you reach the best one that can resist noise, ground instability to some extent,overcome switching problems, ...etc; this is done in no more than two iterations! At some points you might find the technology used in some digital implementation is not as up to date as you might expect from a such a big text e.g. DTL; however, it rather gives you the creativity of the circuit designer than showing you the `free' latest technology journal! Which ironically is irrelevant as it depends on much more topics those are not covered in this volume!

To summarize this: if you are an undergrad. Student I strongly recommend this text to use all through the basic electronics course if and only if the course's topics are covered in the first part. Also, I would recommend this text on Analog electronics course which I find this text superior in the area to other texts I read (more than 3). As for digital electronics course I would recommend you use it as a supplementary text since it gives you some examples more involved with electronics than digital design concepts. Moreover, in such case I would recommend some other text like Tocci or Mano. Nevertheless, in my view, the text that would match Sedra in its analog part but in digital part is Rabaey.
As a circuits design professional (lucky you to have such a rare profession today!) this text would help you as long as you wont exceed the scale that make you think more about physics!

The bottom line is: This book will never be a waste of neither time nor money.

This book is the best book that suite your Analog Electronics undergraduate course.It really worths the money.
My advice:if you are an intermideate analog electronics student get this book and give it atleast 40% of your time but if that will not fit your schedule let me tell you that: Sedra is for the student who has time to read and solve tons of problems! it is intended to transfet the mid-level of electrical experiance from the author to your brain (this is why it will cost you time).
If you are looking for shortcuts to not exceed the C grade you can simply find something like Floyed book and suchs!.
you can use it as a ref. for the basics of the material if you are an advanced student who dont have another ref.

This book is all you need: If you want insight into the field of electronics as a hobbyist, technician or a professional engineer, this book is for you. It has complete coverage of basic electronic devices and circuits, analog circuits, and digital circuits. The book can also be used for self-study, but it can be hard to follow straight through since it's really organized more like a reference book than a textbook. If you're thinking about continuing your study of electronics on a more advanced level, this book will give you solid preparation. A word of advice: at some points in the book, the explanations are extremely clear and lucid; at other points the explanations are vague, and always where you least expect it! To get around this, solve as many example problems and exercises as possible, and the "fine points" of the explanations will become crystal clear. As you know, this is true for any engineering discipline, but it seems like the example problems were designed specifically to clarify the occasional "vaguenesses" of the text.