For someone who ever took more than 2 related courses in college but hardly remember them, or ever had several monthes of hand on hardware experience. This book is written for him. BUY IT! EVERY PENNY IS WORTHY.

For a very experienced hardware engineer, 80% of this book is useless for him, the rest 20% and some tables/charts could be a good reference.

The author must be a good teacher as well as a cool hardware engineer base the following facts I observed in this book:

1. A lots of comprehensive drawing, most of them are dummy-proof.

2. Very good content structure, one can start from any chapter without difficulty. It is easy to finds what he want.

3. Easy English (OK, okay, I am from Taiwan). No riddle-like description. Always has some explaination when refer to an unpopular theory. You don't need an encycopedia when you read this book.

4. Good coverage: Components, Power and grounding, EMI, PCB problem, general problems of product design, transmission lines.

Clearly, this book is written for a digital hardware designer. Some analog issues are covered, yet they are degital design-related. For RF and pure analog design, this book is not enough.

For digital designer, I recommend this book without reservation.


Must have reference for everyone...   April 13, 2000
32 out of 35 found this review helpful

Everywhere I have worked I've made sure we have lots of copies of this on hand... Many of them walk away because it's such a good reference. If you ever need to design or build a product or just a fun project and have it work, start from here. Everything you won't learn in school, and industry just calls "experience". Combine this with High Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic and you have an extremely powerful combination of references, covering all the details you need to know. Very highly recommended.


Disappointed   April 12, 2007
Scott (Bellingham, WA)
17 out of 19 found this review helpful

I am about 2/3 the way through the book and am disappointed - not with the book, but with my schooling!

My profs were great and dedicated, but they didn't teach half the stuff in this book, not nearly enough real-world engineering. We came out of school without really knowing how to make a professional, working circuit design.

This great book will help the transition from school boy to engineer.

I highly recommend this book. Tim Williams explains real-world, critical circuit concerns in an easy to understand manner and backs it up with equations. For instance, did your profs ever explain what "ground bounce" really was, and if so did they emphasize how important it is to prevent and how?

The Circuit Designer's Companion is full of great advice and I hope to find more books by this author.


Splendid resource!   December 4, 2006
bcreavis
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

I got this book a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely love it. It is very to the point, and has information that I have not seen anywhere else. This book would be great for anyone who is looking to bring their schematics to the real world and have them work. It is definitly not a "here's a schematic and here is what it does book". It assumes you have a decent, but not overwhelming understanding of electronics (I am a high school student if that tells you anything).

It is like a bunch of concepts that would come with years of electrical engineering experience crammed beautifully into 368 pages for you to read.


Excellent Book - Tons of practical knowledge   July 10, 2009
David Ginskey (Wichita, KS USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I'm an electrical engineer with many years of experience in design, but not as much experience in actual manufacturing and component sourcing. I bought this book, hoping to learn a few things that would help me design better products with reduced costs and improved quality. From the many good reviews, I hoped it would be good. In reality, it's fantastic. This is absolutely the BEST book on electronics I've ever read, in terms of practical, real-world considerations for components, PCB's, manufacturability, reliability and cost.

When I'm reading it, I feel like I'm sitting down with a senior engineer who's spent years doing it the hard way, seen it all, tried it all, fixed it all. And now, I'm so lucky to as to be able to sit down and soak in those years of effort, knowledge and experience in one convenient book.

Some of the topics are covered in part in other books, like the The Art of Electronics (also good), but this book does it better, is more up-to-date, includes more detail, is right to the point, and tells you all the critical details no one else will.

I'd highly recommend this book to any electrical engineer, in or out of school, who's ready to tackle a real-world product design.