Electronic Crcuits: Fundamentals and Applications
by Mike Tooley, Published by Newnes (Third Edition)
ISBN 0-7506-6923-3, paperback, 430 pp, $36.95

ZONE Reviewer: Paul McGoldrick

This is the Third Edition of the title by Mike Tooley, who is the former Vice Principal of the well-regarded Brooklands College of Further and Higher Education in the UK. There are 19 chapters and 9 appendices which the author is quick to point out are organized by topic, not a particular syllabus.

The first chapters breeze through passives, dc circuits and ac techniques, covering all the fundamentals in a nice clean way, In Chapter 5 on semiconductors, things rush along rather fast from an explanation of covalent bonding to diodes and transistor behavior. An explanation of MOSFET operation is, however, missing.

Power supplies, in Chapter 6, are dealt with on a mostly discrete basis but SMPS devices are introduced and there is a nice page on voltage doublers and triplers. The bandgap reference is thrown in (rounded, annoyingly, to 1.3 V) with no explanation as to what it is.

Amplifiers are covered in Chapter 7 in a fairly complete manner dealing with Classes (but no Class D) and some circuit techniques that can be used with discrete parts. Op amps follow in Chapter 8 (with only split rail examples) and the usual, rather academic, approach is taken that would be singularly unhelpful on the bench.

Chapter 9 explains positive feedback dealing with oscillators and covers types like Ladder, Wien, multivibrator and crystal. It is a fairly lean offering, but the next Chapter (10) offers a very reasonable introductory look at logic and Truth Tables as well as TTL/CMOS logic levels.

Chapter 11 is a fundamental look at Microprocessors and mentions both the PIC and Z80. In Chapter 12 the whole text is devoted to the 555 timer. While it is the biggest selling part in the history of ICs, there are so many other ways of completing the same things today other than the 555 hobby approach.

Radio is covered in Chapter 12 in what is probably the fastest coverage in the whole book. It does, however, linger on half-wave dipoles and Yagis -- although antenna gain is expressed in dBd without any explanation for the reader. Test and measurement is the subject of Chapter 13 covering meter movement, multimeters -- and a good segment on their use -- and the basics of oscilloscopes. There is a bad typo where an explantion of the basic dB reference level is 1 mW into 600 (ohm sign missing)!

Fault finding is treated in Chapter 14 (probably should be one for the garbage can in 2007) and a nice coverage of sensors and interfacing is given in Chapter 15. No explanations of sensor operation are given, but there certainly is not the space for that approach.

And what a wonderful surprise in Chapter 17: circuit simulation using TINA Pro! It's a well wrtten chapter, if not comprehensive, but the idea of getting a student into that world fills me with joy. Kudos to you, Mr Tooley.

Chapter 18 is totally devoted to PIC and, in the very way that the British genericized words like Hoover, Kleenex and the Biro, there is not a single attribution to Microchip for the brilliance of their parts.

The last chapter covers circuit construction techniques from very much a hobbyist point-of-view. That's not a problem but it's not going to set you up for a job in the PCB business.

The nine appendicies cover student assignments, revision material, answers to the chapter questions, device pin connections, précised 1N4148 data sheet, précised 2N3904 data sheet, understanding decibels, mathematics, and URLs for vendors, dealers, etc. Missing from the list of vendors is Fairchild Semiconductor: unfortunate, because they gave permission for so many pieces of their data sheets to be used in the book. Intersil is also missing; its predecessor, Harris, is still listed, as is the late Dallas Semiconductor (now part of Maxim) and Philips Semiconductor (now headquartered in Asia as NXP Semiconductor -- which I have wondered means Now eX Philips?)

I find the layout of the book uncomfortable, with a view, presumably by the publisher, to keeping the page count down by letting the layout slip leaving text on one page and a relevant figure on another. Many of the examples used are rather dated in terms of components -- the vast majority European designations -- with the standout being a Z80 processor branded by SGS (then under a foolish license from Zilog) and date coded week 48, 1985!

It is claimed that the text is appropriate for any new or returning student of electronics -- and at any level up to HND. I would have hoped that the HND students I taught for 7 years as a Senior Lecturer in Plymouth left knowing more.

But it's not all negative, and a new student picking up this book shouldn't shrug it off. Heck, the chapter on simulation makes it unique in this field. And unlike another text from Newnes, this book also recognizes both pnp and npn devices -- even if it wrongly capitalizes them. But this should not be the only book that a student picks up.