Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reference book for today's engineer
Comment: There was a time when all that was needed to get a digital PCB to work was to get all the nets connected correctly without any shorts. But with a high speed circuit, the PCB nets can be connected correctly and the PCB still won't work when it's built! That's because at the speeds that circuits run at today, circuit traces are no longer just connections; Instead, they inductors, transmission lines, RF stubs and antennas! To many designers, RF circuit design is like black magic (hence the title, a Handbook of Black Magic). But this book gives you an insight into what a high speed circuit is doing, and how to deal with these issues successfully.
Chapter 5 (Ground Planes and Layer Stacking) is especially useful for the high speed PCB designer. Understand this chapter and you will be well on your way to consistently getting high speed PCB layouts to work on the first try. You will also have an understanding of what to fix on PCB layouts that don't work.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: high speed circuit layout techniques
Comment: I bought this book based on a friend's recommendation seven years ago. I have used this book along with Henry Ott's book as a desk top reference for the past seven years.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the final word by any means, but a good introduction
Comment: Add Johnson and Graham to the list of people who can write large, highly technical books full of useful, pertinent information, and package it all in a way that's mostly very readable and which mixes just the right blend of rigorous academic structure with good old-fashioned "when all else fails, you might get away with this" hacks. This book is by no means a thorough, academic grounding in the subject matter, but it works well as an introduction for people who have some background in conventional electronics, yet little or no background in the specifics of high-speed digital design.
Considering how specialized and complex the book's subject matter is, it's surprising how well the authors manage to avoid hard math; they obviously made a conscious effort to use the most intuitive formulas possible whenever they could. There are maybe a handful of differential equations in the book, but most of the math requires no calculus, just basic algebra. The moderately math-phobic should be able to handle this book if you can understand what derivatives and integrals are.
A bit of a rant: Everybody gets so hung up on the title! Did any of the people who complain that HSDD isn't really "black magic" actually bother to even open the book? Right in the preface, the authors explain that HSDD is regarded as something of a "black magic" by engineers because it isn't taught in most college programs, but "The authors would like to dispel the popular myth that anything unusual or unexplained happens at high speeds. It's simply a matter of knowing which principles apply, and how." The title is meant to be humorous, people; lighten up! A lack of a sense of humor is a sign of an ineffective engineer.
This book really is just an introduction. You're not going to go out and design a gigahertz-level PC motherboard when you've read it through, but it'll prepare you for more advanced material like the "Advanced Black Magic" sequel, and tons of similar advanced books on the market. The book's strength is in its easy writing style and broad, concise scope. Recommended for anyone who knows basic electronics but wants to become a professional signal electronics engineer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mostly a very solid book
Comment: Great book. BTW, the author lists a LOT of errata on his website, enough to take over an hour to mark up my copy (5th printing). Although it's nice he documents this so well, it's a pain in the rear, so you may want to verify the edition you're buying to avoid this extra effort. On page vi, above ISBN, look for reverse sequence; example: "10 9 8 7" indicates 7th printing (cryptic, I know). Most recent printing is 15th edition (least amount of errata). The book is loaded with equations and diagrams. It would be nice to see more derivations, but at least the equations are there in the text, and in the appendix. I thought a few other reviewers were a bit harsh. The book is not perfect, but nevertheless a great resource. His second book is impressive, but more advanced; this original title is my "workhorse" book. also, check out his website (sigcon.com) for lots of articles and resources.
Customer Rating:
Summary: one of the best books around
Comment: I dont know what the other reviewers are blabbing about...being an ASIC designer myself..I felt this book was the best introduction I could get to cross-talk, signal integrity, EMC and Metastability. Been through and done that a lot of times, but still this is one of the best things around
|
