I’m wondering if there’s a family of books I’m missing here.
I’ve got the digital design books, architecture books, VHDL/Verilog, etc.
I’ve got EE texts, circuit analysis, etc.
Art of Electronics is regularly referenced, along with ARRL books.
What I don’t have is books on the real world. What I’m looking for is a book full of advice and rules of thumb. The “cut out your ground plane under an xtal”, “run your traces like so”, “this will bite you” book.
I see EMI textbooks, high speed layout textbooks, and other sorts of very expensive books on design - but what I’m looking for is the updated Art of Electronics meets O’Reilly. A collection of design notes and articles full of sound ideas and gotchas by guys that have been around the block a time or 20.
O’Reilly has an embedded hardware book which is ok, and has some good little snippets in the PCB layout section, but I want more dangit!
Does this book (or books) exist? Suggestions?
Different books will help with different design speeds - but a general book on PCB design with real world info I just picked up is
“Newnes - Complete PCB design using OrCad Capture and Layout 2007 - Kriag Mitzner”
Don’t be put off by the OrCad in the title - it’s all very applicable even if you are using pcad/altium/pads/DX or something free.
Digital Systems Engineering - Dally/Poulton , Cambridge/1998 - is also a good read
And if your just want a good circuit theory book (actually I would have to say a most excellant circuit theory book) -! :
microelectronic circuits Sedra Adel / Kenneth Smith , oxford Univ Press - Well worth the money.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a book like that.
In the mean while, the closest you could come to that is studying other peoples’ proven designs. Find popular circuits (good ones though), check out the design, layout, etc., see how they’re the same and how they differ, and compare that to what you’ve been ‘taught’. Sometimes the stuff you’re talking about comes awful close to the line between science and art. At that point you really can’t write a book on it other than a ‘This Is How I Do It’ book.
In any case, good luck, and if you do find a book on it, please let us all know.
One other thing is to browse through application notes. (And of course, you’ve read the datasheet, right?) Microchip for example has some stuff on oscillator crystals and ground.
Sometimes, sites like [Electronic Design or one of the [TechOnline sites have interesting articles too.](http://www.techonline.com)](http://electronicdesign.com)