Preface to the second edition

Summary

The original aims of the first edition of this book entitled Electronics for engineers have been preserved in this new edition now called Analogue and digital electronics for engineers. The book remains an introductory teaching book primarily for first and second year students. It should also be of help to practising engineers and scientists wishing to know more of the fundamentals of analogue and digital chips before using them in the enormous variety of applications of electronics in modern life.

The first edition was written just after the syllabus at Cambridge University was revised and modernised and by coincidence, eleven years after the first edition, this new edition is being written just as the engineering course is again being restructured. This edition emphasises both digital and analogue electronics right from the start. It also brings the opportunity to include the book within the Cambridge University Press series ‘Electronics Texts for Engineers and Scientists’.

The approach in this book is again to concentrate on the basic principles so that applications and more advanced work may be soundly based. On the other hand attempts are made throughout the text to ensure that there is enough practical and applied engineering to avoid a dry and unattractive presentation. Two entirely new chapters have been added on digital electronics and in several sections the text has been revised and supplemented to improve it or to bring it up-to-date. Chapter 7 of the first edition has been deleted to make way for new material but several of its most important topics have been included elsewhere in the text.