Analog Circuit Design
Art, Science, and Personalities
by Jim Williams · first published 1991
8mentions
5recommended by
8HN commenters
2008–2025first – last mentioned
63% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Essays from experienced analog designers covering practical circuit techniques, design attitudes, and how circuits were improved over time. It is educational and suited to engineers seeking practical insight.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…is a scalable demonstration of knowledge, that can be critiqued and revised. Circuit design is more an art than a science, that's why two of the most popular non-textbooks on the topic are called: "Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science, and Personalities" - Williams "The Art of Electronics" - Horowitz and Hill Get over yourselves. EDIT: If you read these two books, they focus on the highly subjective nature of analog…
on “I no longer grade my students’ work, and I wish I had stopped sooner” ↗This book is good:https://www.amazon.com/Analog-Circuit-Design-Personalities-E...
on “Bob Widlar – The Life of an Engineering Legend” ↗Thanks for the link. Looking forward to reading it. I first learned about Jim Williams when I bought a book called Analog Circuit Design from the EDN press. He edited most of the book, but it is a collection of beliefs, values and attitudes around Analog Design by like-minded folks. It's equal parts educational and humorous.
on “Comments on the MISRA C coding guidelines (2011)” ↗This is my favorite circuit book: https://www.amazon.com/Analog-Circuit-Design-Personalities-E... It is written from zen-level experts in a very ELI5 way. The examples start off with a naive approach, and step by step explain how they were improved, in some cases over decades.…
on “Bad Circuit Design” ↗>It'd be fun to have a book of tricks from this era. I think you'll get a kick out of: "Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science and Personalities" https://www.amazon.com/Analog-Circuit-Design-Personalities-E...
on “A Tektronix TDS 684B Oscilloscope Uses CCD Analog Memory” ↗…so I don't know how much it's changed. My recommendation would be the pre 1995 editions. Usually easy to find at libraries, but not these days... I think I also have this book https://www.amazon.com/Analog-Circuit-Design-Personalities-E... Or some other similar book from Jim Williams. It's not as much about electronics as it is about the engineers who came up with interesting ideas and designs. Which brings up another…
on “Bad Circuit Design” ↗Digital and analog circuit design are art-like activities and doing them with grace requires knowledge of many other levels of abstraction all the way down to physics. It is possible to lack these fundamentals and become a decent designer…
on “Ask YC: Learning circuit/hardware; lab book?” ↗Books that are currently nearby: Art of Electronics, The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design, The Intelligent Investor, Fooled by Randomness, Front Panel, SICP, TPU Microcoding for Beginners, Planar Microwave Engineering, This Is Your Brain on Music, three of the Tufte books, etc.
on “Ask HN: What's on your bookshelf?” ↗