
Foundations of analog & digital electronic circuits
by Anant Agarwal · first published 2005
9mentions
5recommended by
9HN commenters
2011–2026first – last mentioned
56% recommend44% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Introduces circuits and electronics from first principles, linking analog and digital behavior in one course-style text; a strong theory foundation for EE students, especially those starting from zero.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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i've been enjoying, Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits by Anant Agarwal
on “Ask HN: Can you recommend a book to learn basic electrical concepts/engineering?” ↗…since I was dumbfounded by the contents. It all felt very loosey goosey for me, like looking in grandma's cookbook. Did I miss something? Should I revisit? I found that I clicked much better with MIT's Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits.
on “The Art of Electronics (2015)” ↗…Pair it with some other "popular electronics" kind of books and it will start making better sense. One recommendation is Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk. For theory see Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits by Anant Agarwal and Jeffrey Lang.
on “Learn electricity and electronics fundamentals without taking a formal course” ↗…For Electronic circuits choose Microelectronics by Behzad Razavi. Instead of Purcell go for "Engineering Electromagnetics with Ida", it is more intuitive. And th first book you should start with is "Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits" Then you go for DDCA and Ida in parallel. The list does give me head scrather, this is too broad to be ever accomplished. My recommendation to redo the list is first find out what piques your interest…
on “My self-study plan for electrical engineering” ↗…provides the intellectual foundation you'll need to press on into the depths of EE. Use the MIT OpenCourseWare curriculum for structure and perspective. The book for the 'Circuits and Electronics' course: 'Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits' is one of the finest textbooks I have ever read in any topic. But in addition to all this theory you'll need hands-on activities. If you're just starting out in electronics, humble yourself and read…
on “Ask HN: How to learn to be a self-taught hardware (EE?) engineer?” ↗Videos of Anant Agarwal's lectures that closely follow his "Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits" book are online: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu...
on “My self-study plan for electrical engineering” ↗Not many people will have experience with too many different texts but they might be familiar with a books reputation. Of course they can compare their experience with the text to a great textbook from another subject e.g. a Spivak in math or Knuth in CS. Also I've self studied and am confused about the whole pure/applied distinction, do some books fall somewhere in between depending on the chapt
on “Good basic circuit design books?” ↗…the publisher's store. As far as I know they never had a PDF, just a special web version. Click the book's title in the paragraph above that, where it says this: > Agarwal, Anant, and Jeffrey H. Lang. Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Elsevier, July 2005. ISBN: 9781558607354. That takes you to a PDF. Sorry for not being more specific. I didn't even notice the "View e-book version" as I…
on “The Secret Life of Circuits” ↗edX's 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics also provides the textbook for free with similar conditions. The textbook in question is The Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits ($79.99 on Amazon) by Agarwal and Lang published by Elsevier
on “Coursera to offer students free online textbooks, with conditions” ↗