Page 11 - The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design

Preface

There should be an absolute minimum of editing, no subject or style re-
quirements, no planned page count, no outline, no nothing! I wanted the
book's construction to reflect its subject. What I asked for was essentially
a mandate for chaos. To my utter astonishment the publisher agreed and
we lurched hopefully forward.
A meeting at my home in February 1989 was well attended by poten-
tial participants. What we concluded went something like this: everyone
would go off and write about anything that could remotely be construed
as relevant to analog design. Additionally, no author would tell any other
author what they were writing about. The hope was that the reader would
see many different styles and approaches to analog design, along with
some commonalities. Hopefully, this would lend courage to someone
seeking to do analog work. There are many very different ways to pro-
ceed, and every designer has to find a way that feels right.
This evolution of a style, of getting to know oneself, is critical to
doing good design. The single greatest asset a designer has is self-
knowledge. Knowing when your thinking feels right, and when you're
trying to fool yourself. Recognizing when the design is where you want it
to be, and when you're pretending it is because you're only human.
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses, prowesses and prejudices.
Learning to recognize when to ask questions and when to believe your
answers.
Formal training can augment all this, but cannot replace it or obviate
its necessity. I think that factor is responsible for some of the mystique
associated with analog design. Further, I think that someone approaching
the field needs to see that there are lots of ways to do this stuff. They
should be made to feel comfortable experimenting and evolving their
own methods.
The risk in this book, that it will come across as an exercise in discord,
is also its promise. As it went together, I began to feel less nervous.
People wrote about all kinds of things in all kinds of ways. They had
some very different views of the world. But also detectable were com-
monalities many found essential. It is our hope that readers will see this
somewhat discordant book as a reflection of the analog design process.
Take what you like, cook it any way you want to, and leave the rest.
Things wouldn't be complete without a special thanks to Carol Lewis
and Harry Helms at High Text Publications, and John Martindale at
Butterworth-Heinemann Publishers. They took on a book with an amor-
phous charter and no rudder and made it work. A midstream change of
publishers didn't bother Carol and Harry, and John didn't seem to get
nervous over a pretty risky approach to book writing.
I hope this book is as interesting and fun to read as it was to put to-
gether. Have a good time.

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