About the Authors
Darren Ashby (Chapters 1, 19, 26, and 35) author of Electrical Engineering 101, is a self-described “techno geek with pointy hair.” He considers himself a Jack of all trades, master of none. He figures his common sense came from his dad and his book sense from his mother. Raised on a farm and graduating from Utah State University seemingly ages ago, he has nearly 20 years of experience in the real world as a technician, engineer and a manager. He has worked in diverse areas of compliance, production, testing and his personal favorite, R&D.
He jumped at a chance some years back to teach a couple of semesters at his alma mater. For about two years, he wrote regularly for the online magazine “chipcenter.com.” He is currently the Director of electronics R&D at a billion dollar consumer product company. His passions are boats, snowmobiles, motorcycles and pretty much anything with a motor in it. When not at his day job, he spends most his time with his family and a promising R&D consulting/manufacturing firm he started a couple of years ago.
He lives with his beautiful wife, four strapping boys and cute little daughter next to the mountains in Richmond, Utah.
Bonnie Baker (Chapters 18, 19, 25 and 38) author of A Baker’s Dozen, also writes the monthly “Baker’s Best” for EDN magazine. She has been involved with analog and digital designs and systems for over 20 years. Bonnie started as a manufacturing product engineer supporting analog products at Burr-Brown. From there, Bonnie moved up to IC design, analog division strategic marketer, and then corporate applications engineering manager. In 1998, she joined Microchip Technology and served as their analog division analog/mixed-signal applications engineering manager and staff architect engineer for one of their PICmicro divisions. This expanded her background to not only include analog applications, but microcontroller solutions as well. At present, she has returned to the Precision Analog fold at Texas Instruments in Tucson, Arizona.
Bonnie holds a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) and a bachelor’s degree in music education from Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ). In addition to her fascination with analog design, Bonnie has a drive to share her knowledge and experience and has written almost 300 articles, design notes, and application notes and she is a frequent presenter at technical conferences and shows.
Stuart Ball, P.E., (Chapters 20, 34) author of Analog Interfacing to Embedded Microprocessors, is an electrical engineer with over 20 years of experience in electronic and embedded systems. He is currently employed with Seagate Technologies, a manufacturer of computer hard disc drives.
Bruce Carter (Chapter 19) a contributor to Electrical Engineering 101, is currently an Engineer for the Test and Measurement group of Texas Instruments. Carter earned a BS in Engineering Physics from Texas Tech University, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas. He authored several technical articles, including four chapters in Op-Amps for Everyone. New edition publishing soon.
John Crowe (Chapter 13) co-author of Introduction to Digital Electronics, is Reader in Biomedical Informatics in the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Nottingham, UK. His contribution to this book is based upon material used in a Digital Electronics module delivered to 1st and 2nd year undergraduate students.
His research concerns the development of novel biomedical instrumentation such as fetal heart rate monitors and integrated optical and electronics ASICs for imaging skin blood flow.
Ian Grout (Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12) the author of Digital Systems Design received his B.Eng in Electronic Engineering (1991) and PhD (1994) from Lancaster University (UK). He has worked in both industry and the academic field in microelectronic circuit and electronics design and test. He currently works in the areas of mixed-signal integrated circuit (IC) design for testability (DfT) and digital electronic circuit design using programmable logic. The author is currently a lecturer within the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Limerick (Ireland). He currently teaches programmable logic and integrated circuit design and test principles within the university and has worked in Limerick since 1998. Prior to this he was a lecturer in the Engineering Department at Lancaster University (UK).
Barrie Hayes-Gill (Chapter 13) co-author of Introduction to Digital Electronics, is Associate Professor in Integrated Circuit Design and Electronic Instrumentation in the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Nottingham, UK. He has lectured inintegrated circuit design both within the University of Nottingham and at international locations around the World.
His research and industrial work concerns the development of compact and low noise instrumentation for medical devices and instrumentation where he deploys off-the-shelf electronic components and semi-custom and full custom integrated circuits for integrated optical sensors. He has published widely with over 150 publications and 10 patents on medical devices and VLSI systems. In addition to his University post he is also an Executive Directorat Monica Healthcare Ltd.
Ian Hickman, Eur. Ing. D. I. H. May B.Sc.Hons, C.Eng., MIEE, MIEEE (Chapters 2, 4, 5, 23, 24) is the author of Analog Electronics. He has been interested in electronics since the late 1940s, and professionally involved in it since 1954. Starting with a crystal set, his interests over the years have covered every aspect of electronics, though mainly concentrating on analog. Now retired, Ian was a consultant to Electronics World for many years. He is a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology: and a Life Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers. He has also written several books including Practical RF Handbook, Hickman’s Analog and RF Circuits, and Analog Circuits Cookbook, to name just a few.
Walt Kester (Chapters 16, 17) is the author of Mixed Signal and DSP Design Techniques. He is a corporate staff applications engineer at Analog Devices. For over 35 years at Analog Devices, he has designed, developed, and given applications support for high-speed ADCs, DACs, SHAs, op-amps, and analog multiplexers. Besides writing many papers and articles, he prepared and edited eleven major applications books, which form the basis for the Analog Devices world-wide technical seminar series including the topics of op-amps, data conversion, power management, sensor signal conditioning, mixed-signal, and practical analog design techniques. He also is the editor of The Data Conversion Handbook, a 900+ page comprehensive book on data conversion published in 2005 by Elsevier. Walt has a BSEE from NC State University and MSEE from Duke University.
Thomas Kugelstadt (Chapter 22) was a contributor to Op Amps for Everyone. He is a senior application engineer at Texas Instruments. He is writing many technical articles on various subjects, often system related.
He also provides freelance writing services if your company were ever interested in a technical subject but experienced difficulties finding a writer.
Ron Mancini (Chapter 26) the editor of Op Amps for Everyone has spent nearly fifty years in electronics. Recently retired, he was a Staff Scientist at Texas Instruments for many years. He was also a regular columnist for EDN.
Richard Palmer (Chapter 26) was a contributor to Op Amps for Everyone.
Robert A. Pease (Chapters 1, 3, 6) author of Troubleshooting Analog Circuits, attended Mt. Hermon School, and graduated from MIT in 1961 with a BSEE. He worked at Philbrick Researches up to 1975 and designed many Op-Amps and Analog Computing Modules.
Pease joined National Semiconductor in 1976. He has designed about 24 analog ICs including power regulators, voltage references, and temp sensors. He has written 65+ magazine articles and holds about 21 US patents. Pease is the self-declared Czar of Bandgaps since 1986. He enjoys hiking and trekking in Nepal, and ferroequinology. His position at NSC is Staff Scientist. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Pease is a columnist in Electronic Design magazine, with over 240 columns published. The column, PEASE PORRIDGE, covers a wide range of technical topics. Pease also has posted many technical and semi-technical items on his main website: http://www.national.com/rap Many of Pease’s recent columns are accessible there.
Pease was inducted into the E.E. Hall Of Fame in 2002. Refer to:http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=17269&Extension=pdfSee Pease’s other web site at http://www.transtronix.com
Mike Tooley (Chapters 1, 21, and 33) author of Electronic Circuits, is a technical author and consultant. He was formerly Vice Principal at Brooklands College in Surrey, England, where he was responsible for the delivery of learning to over 10,000 Further and Higher Education students increasingly by flexible, open and online distance learning. Mike is the well-known author of several popular engineering and related text books, including widely adopted course texts for BTEC, GCE A-level and GCSE qualifications in Engineering. Mike’s hobbies include astronomy, amateur radio, aviation, computing and electronic circuit design and construction.
Tim Williams (Chapters 14, 15, 19, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, and Appendix A) is the author of The Circuit Designer’s Companion, 2nd Edition. He works at Elmac Services, which provides consultancy and training on all aspects of EMC, including design, testing and the application of standards, to companies manufacturing electronic products and concerned about the implications of the EMC Directive.
Tim Williams gained a BSc in Electronic Engineering from Southampton University in 1976. He has worked in electronic product design in various industry sectors including process instrumentation and audio visual control. He was design group leader at Rosemount Ltd before leaving in 1990 to start Elmac Services.
He is also the author of “EMC for Product Designers” (now in its fourth edition, Elsevier 2006), and has presented numerous conference papers and seminars. He is also author of “EMC for Systems & Installations” with Keith Armstrong. He is an EMC technical assessor for UKAS and SWEDAC.
Peter Wilson (Chapters 25, 30, 31, 32) author of Design Recipes for FPGAs, is Senior Lecturer in Electronics at the University of Southampton. He holds degrees from Heriot-Watt University, an MBA from Edinburgh Business School and a PhD from the University of Southampton. He worked in the Avionics and Electronics Design Automation Industries for many years at Ferranti, GEC-Marconi and Analogy prior to rejoining academia. He has published widely in the areas of FPGA design, modeling and simulation, VHDL, VHDL-AMS, magnetics and power electronics. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, member of the IET, and a Chartered Engineer.
Bob Zeidman (Chapters 27, 28, 29) author of Designing with FPGAs and CPLDs, is the president of Zeidman Consulting (http://www.ZeidmanConsulting.com), a premiere contract research and development firm in Silicon Valley. He is also the president of Zeidman Technologies (http://www.zeidman.biz), a developer of tools for embedded systems hardware and software development, and president of Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering Corporation (http://www.SAFE-corp.biz), the leading provider of software intellectual property analysis tools. Bob has designed ASICs, FPGAs, and PC boards for RISC-based parallel processor systems, laser printers, network switches and routers, and other systems for clients including Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, Mentor Graphics, and Ricoh. He is the inventor of SynthOSTM, a tool for synthesizing software from a high-level description, and CodeSuite®, a tool for measuring software source code correlation. His publications include papers on hardware and software design methods and three textbooks: Designing with FPGAs and CPLDs, Verilog Designer’s Library, and Introduction to Verilog. Bob has taught courses at conferences throughout the world. He holds several patents and earned bachelor’s degrees in physics and electrical engineering at Cornell University and a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University.