Thu 8 May 2008
While looking for ways to escape muti-variate calculus purgatory in the final weeks of the semester, I came across Open Math Text. These are a collection of math books (in PDF and LaTeX) that are openly available for distribution and are aimed at general scholars. A quick look at the collection will show that most of the books are authored by Dr. David Santos, a professor a the Community College of Philadelphia. It seems that he has written and made available more books, in multiple languages, than the number of scholarly papers that most researchers publish at full universities.
While looking at his personal page, I found another open textbook collection called Textbook Revolution. The obvious downside is that these publications may not go through the same levels of review as textbooks printed at conventional publishers, however, it is nice to know that there is a group of people actively working to make affordable textbooks available.
del.icio.us |
digg
May 15th, 2008 at 9:15 am
[...] More free textbooks [...]
June 17th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I must say, I enjoy reading and looking at all those chips you’ve photographed. I’ve already finished first year of IC layout with the two textbooks ISBN-13:9780750671941 and ISBN-13:9780131464100. Now what I’m reading is CMOS (ISBN-13:9780470229415). Perhaps I could submit chips to be photographed? It’s interesting to see the different ways wires, capacitors, resistors, contacts, metal-over-metal, etc are layed out. It’s a fun learning experience.
Any book recommendations? I’m more interested in analog components but I’m still enjoying reversing digital designs from photographs and seeing how it was put together.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Hi Tim,
Thank you for the compliments. I would gladly image some chips that you send in. I added a new page on the right called “IC Friday address” with my mailing address. I will include it again at the bottom for ease.
As for books, CMOS by Baker is one of my favorite books (as you can see on the shelft). One of my analog IC design classes was using Design of Analog CMOS Integrated Circuits by Razavi (ISBN-13: 978-0072380323). The book was not excellent, but it was still informative and had some interesting design. From a schematic standpoint, Microelectronic Circuits by Sedra & Smith is one of the best books on my shelf (should check which is the latest edition). This book does not go into IC layout, but it teaches practical circuit designs targeted at ICs. Meaning, they have small resistors and capacitors that are more feasable for on-die placement.
Nick Chernyy
212 EESB
University Park, PA 16802, USA