| Do you mean circuit theory or applied circuits? No idea for purely circuit theory. My textbooks were not great, but videos from 6.002 (a course at MIT) were a godsend. Sedra/Smith is my recommendation for applied circuits. It's mostly amplifiers---still with a heavy emphasis on theory. At 1400 pages, it's really, really long. (A good portion of this is also taught in 6.002.) The Art of Electronics is a gold mine of knowledge but very, very in-depth/technical. By chapter 4, you're analyzing a precision waveform generator with 3 ICs, a MOSFET, and a handful of passive components for biasing/filtering. Horowitz/Hill even recommend specific components (lots of tables) with explanations, and they point out some common circuit mistakes, workarounds, and improvements. Also, it's over 1,000 pages just in the main book. If I had to pick one book as the sole resource for an EE degree, it's this one. As a supplement to books: Falstad's circuit simulator[1] because it is very easy to use (compared to SPICE) and has examples of nearly every circuit you would learn as an undergrad. [1] https://www.falstad.com/circuit/ |
It packed to the brim with usable circuits, you can feel the excitement of the authors sharing a material that they are deeply passionate and excited about!
And what I like the most out of it is how they work super hard to teach you to “think” about components and circuits in an intuitive way. One example, the refer to the opamp as the Lego of analog design and process to share a bunch of configuration in which it can be used, from a buffer to an inverter, filter, amplifier… and how those circuits can be put together to create other cool and useful things!
It’s a book that I’ve enjoyed A LOT!