Book Description

1. Instead of the conventional method using the general/particular solutions to solve differential equations for the circuits containing inductors/capacitors, this book lays emphasis on the Laplace transform method for solving differential equations. We recommend taking the Laplace transform of electric circuits (containing inductors/capacitors) and setting up the transformed circuit equations directly in the unified framework (as if they were just made of resistors and sources) rather than setting up the circuit equations in the form of differential equations and then taking their Laplace transforms to solve them. The Laplace transform and the inverse Laplace transform are introduced in the Appendix. 2. This book presents several MATLAB programs that can be used to get the Laplace transformed solutions, take their inverse Laplace transforms, and plot the solutions along the time or frequency axis. The MATLAB programs can save a lot of time and effort for obtaining the solutions in the time domain or frequency domain so that readers can concentrate on establishing circuit equations, gaining insights to the problems, and making observations/interpretations of the solutions. 3. This book also introduces step by step how to use OrCAD/PSpice for circuit simulations. For circuit problems taking much time to solve by hand, the readers are recommended to use MATLAB and PSpice. This approach gives the readers not only information about the state of the art, but also self-confidence on the condition that the graphical solutions obtained by using the two software tools agree with each other. The OrCAD/PSpice is introduced in the Appendix. However, the portion of MATLAB and PSpice is kept not large lest the readers should be addicted to just using the software and tempted to neglect the importance of the basic circuit theory. 4. We make each example show something different from other examples so that readers can efficiently acquire the essential circuit analysis techniques and gain insights into the various types of circuits. On the other hand, instead of repeating similar exercise problems, we make most exercise problems arouse readers’ interest in practical application or help form a view for circuit application and design. 5. For representative examples, the analytical solutions are presented together with the results of MATLAB analysis (close to the theory) and PSpice simulation (close to the experiment) in the form of trinity. We are sure that this style of presentation will interest many students, attracting their attention to the topics on circuits efficiently. 6. Unlike most circuit books with a similar title, our book deals with positive-feedback op-amp circuits as well as negative-feedback op-amp circuits.