An Engineering Approach to Digital Design

An excellent intro for aspiring EEs into digital design. Dr. Fletcher, unlike most other authors on the same subject, uses real life digital devices out of commercial data books in order to expand upon the theory he explains so well. Though many of the real life devices he uses in his examples are inevitably obsolete, it prepares the aspiring Electrical Engineer for real life job situations better than any other book on the same subject that I've come across. Moreover, no the book I've ever studied on digital design explained the often times abstract subject of state machines better the Dr. Fletcher's book. My only critique is that some of the examples on chapter 7 relating to state machine based system controllers have mistakes. To sum it up, Dr. Fletcher's book is one of the few engineering books that I made sure to keep well after I graduated engineering college. In fact, I've consulted his book many times in my engineering career.

This book is an excellent introduction to digital logic and state machine design. We used it in college and I have referred to it often. It's principles have been applied in numerous commercial projects. This book will explain how many digital circuits work: DRAMs, UARTS, ethernet controllers, etc are all just collections of state machines.

Although the language was difficult in some places, I felt this book was a good introduction into digital design. It covered a broad range of digital components from gates, to decoders, etc. The problems at the end of each chapter provided an excellent way to practice the material in the chapter, and previous chapters.