Contemporary Logic Design

This book came to the rescue before my exam in the introductory course on logic design at uni and helped me achieve a good grade in the exam, even though I didn't attend class most of the time. It's well written and easy to understand, even for students who aren't native English speakers. As our professor pointed out, there are little to no mistakes in the figures and examples presented in this book (in fact, I couldn't find a single one), which makes this book perfect for self-study as you won't be wasting time trying to understand an example which then turns out to have been wrong. The extensive exercises at the end of each chapter will help you get a deeper understanding of the subjects explained. A point that has been criticized by some is that there are no solutions included, but these can be accessed by your instructor (provided you have one) through the publisher.

This book is really well written. Not only is it comprehensive, but it is written in the active tense, and addresses the reader as "you", and talks about "we", etc. This is a big plus in book writing, as too many authors were incorrectly taught that they should write extremely difficult to read texts that are impersonal and unnatural to read (thus distracting the readers from focusing on the material, and instead spending most of their energy on decoding the text).Mr. Katz knows how to write in a style that is efficient for the reader. His book is well organized, has nice graphics, great examples with accompanying graphically laid out solutions, and great illustrations.Whenever i look for books, i make sure they have these qualities:1) Pictures. Face it, w/ the possible exception of the blind, humans think visually. If you can't think of it visually, you won't learn it well.2) Clarity. Don't waste time struggling with the text. You need that energy to struggle with the MATERIAL itself.3) Examples. You don't just want example problems where you must do 90% of the work, when the author leaves out the most important and difficult steps. You want examples that really illustrate the the topic of interest while also reinforcing previous topics that are involved in the example.Katz' book has all of these features. It is no wonder he won the Distinguished Teacher Award. This is the finest textbook i've used in college so far.Some reviewers have difficulty with the material itself, and perhaps unduly blamed Katz, but i believe an objective analysis of textbook writing will prove that Katz is a very fine author, and this is a very fine book.

I attend North Carolina State University, and we use this book in our introductory logic design course. Dr. Katz has amassed a great deal of easy to follow examples with associated real world applications and his "Pratical Matters" sections give the reader a true sense of focus of the field. He lets you know "what you need to know" and tells you where and how you'll use it. I only wish I could follow my professor as well.

When I was going to school at Berkeley I took Mr. Katz's course in logic design (CS150). This book was only in manuscript form at the time, but I found it easy to read and very practical. Now four years out of school, and immersed in the field, I find myself still referring back to it from time to time. That is the mark of a great textbook.

The very fact that several major universities use Contemporary Logic Design for their introductory digital logic design courses is a recommendation in itself; having taken just such a course using this book, I found both the 'lightweight' examples excellent for breaking new intellectual ground, and the 'in depth' example projects, developed from the initial specification, through all phases of design, and into the final implementation, often with resultant waveforms, to provide the much needed feel of the effort involved in a real design project. A perfect introductory text for anyone interested in circuit logic design.