Book Review: Signal Recovery from Noise in Electronic Instrumentation, 2nd Ed.:

The chapter on semiconductor memories after a brief general classification focuses on modern techniques and recently developed devices only. A detailed description is given for the 3and I-transistor (capacitor) DRAM cell along with a description of a 16 kbit chip and its timing cycles. Future developments and trends for the megabit capacity DRAMs are explained including the trenched capacitor techniques. A good description is provided for the MOS static R/W memories including the recent high density DDWL structure. The section on ROMs takes a very close view on EEPROMS but misses the importance for a user overall circuit perspective. In the part devoted to the programmable logic devices the author gives examples of the traditional FPLAs (PALASM$) with and without flip-flops and briefly explains the concept of the macrocell and compares the programmable logic with the gate array and the multiple array matrix approach. Compared are also the programmable macro logic structures. Circuit examples include MAX by Altera Corp., ERASIC by Exel Microelectronics, LCA by Xilinx Corp. etc. This chapter is of a prime quality. Appendices contain a review of microelectronic fabrication techniques, a selection of popular logic gate data and a page of physical constants and parameters (silicon only!). In general the book presents a detailed, good and up-to-date but incomplete view on physical and technological aspects of digital semiconductor devices. The circuit diagram level approach is brief and limited to the fundamental concepts but is probably sufficient for students specializing only in the field of digital microelectronics. PETER LESNIEWSKI, School of Electronic Engineering, University ofSouth Australia