Hardware description languages (HDL) such as VHDL and Verilog have found their way into almost every aspect of the design of digital hardware systems. Since their inception they gradually proved to be an essential part of modern design methodologies and design automation tools, ever exceeding their original goals of being description and simulation languages. Their use for automatic synthesis, formal proof, and testing are good examples. So far, HDLs have been mainly dealing with digital systems. However, integrated systems designed today require more and more analog parts such as A/D and D/A converters, phase locked loops, current mirrors, etc. The verification of the complete system therefore asks for the use of a single language. Using VHDL or Verilog to handle analog descriptions is possible, as it is shown in this book, but the real power is coming from true mixed-signal HDLs that integrate discrete and continuous semantics into a unified framework. Analog HDLs (AHDL) are considered here a subset of mixed-signal HDLs as they intend to provide the same level of features as HDLs do but with a scope limited to analog systems, possibly with limited support of discrete semantics. Analog and Mixed-Signal Hardware Description Languages covers several aspects related to analog and mixed-signal hardware description languages including: The use of a digital HDL for the description and the simulation of analog systems The emergence of extensions of existing standard HDLs that provide true analog and mixed-signal HDLs. The use of analog and mixed-signal HDLs for the development of behavioral models of analog (electronic) building blocks (operational amplifier, PLL) and for the design of microsystems that do not only involve electronic parts. The use of a front-end tool that eases the description task with the help of a graphical paradigm, yet generating AHDL descriptions automatically. Analog and Mixed-Signal Hardware Description Languages is the first book to show how to use these new hardware description languages in the design of electronic components and systems. It is necessary reading for researchers and designers working in electronic design.

Hardware description languages (HDL) such as VHDL and Verilog have found their way into almost every aspect of the design of digital hardware systems. Since their inception they gradually proved to be an essential part of modern design methodologies and design automation tools, ever exceeding their original goals of being description and simulation languages. Their use for automatic synthesis, formal proof, and testing are good examples. So far, HDLs have been mainly dealing with digital systems. However, integrated systems designed today require more and more analog parts such as A/D and D/A converters, phase locked loops, current mirrors, etc. The verification of the complete system therefore asks for the use of a single language. Using VHDL or Verilog to handle analog descriptions is possible, as it is shown in this book, but the real power is coming from true mixed-signal HDLs that integrate discrete and continuous semantics into a unified framework. Analog HDLs (AHDL) are considered here a subset of mixed-signal HDLs as they intend to provide the same level of features as HDLs do but with a scope limited to analog systems, possibly with limited support of discrete semantics. Analog and Mixed-Signal Hardware Description Languages covers several aspects related to analog and mixed-signal hardware description languages including: The use of a digital HDL for the description and the simulation of analog systems The emergence of extensions of existing standard HDLs that provide true analog and mixed-signal HDLs. The use of analog and mixed-signal HDLs for the development of behavioral models of analog (electronic) building blocks (operational amplifier, PLL) and for the design of microsystems that do not only involve electronic parts. The use of a front-end tool that eases the description task with the help of a graphical paradigm, yet generating AHDL descriptions automatically. Analog and Mixed-Signal Hardware Description Languages is the first book to show how to use these new hardware description languages in the design of electronic components and systems. It is necessary reading for researchers and designers working in electronic design.

The Verilog Hardware Description Language (Verilog-HDL) has long been the most popular language for describing complex digital hardware. It started life as a prop- etary language but was donated by Cadence Design Systems to the design community to serve as the basis of an open standard. That standard was formalized in 1995 by the IEEE in standard 1364-1995. About that same time a group named Analog Verilog International formed with the intent of proposing extensions to Verilog to support analog and mixed-signal simulation. The first fruits of the labor of that group became available in 1996 when the language definition of Verilog-A was released. Verilog-A was not intended to work directly with Verilog-HDL. Rather it was a language with Similar syntax and related semantics that was intended to model analog systems and be compatible with SPICE-class circuit simulation engines. The first implementation of Verilog-A soon followed: a version from Cadence that ran on their Spectre circuit simulator. As more implementations of Verilog-A became available, the group defining the a- log and mixed-signal extensions to Verilog continued their work, releasing the defi- tion of Verilog-AMS in 2000. Verilog-AMS combines both Verilog-HDL and Verilog-A, and adds additional mixed-signal constructs, providing a hardware description language suitable for analog, digital, and mixed-signal systems. Again, Cadence was first to release an implementation of this new language, in a product named AMS Designer that combines their Verilog and Spectre simulation engines.

This standard defines the IEEE 1076.1 language, a hardware description language for the description and the simulation of analog, digital, and mixed-signal systems. The language, also informally known as VHDL-AMS, is built on IEEE Std 1076-1993 (VHDL) and extends it with additions and changes to provide capabilities of writing and simulating analog and mixed-signal models.

Analog VHDL brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this fast moving area. Analog VHDL serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most challenging research issues in the field.

This standard defines the IEEE 1076.1 language, a hardware description language for the description and the simulation of analog, digital, and mixed-signal systems. The language, also informally known as VHDL-AMS, is built on IEEE Std 1076-2002 (VHDL) and extends it with additions and changes to provide capabilities of writing and simulating analog and mixed-signal models.

The demand is exploding for complete, integrated systems that sense, process, manipulate, and control complex entities such as sound, images, text, motion, and environmental conditions. These systems, from hand-held devices to automotive sub-systems to aerospace vehicles, employ electronics to manage and adapt to a world that is, predominantly, neither digital nor electronic. To respond to this design challenge, the industry has developed and standardized VHDL-AMS, a unified design language for modeling digital, analog, mixed-signal, and mixed-technology systems. VHDL-AMS extends VHDL to bring the successful HDL modeling methodology of digital electronic systems design to these new design disciplines.Gregory Peterson and Darrell Teegarden join best-selling author Peter Ashenden in teaching designers how to use VHDL-AMS to model these complex systems. This comprehensive tutorial and reference provides detailed descriptions of both the syntax and semantics of the language and of successful modeling techniques. It assumes no previous knowledge of VHDL, but instead teaches VHDL and VHDL-AMS in an integrated fashion, just as it would be used by designers of these complex, integrated systems. Explores the design of an electric-powered, unmanned aerial vehicle system (UAV) in five separate case studies to illustrate mixed-signal, mixed-technology, power systems, communication systems, and full system modeling.