by Phil Moorby The Verilog Hardware Description Language has had an amazing impact on the mod em electronics industry, considering that the essential composition of the language was developed in a surprisingly short period of time, early in 1984. Since its introduc tion, Verilog has changed very little. Over time, users have requested many improve ments to meet new methodology needs. But, it is a complex and time consuming process to add features to a language without ambiguity, and maintaining consistency. A group of Verilog enthusiasts, the IEEE 1364 Verilog committee, have broken the Verilog feature doldrums. These individuals should be applauded. They invested the time and energy, often their personal time, to understand and resolve an extensive wish-list of language enhancements. They took on the task of choosing a feature set that would stand up to the scrutiny of the standardization process. I would like to per sonally thank this group. They have shown that it is possible to evolve Verilog, rather than having to completely start over with some revolutionary new language. The Verilog 1364-2001 standard provides many of the advanced building blocks that users have requested. The enhancements include key components for verification, abstract design, and other new methodology capabilities. As designers tackle advanced issues such as automated verification, system partitioning, etc., the Verilog standard will rise to meet the continuing challenge of electronics design.

This textbook for courses in Embedded Systems introduces students to necessary concepts, through a hands-on approach. It gives a great introduction to FPGA-based microprocessor system design using state-of-the-art boards, tools, and microprocessors from Altera/Intel® and Xilinx®. HDL-based designs (soft-core), parameterized cores (Nios II and MicroBlaze), and ARM Cortex-A9 design are discussed, compared and explored using many hand-on designs projects. Custom IP for HDMI coder, Floating-point operations, and FFT bit-swap are developed, implemented, tested and speed-up is measured. Downloadable files include all design examples such as basic processor synthesizable code for Xilinx and Altera tools for PicoBlaze, MicroBlaze, Nios II and ARMv7 architectures in VHDL and Verilog code, as well as the custom IP projects. Each Chapter has a substantial number of short quiz questions, exercises, and challenging projects. Explains soft, parameterized, and hard core systems design tradeoffs; Demonstrates design of popular KCPSM6 8 Bit microprocessor step-by-step; Discusses the 32 Bit ARM Cortex-A9 and a basic processor is synthesized; Covers design flows for both FPGA Market leaders Nios II Altera/Intel and MicroBlaze Xilinx system; Describes Compiler-Compiler Tool development; Includes a substantial number of Homework’s and FPGA exercises and design projects in each chapter.

FPGA Prototyping Using Verilog Examples will provide you with a hands-on introduction to Verilog synthesis and FPGA programming through a “learn by doing” approach. By following the clear, easy-to-understand templates for code development and the numerous practical examples, you can quickly develop and simulate a sophisticated digital circuit, realize it on a prototyping device, and verify the operation of its physical implementation. This introductory text that will provide you with a solid foundation, instill confidence with rigorous examples for complex systems and prepare you for future development tasks.

This book uses a "learn by doing" approach to introduce the concepts and techniques of VHDL and FPGA to designers through a series of hands-on experiments. FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples provides a collection of clear, easy-to-follow templates for quick code development; a large number of practical examples to illustrate and reinforce the concepts and design techniques; realistic projects that can be implemented and tested on a Xilinx prototyping board; and a thorough exploration of the Xilinx PicoBlaze soft-core microcontroller.