too vast, too complex, too grand ... for description. John Wesley Powell-1870 (discovering the Grand Canyon) VHDL is a big world. A beginner can be easily disappointed by the generality of this language. This generality is explained by the large number of domains covered - from specifications to logical simulation or synthesis. To the very beginner, VHDL appears as a "kit". He is quickly aware that his problem may be solved with VHDL, but does not know how. He does not even know how to start. In this state of mind, all the constraints that can be set to his modeling job, by using a subset of the language or a given design methodology, may be seen as a life preserver. The success of the introduction of VHDL in a company depends on solutions to many questions that should be answered months before the first line of code is written: • Why choose VHDL? • Which VHDL tools should be chosen? • Which modeling methodology should be adopted? • How should the VHDL environment be customized? • What are the tricks? Where are the traps? • What are the differences between VHDL and other competing HDLs? Answers to these questions are organized according to different concerns: buying the tools, organizing the environment, and designing. Decisions taken in each of these areas may have many consequences on the way to the acceptance and efficiently use of VHDL in a company.

VHDL, the IEEE standard hardware description language for describing digital electronic systems, has recently been revised. The Designer's Guide to VHDL has become a standard in the industry for learning the features of VHDL and using it to verify hardware designs. This third edition is the first comprehensive book on the market to address the new features of VHDL-2008. - First comprehensive book on VHDL to incorporate all new features of VHDL-2008, the latest release of the VHDL standard - Helps readers get up to speed quickly with new features of the new standard - Presents a structured guide to the modeling facilities offered by VHDL - Shows how VHDL functions to help design digital systems - Includes extensive case studies and source code used to develop testbenches and case study examples - Helps readers gain maximum facility with VHDL for design of digital systems

A completely updated and expanded comprehensive treatment of VHDL and its applications to the design and simulation of real, industry-standard circuits. This comprehensive treatment of VHDL and its applications to the design and simulation of real, industry-standard circuits has been completely updated and expanded for the third edition. New features include all VHDL-2008 constructs, an extensive review of digital circuits, RTL analysis, and an unequaled collection of VHDL examples and exercises. The book focuses on the use of VHDL rather than solely on the language, with an emphasis on design examples and laboratory exercises. The third edition begins with a detailed review of digital circuits (combinatorial, sequential, state machines, and FPGAs), thus providing a self-contained single reference for the teaching of digital circuit design with VHDL. In its coverage of VHDL-2008, it makes a clear distinction between VHDL for synthesis and VHDL for simulation. The text offers complete VHDL codes in examples as well as simulation results and comments. The significantly expanded examples and exercises include many not previously published, with multiple physical demonstrations meant to inspire and motivate students. The book is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students in VHDL and digital circuit design, and can be used as a professional reference for VHDL practitioners. It can also serve as a text for digital VLSI in-house or academic courses.

The Student's Guide to VHDL is a condensed edition of The Designer's Guide to VHDL, the most widely used textbook on VHDL for digital system modeling. The Student's Guide is targeted as a supplemental reference book for computer organization and digital design courses. Since publication of the first edition of The Student's Guide, the IEEE VHDL and related standards have been revised. The Designer's Guide has been revised to reflect the changes, so it is appropriate that The Student's Guide also be revised. In The Student's Guide to VHDL, 2nd Edition, we have included a design case study illustrating an FPGA-based design flow. The aim is to show how VHDL modeling fits into a design flow, starting from high-level design and proceeding through detailed design and verification, synthesis, FPGA place and route, and final timing verification. Inclusion of the case study helps to better serve the educational market. Currently, most college courses do not formally address the details of design flow. Students may be given informal guidance on how to proceed with lab projects. In many cases, it is left to students to work it out for themselves. The case study in The Student's Guide provides a reference design flow that can be adapted to a variety of lab projects.

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.

CD-ROM contains: Access to an introductory version of a graphical VHDL simulator/debugger from FTL Systems -- Code for examples and case studies.

* Teaches VHDL by example * Includes tools for simulation and synthesis * CD-ROM containing Code/Design examples and a working demo of ModelSIM