Customer Reviews

Circuit Design with VHDL

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a physics graduate student who needed to learn VHDL for many of my projects (FPGA-based digital filters, FFT and other high speed digital-based processing).
After spending about a week trying to cookbook/copycat the complicated structures in VHDL I decided it would be best to start at a basic level to get a solid grasp of VHDL.
It is hard to imagine a better introduction.
The author did a perfect job integrating the routine software writing with system design.
All of the code is COMPLETE and all of it works (90% of it I checked myself, when going through examples & problems).
Simulations, complete code and clear diagrams are presented for every example!
If you need to do real engineering work using VHDL, and have a list of designs on your table that are begging for FPGA, ASIC, CPLDs, but don't know how to do it in VHDL, this book is for you.

Some cautionary notes:
1) This book gives you basic, but fundamental knowledge of VHDL. If you know other programming languages (for example assembler, Vis. Basic or C/C++), but need VHDL then after this book you can start writing real code and will be able to understand complicated examples and will easily be able to incorporate IP cores into projects.

Contrary to the opinion of some of the above reviewers, I disagree that this book is a cookbook. It doesn't have any really complicated design examples like FFT.
The book is all about giving the reader a very solid footing of VHDL so that the reader could reference other much more involved references/ code examples/ IP cores etc..

2) This book will be of very little use if you don't know
basic logic/ digital circuits.
The book explains things like carry lookahead adder clearly but very briefly.

3) I found the problems, examples and chapter very well connected. And the problems were very useful.
Note though that although the solutions to problems are provided only to instructors, you can rely on simulations to check if the your solution is correct.

4) I also think that it helps to have a development board (FPGA/CPLD)to check some of the designs.

All of the above is only my opinion, of course.
And thanks to Dr. Pedroni for sharing some of his expertise so well.

I had a VHDL class where the text was basically a manual for the language. This book however, is like a VHDL for Dummies. It presents everything you need to know to model circuits in vhdl.
I was halfway through my vhdl class and had no idea what was going on. This book cleaned me right up.
Again, what a great book!

I'm a fourth year computer engineering student, and I've found this book to be the best reference for VHDL fundamentals in my personal library. What this book offers is a concise reference. It's not very long, but it's very thorough. It's essentially a cookbook; there are lots and lots of examples with clear block logic diagrams which give you an overview of the architecture. In addition, each design has a test bench simulation, which is essential. Of course, each example has the VHDL implementation of the component, each with relevant, helpful comments within the code. There are even more complex examples, such as a vending machine control circuit and neural networks and more. If you're a beginner, the first few chapters will walk you through. If you're an expert, it can be used as reference, made easier by the excellent chapter organization. The appendices also show how to design, simulate, and lay out designs in several popular development software suites. This book is amazing. Do yourself a favor and add it to your library. Buy it now.

I wanted to rate this book a 5 and recommend it in our VHDL classes, however, due to its numerous errors in basic understanding of VHDL, I could not.
Hardware design wise, this book has numerous great examples that will help you understand how to apply VHDL.

Numerous (and far too many) pages have errors on them.
For example, the book claims the 'U' in std_ulogic stands for unresolved and that std_logic does not have a 'U'. In IEEE 1076-2008 (and previously in IEEE 1164 (std_logic_1164), the 'U' is defined to mean undriven and both std_ulogic and std_logic have the same 9 values.

Terminology about many statements is not consistent with how VHDL defines the terminology. If used in a classroom, this type of stuff is easy to correct, however, if you are reading this book to learn VHDL, I would recommend you supplement it with a language book such as Bhasker's or Ashenden's.

I purchased this book when I took my first FPGA design lab in my junior year. I went from zero to designing complex VHDL systems in very little time. Pedroni teaches synthesizable VHDL, the kind actually used by electronic design automation tools to make real circuits, and he manages to introduce the language, application, and software tool at the same time. The book is probably too basic for a practitioner wishing to brush up on the language or synthesis, but for the beginner it rocks.

This book progresses the subject well by introducing the VHDL elements in a way that gives complete coverage without overwheling the reader early on. Unlike other introductions to VHDL it did not leave me with many unanswered questions.
If Volnei Pedroni wanted to improve the book, then a section on coding advanced testbenches would be a great addition.

This book is laid out by language concept (operators, architecture, etc), but features many fully coded examples to get you started - such as RAM, ROM, adders, counters, shifters, etc. Whether you're beginning VHDL, or haven't coded in a while (which is my case), this book is a great instruction or refresher. Additionally, there are mini tutorials in the back for Altera tools (Quartus II and MaxPlus) as well as the Xilinx ISE & modelsim.

Author communicates his thoughts in very precise and concise language (I found only one minor typo). This book focuses on writing synthesizable code; that fact alone makes it a very practical reference for any engineer working with CPLD or FPGA. If one supplements this book with VHDL reference and Xilinx Web edition of ISE, it is possible to get started quickly; at least I did. Thanks Volnei.

If you are trying to actually build something that works, this is a great book. It doesn't bog you down with a lot of circuit modeling theory. Instead it starts you off right away with examples you can burn into a programmable device. He gives you credit for already knowing what a gate is, and a flip-flop and a mux/demux, etc. Pedroni then tells you how to do what you want, using vhdl. I have the books by Ashenden, Cohen, Navabi, and Perry, and this is the one I keep coming back to. I would even say that this is the only book an experienced working engineer needs to learn vhdl.

This is my first VHDL book and it is very useful. I need VHDL for design and this book covers many design issues. For example, in the variables topic, implementation with both signal and variable are given and their flip flop requirements are compared.
Also common errors are explained and simulations results are given to demonstrate them. There are many examples in the book and they are well used to clarify the issues.