Customer Reviews

The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs: Devices, Tools and Flows (Edn Series for Design Engineers)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I gave this book 3 stars, but maybe it should get more, because on one hand this is a great book to read, and you learn a lot of what I call general culture from it. But I missed mostly of what I wanted from it so I got frustrated during the reading.

Let me explain. I'm an electrical engineer with quite some experience, mainly in the analogue/physics/microwave etc... area, but I completely 'missed the FPGA train'. Soon I'll have to plunge into FPGA design, and I thought that this book (together with a VHDL textbook) would get me started. I read through the book from cover to cover (it is an easy and fun read!), and I have the feeling that I can now go and chat with just any experienced FPGA designer, I'll be able to keep up appearances over the coffee, I'm aware of what happens on the market, what were former habits, what's trendy right now etc...

But if that same designer takes me to his office to really discuss technical issues I'll flunk. All the content in the book is on the superficial coffee corner discussion level (which doesn't mean it isn't interesting to know this). Reading the book replaces discussions over coffee during the last five years with FPGA design engineers. But a book that is supposed to be a design guide, should, to me, include concrete, realistic, worked-out case studies: put the blah-blah to work. And that's what's terribly missing in this book: no worked-out examples, exercises, problems, and that's what I thought the book was going to offer me, to get me started. And that's what disappointed me, hence 3 stars.

On the positive side, it is true that - if somehow you manage to learn to really work with FPGAs somewhere else - the general culture provided in this book is formidable. In fact, I think this book is perfect for non-technical managers who have to take high-level decisions and have to learn to talk to their technically minded collaborators. But it is not enough for the technical manager who has to take architectural decisions and it is utterly frustrating for the engineer in the trenches if he doesn't get his working knowledge elsewhere.

Also the fun style of the book, which has almost no prerequisites concerning electronics, is a great plus. So if this book were titled 'Boost up your general culture about FPGAs' I'd have given it easily 5 stars.

I am an EE with no previous FPGA experience. Some of the reviews here made me think this book might be a good stepping stone. Completely wrong. The title of the book is misleading, in my opinion. For the engineer wanting to get started using FPGAs this book is utterly without merit. Why did I give it any stars then? Well, I'm assuming that the nebulously defined 'wide audience' the book was really written for is non-technical managers who need enough of an understanding of common acronyms and terminology to impress their even-less-technical bosses, accounting, and HR people and to be able to relay communications without garbling the message too badly. The author devotes a tremendous amount of space to making sure you know how to pronounce the relevant acronyms like 'FPGA', 'SRAM', etc. The author also sedulously avoids any 'brass tacks' kind of information in an effort to keep his book from becoming obsolete too soon. In my opinion this strategy is like making something useless to begin with, so it won't *become* useless later. Having read this book (it's a fast read: low information density, much repetition, large margins (for acronym pronunciation and largely irrelevant history trivia), and big print.) I think a manager needing a survey of FPGAs and especially terminology might find this useful. To anyone wanting to actually implement something in an FPGA look somewhere else.

All these nifty block diagrams and acronymes, but I still don't know how to work with an FPGA. I would have liked to see at least one concrete example of how to make an FPGA do something. This book is not for the beginner in FPGA's.

I would guess that Clive "Max" Maxfield has been an electronics

enthusiast for a very long time. He seems to enjoy the history

of the industry as much as the current state of the art. His

latest book, "The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs" describes not

only everything you need to know to get started designing state

of the art FPGAs, but also how the art came to be in its current

state.

This book does not cover the constantly changing details of how

to run any particular FPGA design tool. That information comes with the tools. Instead, it talks about all the available tools and design methodologies - which will help you decide which tools to look at.

I must admit that when I first saw the book, I imagined reading

it would be something of a slog through the swamp as so many

technical books are. Upon first opening the book, I was delighted to discover that Maxfield's writing style actually makes reading the book more of a romp in the park. There are portions of the book that I intended to just scan but found myself sucked into reading in full. I found chapters such as the origins of FPGAs and ASICs to be interestingly informative and nostalgic at the same time. Subject headings such as "We were all so much younger then" and "Choosing the best logic simulator in the world" were too irresistible to skim over.

In short, "The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs" will be great

source of knowledge to the FPGA newcommer. It will also provide

new insights and broaden the veteran designer's knowledge of the

field. But most of all, it is a fun and engaging read for anyone

for whom electronics design is more than a 9 to 5 job.

This book contains little if any practical information with respect to real world FPGA design.

If you are expecting a book heavy on syntax and theory, hard to read,
and full of tricky code, convoluted equations, and esoteric terms,
then you are going to be disappointed. You will probably need to read
books of that type at some time in the future, but they will not give
you the global view that is mandatory to understand where you are,
where you need to go, and how to get there.

By comparison, "The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs" is more a matter
of culture, of looking at the "big picture", and of understanding the
"state of the art"...

This book is a "page turner" that is easy to read, even for non-native
readers. (the author - "Max" - even tells us how to pronounce
industry-standard acronyms and how not to be embarrassed by saying words
like "Linux" or "Fifo" the wrong way :-)

But don't be fooled by this "easy" look : this book contains an incredible
amount of clear and accurate information. It will provide you with a LOT of
practical and useful knowledge.
It clearly explains, for example, what today's tools can do and how; such
as what happens when you click on the "enable retiming" option in your
favorite synthesis or P&R tool, or what "clock de-skewing" is all about.
The "Signal Integrity 101" appendix is another proof that complex things
can be explained with (few) simple words.

In just a few hours, this book will give you a culture and establish notions
that would otherwise require many years of actual experience in the field.
It will help you understand the tools you are going to use, the technology
behind the components, and what to expect.

This book is definitely a must-read for "young" engineers (anyone with less
than 5 years of intensive experience in FPGA or Asic design).
Having said this, the topics are so varied that even experienced hands will
also benefit from this book. Our industry is moving so fast that one cannot
pretend to know everything about everything... this book really covers a lot
of ground and I found it interesting from cover to cover.

The included CD-Rom has a computer-readable version of the book, which is
a nice "plus".

Last, but not least, the price is fair.

I love this book and really wish that every engineer to whom I teach HDLs
would read it.

Bert Cuzeau - Asic & FPGA Design Expert

I think this book gives me an ok view on whats inside an FPGA. It also tells about FPGAs history and where FPGAs seams to go futher (with softcore/hardcore microprocessors and stuff).

It tells about different designpractice (incremental, modular...) and more.

This book is taking FPGAs in general in to account and is not favouring any vendors.

I think this book is a good book for the one who want a good perspective on FPGAs, it is not good for people who want to go futher in details.

Raymond

I read through this book on a whim a while ago when I started getting into reconfigurable computing, and since then have gone up the 'food chain' so to speak. This book isn't that bad, in fact for total neophytes to FPGAs and EDA in general, it's a fairly lightweight but pretty comprehensive introduction.

It includes a fairly basic overview of the FPGA architectures, HDLs, C/C++/SystemC design flows, a brief description of simulation and verification, and other random tidbits here and there. Almost no math required, just a high level introduction and overview.

That said, it probably is best targeted towards business / marketing types who don't want to be total idiots to their engineering staffs. Also undergraduates or new engineers who want a light introduction to the FPGA industry and design process might benefit.

Anyone obviously who is already a design engineer or whatever won't find much use here. Then again I would question why someone with lots of experience would read a book titled "Design Warrior's Guide." Shouldn't you guys be reading the latest papers from DAC or ICCAD?

For a more technical overview of EDA in general, a good series is the EDA for IC Design series. But it's probably too technical for the audience this book is targeting.

I bought this book because I needed it for my class. But this book was not that useful as it covers justs the general aspects of the FPGA which you can easily find on the internet. Most of the chapter was not at all worthy to read it.

of course, this book does not involve any design detail.

It offers a big picture of what's going on in the FPGA world so far. you can get basic idea of design flow, which tools are available in each design stage. also, the vendors' websites an be found in the book. It is helpful for me to dig more info. from there.