The Designer's Guide to VHDL, Second Edition (Systems on Silicon) [Paperback]

Peter J. Ashenden (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1558606742 | ISBN-13: 978-1558606746 | Publication Date: June 12, 2001 | Edition: 2

Since the publication of the first edition of The Designer's Guide to VHDL in 1996, digital electronic systems have increased exponentially in their complexity, product lifetimes have dramatically shrunk, and reliability requirements have shot through the roof. As a result more and more designers have turned to VHDL to help them dramatically improve productivity as well as the quality of their designs.

VHDL, the IEEE standard hardware description language for describing digital electronic systems, allows engineers to describe the structure and specify the function of a digital system as well as simulate and test it before manufacturing. In addition, designers use VHDL to synthesize a more detailed structure of the design, freeing them to concentrate on more strategic design decisions and reduce time to market. Adopted by designers around the world, the VHDL family of standards have recently been revised to address a range of issues, including portability across synthesis tools.

This best-selling comprehensive tutorial for the language and authoritative reference on its use in hardware design at all levels--from system to gates--has been revised to reflect the new IEEE standard, VHDL-2001. Peter Ashenden, a member of the IEEE VHDL standards committee, presents the entire description language and builds a modeling methodology based on successful software engineering techniques. Reviewers on Amazon.com have consistently rated the first edition with five stars. This second edition updates the first, retaining the authors unique ability to teach this complex subject to a broad audience of students and practicing professionals.

* Details how the new standard allows for increased portability across tools.
* Covers related standards, including the Numeric Synthesis Package and the Synthesis Operability Package, demonstrating how they can be used for digital systems design.
* Presents four extensive case studies to demonstrate and combine features of the language taught across multiple chapters.
* Requires only a minimal background in programming, making it an excellent tutorial for anyone in computer architecture, digital systems engineering, or CAD.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

VHDL may sound like a new Internet language, but it really stands for VHSIC (Very High Speed Integrated Circuit) Hardware Definition Language. VHDL borrows ideas from software engineering (architectural, behavior, and formal models, as well as modular design) and is used to design today's custom integrated circuits, from cell phones to microwave ovens and even CPUs. Peter Ashenden's The Designer's Guide to VHDL shows you how to use this language to write a hardware design, which you can then test in a simulator before "synthesizing" it into an actual hardware design in silicon.

The book begins with the basics of VHDL, which, like any software language, has keywords, operators, flow control statements, and programming conventions. Next, the author introduces his first case study--a "pipelined multiplier accumulator," which simulates a CPU register. He then moves on to more complicated models, such as a design for a complete CPU (the DLX processor, which is used as a model for educating future CPU designers). More advanced aspects of VHDL follow, including guard signals, abstract data types, and even file I/O. A final case study (for a "queuing network") puts these components into practice. The book closes with a discussion of "synthesizers"--additional software tools that convert a VHDL specification into silicon--and how these tools impose design limits. The appendices include Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) enhancements to VHDL, which have increased the design language's power. Although most of us won't ever need to design our own integrated circuit, this book shows how it's done. Engineering students who need to master VHDL during a semester-length course, will find Ashenden's guide to be indispensable--and written in an accessible style rarely found in engineering texts. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"The second edition of The Designer's Guide to VHDL sets a new standard in VHDL texts. I am certain that you will find it a very valuable addition to your library."
—From the foreword by Paul Menchini, Menchini & Associates

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 759 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 2 edition (June 12, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558606742
• ISBN-13: 978-1558606746
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #913,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The best VHDL reference to date, February 20, 2001

By 

C. McManis "Chuck McManis" (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Designer's Guide to VHDL (Systems on Silicon) (Paperback)

Until Peter's next book comes out of course! I would give it 5 stars if I was just learning the VHDL language, but I'm actually trying to use VHDL for FPGA design and this book falls short in that regard.

This book is really good at explaining the 'mechanics' of VHDL programming. It is an out growth of Peter's "Intro to VHDL" paper that was published on the web and it sort of shows. I really like the depth that it goes into, I wish it had the standard libraries in the appendix. (it doesn't) However, until getting Ashendon's book, all other VHDL texts were pretty opaque.

The only thing this book does not have is a treatment of logic 'inference.' Since all VHDL compilers today "infer" (a fancy way of saying "guess") what logic would be able to implement a behavior, not understanding how those compilers guess makes it possible to write syntactically clean VHDL that doesn't synthesize any logic. To get a better handle on inference I'd recommend "HDL Chip Design" by Smith.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing comes close to this book., March 2, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Silicon Valley) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Designer's Guide to VHDL (Systems on Silicon) (Paperback)

Before Ashenden there was Douglas Perry. Perry's book on VHDL (Second Edition) was pretty well written and handled HDL for synthesis quite well. After Perry, I was introduced to Ashenden's "The Designer's Guide to VHDL". This is by far the must have VHDL reference manual. Ask yourself, what is important in a good reference manual...the answer is well organized concepts, good examples and a thorough index! This book has it all. I have other VHDL books that just get dusty on my shelf, not this one! If I'm not using it, someone else usually wants to borrow it. If your looking for a great VHDL book...pick this one up or borrow it.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book for Learning VHDL, July 28, 2000

By 

Jeff Szczepanski "Entrepreneur" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Designer's Guide to VHDL (Systems on Silicon) (Paperback)

This book has a very detailed and complete coverage of the VHDL langauge. The book is clearly geared to the beginner and serves as a great tutorial on the language, however the depth is good enough that even a seasoned VHDL programmer will find it of good benefit both at increasing their depth in the language and also as a desk reference. My main criticism of the book is that I found it somewhat verbose in description on certain topics. While the detail is needed on the more complex or subtle topics, it seems to drag on with some of the more trivial ideas. In any case, the good clearly wins out in an overall must have VHDL reference.