VHDL: Analysis and Modeling of Digital Systems [Hardcover]

Zainalabedin Navabi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0070464790 | ISBN-13: 978-0070464797 | Edition: 2

The definitive guide to VHDLÑnow updated with the new VHDL93 standard! Here's the new second edition of the authoritative reference engineers need to guide them through the use of VHDL hardware description language in the analysis, simulation, and modeling of complicated microelectronic circuits. The number and depth of its relevant and practical examples and problems is what sets this edition apart from other VHDL texts. It includes extensive new material to bring the guide fully up to date with the new VHDL93 standard, including new chapters on design flow, interfacing, modeling, and timing, as well as appendixes on logic synthesis and description styles.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Definitive Guide To VHDL--Now Updated With The New VHDL93 Standard VHDL, Second Edition Here's the new second edition of the authoritative reference engineers need to guide them through the use of VHDL hardware description language in the analysis, simulation, and modeling of complicated microelectronics circuits. You'll find extensive new material to bring the guide fully up to date with the new VHDL93 standard, including new chapters on design flow, interfacing, modling, and timing. Extensive appendixes, including ones on logic synthesis and CPU description style, provide up-to-date information on the use of VHDL in design. The number and depth of its relevant and practical examples and problems is what set this edition apart from other VHDL texts. Detailed coverage includes: new chapters and appendixes on design flow, various coding styles, and logic synthesis, along with detailed coverage of VHDL syntax and semantic. . .top-down design and how designers can best utilize VHDL. . .revised information on timing and concurrency. . .and VHDL applications for interface design and for special modelings, to name only some of the newly revised or newly covered topics. Plus, you'll find dozens of new examples that demonstrate or describe default binding, a sequential comparator, incremental binding, a parity check, DMA and Cache controller, use of OTHERS, aggregate operations, and use of ACCESS types. Key features of this new edition include coverage of VHDL93, timing, and modeling. The author also addresses the maturity in the use of the language that has affected the way designers use VHDL and shows how to stay a step ahead of today's applications.

About the Author

Zainalabedin Navabi, Ph.D., (Boston, MA) is adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University and the author of VHDL: Analysis and Modeling of Hardware (1993, McGraw-Hill). Since 1981, he has been involved in the design, definition, and implementation of hardware description languages synthesis and test of digital systems. He has developed and supervised the development of many HDL-related software packages and tools, and has directed student projects in VLSI design, test synthesis, simulation, synthesis, and other aspects of digital system design automation

Product Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 2 edition (December 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070464790
• ISBN-13: 978-0070464797
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,729,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I highly recommend Dr. Navabi's book - it's a keeper., September 5, 2003

By 

Dennis Shumaker (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: VHDL: Analysis and Modeling of Digital Systems (Hardcover)

Background info:
I have been an ASIC engineer since 1986. I have designed many ASICs in Verilog and VHDL. I have 7 books on VHDL including Dr. Navabi's text.

Some of the VHDL books out there are more like cookbooks: too many code examples and not enough explanation. Navabi's book is NOT a cookbook.

Further, it is hard to do a direct comparison to other VHDL texts. In a way it would be like comparing apples and oranges. While some VHDL texts try to explain everything about VHDL, other books like Dr. Navabi's explain the more useful parts of VHDL as being used by a digital systems or ASIC designers. While other books are mostly for RTL coders with very little testbench and system level modeling info. In my opinion, test is extremely important as well as modeling at the system level. Many books out there do not do a good job on those aspects. Most books provide very brief explanations of test benches and/or system level modeling.

This book is highly useful for a digital systems design engineer or architect. This book is not only covers coding for RTL synthesis but doing the testbenches, and sytem level modeling as well. This book has a very good balance between all the main uses of the VHDL modeling langauage.

Here is my overview of the chapters :
The first two chapters provides you with a history of modeling languages and the reason VHDL was created. I recommend that you read these chapters, especially if this is your first modeling language. The chapters are not long, but it provides a very good high level overview to modeling, synthesis, and test.

Chapter three gets you up and running quickly by providing simple examples to give you a good introduction to behavioral and structural VHDL.

Chapters 4 though 9 are heart of the VHDL aspect of the book.

Chapter 4 is very important. It describes VHDL inertial and concurrent timing in great detail. In fact, I believe Dr. Navabi's book is the best available in this aspect! It is important to understand for modeling and especially testing purposes. Chapter 5 is on structural VHDL. it is a good place to start since it is the easiest to understand. Chapter 6 introduces procedures, functions, packages, generics, and configurations. I like the way this chapter is written. Other books are not as easy to read as this one. Great examples and its clearly written as is the entire book actually. Chapter 7 digs into the VHDL types, operators, and attributes. Chapter 8 covers guarding and signal resolution. It also provides a good state machine example. Once you get through Chapter 8, pat yourself on the back because you got through the hard parts of VHDL! VHDL is a harder language to learn than Verilog. But for good reason, VHDL is much more powerful and structured than Verilog in my opinion. You can code faster in Verilog, but the code is not typically as readable as VHDL. Most of the VHDL codes I have seen are much more readable. Some of the Verilog code I have seen are downright nasty looking and time consuming to interpret. Chapter 9 starts to put it (chapters 6-8) all together by more thorough examples behavioral modeling: testbenches/harnesses, arbitration/handshaking, etc.

Chapters 10-11 puts it all together with some system examples : cpu, dma, system bus modeling/timing/interfacing, etc. even memory caches! These are not complicated examples but they are real world examples. All of the techniques are still begin used today. If they were more complicated examples the book would need to be much bigger. However, these are great examples that ties everything up. Once you complete chapter 11, you are well on your way! You will have accomplished something!

Don't overlook Chapters 12 (advanced modeling) and the appendices (esp. App. B, the synthesis subset). This additional information puts Navabi's book above other VHDL books in my opinion.

Conclusion:
It is difficult to create a VHDL book to be 'the' book for all types and levels of designers and engineers (architectural, RTL coders, testbench and verification, etc.) But, in my opinion this book comes closest. I highly recommend this book! I have many books on VHDL. This book is valuable to me as a reference and has helped me tremendously - it's a keeper! All the codes work and I only found one insignificant typo. I can not say that about any of my other VHDL books. In fact, I will probably soon be getting rid of some of my VHDL books to make space on my shelves for new books. I'll be keeping Navabi's VHDL book as a permanent reference- for sure! I recommend this book for beginners because I like the way it progresses and delivers the material: in the right order and in the right amount. I recommend this book for moer advanced people as well, I am sure that it has material that is not covered in other VHDL books. And it makes a great reference as well.

P.S.
There are recent additions to VHDL that are not discussed in this book..namely VHDL-AMS, which adds analog extentions. However, it is still very young and most simulators do not support the analog extentions yet.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth its weight in . . ., July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: VHDL: Analysis and Modeling of Digital Systems (Hardcover)

A really good text book is worth its weight in ....well maybe not gold but definetely more than silver. I can count on one hand the really great textbooks I have used in over 4 years of Electrical Engineer education (two others being "Fundamentals of Logic Design" by Charles H. Roth, Jr. and "Computer Systems Design and Architecture" by Vincent Heuring and Harry Jordan).

Having previously taken a VHDL class, I showed up for work and quickly realized I didn't know Diddly about how to USE VHDL. I felt like an idiot. Having purchased this book, 70% of the gaps in my knowledge have been address by the end of the third chapter. What I read in the text yesterday, I use ON THE JOB today. Having made it about halfway through the text, I can easily read and understand the code of my fellow Engineers and am starting to contribute meaningful code of my own.

This book is not intended to teach you Digital Logic (for that, see Logic Design by Roth (above)). It will teach you how to USE Digital Logic in Programmable Devices. By the way, where I work we have over 8000 Electrical and Computer Engineers. All Digital Hardware is designed in VHDL. If you don't think you will have to Master VHDL to become or continue as a Digital Hardware Designer, think again.

The material is this book is presented in a coherent and straightforward manner. It is thorough in its discussion of material while written in easy to understand prose. Key topics are driven home by use of well-planned examples. While agressive in its presentation, it is by no means overwhelming. I recommend this text both for students and those who wish to round out their VHDL knowledge.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Limited Usability, not very well written, September 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: VHDL: Analysis and Modeling of Digital Systems (Hardcover)

We looked at this book as one of the candidates for a final-year class in VHDL. It had the advantages of being cheap and widely available. In the end we rejected it. It focuses only on writing code and not about any of the ideas underlying design or synthesis technology. As such we felt it would not give our students any deep understanding of the subject nor any transferable skills.