3 Excellent Free Books to Learn about VHDL

VHDL (VHSIC-HDL, Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language) is a hardware description language used in electronic design automation to describe digital and mixed-signal systems such as field-programmable gate arrays and integrated circuits. VHDL can also be used as a general-purpose parallel programming language.

VHDL is an extremely powerful tool. The more you understand as you work and study with VHDL, the more it will enhance your learning experience independently of your particular area of interest. The concept of using software to design hardware that is controlled by software will definitely provide you with endless hours of contemplation.

VHDL is designed to fill a number of needs in the design process. Firstly, it allows description of the structure of a design, that is how it is decomposed into sub-designs, and how those sub-designs are interconnected. Secondly, it allows the specification of the function of designs using familiar programming language forms. Thirdly, as a result, it allows a design to be simulated before being manufactured, so that designers can quickly compare alternatives and test for correctness without the delay and expense of hardware prototyping.

1. Free Range VHDL by Bryan Mealy, Fabrizio Tappero

The purpose of this book is to provide students and young engineers with a guide to help them develop the skills necessary to be able to use VHDL for introductory and intermediate level digital design. These skills will also give them the ability and the confidence to continue on with VHDL-based digital design.

The book presents topics to someone familiar with digital logic design and with some skills in algorithmic programming languages such as Java or C. The information is focused on giving a solid knowledge of the approach and function of VHDL.

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2. Introducing the Spartan-3E FPGA and VHDL by Mike Field

This is a book on using the Spartan 3E FPGA with VHDL, using the Papilio One or Digilent Basys2 boards. This book provides you with:

• A working knowledge of a subset of VHDL — enough to complete most projects.
• Familiarity with the ISIM simulator, and have used it to debug an issue or two.
• Familiarity with all the major components of the Spartan-3E FPGA.
• Used nearly all the interfaces on your chosen FPGA development board.
• Transferred data to an FPGA over the USB host port (which is often overlooked in other books!)
• You may have even built a few custom interfaces that are not on the board.

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3. The VHDL Cookbook by Peter Ashenden

VHDL Cookbook 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.

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All books in this series: