Real World FPGA Design with Verilog [With CDROM]

The practical guide for every circuit designer creating FPGA designs with Verilog!

Walk through design step-by-step-from coding through silicon. Partitioning, synthesis, simulation, test benches, combinatorial and sequential designs, and more.

Real World FPGA Design with Verilog guides you through every key challenge associated with designing FPGAs and ASICs using Verilog, one of the world's leading hardware design languages. You'll find irreverent, yet rigorous coverage of what it really takes to translate HDL code into hardware-and how to avoid the pitfalls that can occur along the way. Ken Coffman presents no-frills, real-world design techniques that can improve the stability and reliability of virtually any design. Start by walking a typical Verilog design all the way through to silicon; then, review basic Verilog syntax, design; simulation and testing, advanced simulation, and more. Coverage includes:

• Essential digital design strategies: recognizing the underlying analog building blocks used to create digital primitives; implementing logic with LUTs; clocking strategies, logic minimization, and more
• Key engineering tradeoffs, including operating speed vs. latency
• Combinatorial and sequential designs
• Verilog test fixtures: compiler directives and automated testing
• A detailed comparison of alternative architectures and software-including a never-before-published FPGA technology selection checklist

Real World FPGA Design with Verilog introduces libraries and reusable modules, points out opportunities to reuse your own code, and helps you decide when to purchase existing IP designs instead of building from scratch. Essential rules for designing with ASIC conversion in mind are presented.

If you're involved with digital hardware design with Verilog, Ken Coffman is a welcome voice of experience-showing you the shortcuts, helping you over the rough spots, and helping you achieve competence faster than you ever expected!

KEN COFFMAN is president of Bytech Services (www.bytechservices.com) and a Contract Electrical Engineer (and Verilog zealot) in the Seattle area. He has more than 17 years of experience designing commercial and industrial electronics and avionics, and 6 years as a Lecturer at Cogswell College North (now Henry Cogswell College).