Hardware Design And Simulation In Val Vhdl

The VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) provides a standard machine processable notation for describing hardware. VHDL is the result of a collaborative effort between IBM, Intermetrics, and Texas Instruments; sponsored by the Very High Speed Integrated Cir cuits (VHSIC) program office of the Department of Defense, beginning in 1981. Today it is an IEEE standard (1076-1987), and several simulators and other automated support tools for it are available commercially. By providing a standard notation for describing hardware, especially in the early stages of the hardware design process, VHDL is expected to reduce both the time lag and the cost involved in building new systems and upgrading existing ones. VHDL is the result of an evolutionary approach to language devel opment starting with high level hardware description languages existing in 1981. It has a decidedly programming language flavor, resulting both from the orientation of hardware languages of that time, and from a ma jor requirement that VHDL use Ada constructs wherever appropriate. During the 1980's there has been an increasing current of research into high level specification languages for systems, particularly in the software area, and new methods of utilizing specifications in systems de velopment. This activity is worldwide and includes, for example, object oriented design, various rigorous development methods, mathematical verification, and synthesis from high level specifications. VAL (VHDL Annotation Language) is a simple further step in the evolution of hardware description languages in the direction of applying new methods that have developed since VHDL was designed.

The success of VHDL since it has been balloted in 1987 as an IEEE standard may look incomprehensible to the large population of hardware designers, who had never heared of Hardware Description Languages before (for at least 90% of them), as well as to the few hundreds of specialists who had been working on these languages for a long time (25 years for some of them). Until 1988, only a very small subset of designers, in a few large companies, were used to describe their designs using a proprietary HDL, or sometimes a HDL inherited from a University when some software environment happened to be developped around it, allowing usability by third parties. A number of benefits were definitely recognized to this practice, such as functional verification of a specification through simulation, first performance evaluation of a tentative design, and sometimes automatic microprogram generation or even automatic high level synthesis. As there was apparently no market for HDL's, the ECAD vendors did not care about them, start-up companies were seldom able to survive in this area, and large users of proprietary tools were spending more and more people and money just to maintain their internal system.

A completely updated and expanded comprehensive treatment of VHDL and its applications to the design and simulation of real, industry-standard circuits. This comprehensive treatment of VHDL and its applications to the design and simulation of real, industry-standard circuits has been completely updated and expanded for the third edition. New features include all VHDL-2008 constructs, an extensive review of digital circuits, RTL analysis, and an unequaled collection of VHDL examples and exercises. The book focuses on the use of VHDL rather than solely on the language, with an emphasis on design examples and laboratory exercises. The third edition begins with a detailed review of digital circuits (combinatorial, sequential, state machines, and FPGAs), thus providing a self-contained single reference for the teaching of digital circuit design with VHDL. In its coverage of VHDL-2008, it makes a clear distinction between VHDL for synthesis and VHDL for simulation. The text offers complete VHDL codes in examples as well as simulation results and comments. The significantly expanded examples and exercises include many not previously published, with multiple physical demonstrations meant to inspire and motivate students. The book is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students in VHDL and digital circuit design, and can be used as a professional reference for VHDL practitioners. It can also serve as a text for digital VLSI in-house or academic courses.

Co-Design is the set of emerging techniques which allows for the simultaneous design of Hardware and Software. In many cases where the application is very demanding in terms of various performances (time, surface, power consumption), trade-offs between dedicated hardware and dedicated software are becoming increasingly difficult to decide upon in the early stages of a design. Verification techniques - such as simulation or proof techniques - that have proven necessary in the hardware design must be dramatically adapted to the simultaneous verification of Software and Hardware. Describing the latest tools available for both Co-Design and Co-Verification of systems, Hardware/Software Co-Design and Co-Verification offers a complete look at this evolving set of procedures for CAD environments. The book considers all trade-offs that have to be made when co-designing a system. Several models are presented for determining the optimum solution to any co-design problem, including partitioning, architecture synthesis and code generation. When deciding on trade-offs, one of the main factors to be considered is the flow of communication, especially to and from the outside world. This involves the modeling of communication protocols. An approach to the synthesis of interface circuits in the context of co-design is presented. Other chapters present a co-design oriented flexible component data-base and retrieval methods; a case study of an ethernet bridge, designed using LOTOS and co-design methodologies and finally a programmable user interface based on monitors. Hardware/Software Co-Design and Co-Verification will help designers and researchers to understand these latest techniques in system design and as such will be of interest to all involved in embedded system design.

too vast, too complex, too grand ... for description. John Wesley Powell-1870 (discovering the Grand Canyon) VHDL is a big world. A beginner can be easily disappointed by the generality of this language. This generality is explained by the large number of domains covered - from specifications to logical simulation or synthesis. To the very beginner, VHDL appears as a "kit". He is quickly aware that his problem may be solved with VHDL, but does not know how. He does not even know how to start. In this state of mind, all the constraints that can be set to his modeling job, by using a subset of the language or a given design methodology, may be seen as a life preserver. The success of the introduction of VHDL in a company depends on solutions to many questions that should be answered months before the first line of code is written: • Why choose VHDL? • Which VHDL tools should be chosen? • Which modeling methodology should be adopted? • How should the VHDL environment be customized? • What are the tricks? Where are the traps? • What are the differences between VHDL and other competing HDLs? Answers to these questions are organized according to different concerns: buying the tools, organizing the environment, and designing. Decisions taken in each of these areas may have many consequences on the way to the acceptance and efficiently use of VHDL in a company.

VHDL is a comprehensive language that allows a user to deal with design complexity. Design, and the data representing a design, are complex by the very nature of a modern digital system constructed from VLSI chips. VHDL is the first language to allow one to capture all the nuances of that complexity, and to effectively manage the data and the design process. As this book shows, VHDL is not by its nature a complex language. In 1980, the U. S. Government launched a very aggressive effort to advance the state-of-the-art in silicon technology. The objective was to significantly enhance operating performance and circuit density for Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) silicon chips. The U. S. Government realized that in order for contractors to be able to work together to develop VLSI products, to document the resulting designs, to be able to reuse the designs in future products, and to efficiently upgrade existing designs, they needed a common communication medium for the design data. They wanted the design descriptions to be computer readable and executable. They also recognized that with the high densities envisioned for the U. S. Government's Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) chips and the large systems required in future procurements, a means of streamlining the design process and managing the large volumes of design data was required. Thus was born the concept of a standard hardware design and description language to solve all of these problems.

In system design, generation of high-level abstract models that can be closely associated with evolving lower-level models provides designers with the ability to incrementally `test' an evolving design against a model of a specification. Such high-level models may deal with areas such as performance, reliability, availability, maintainability, and system safety. Abstract models also allow exploration of the hardware versus software design space in an incremental fashion as a fuller, detailed design unfolds, leaving behind the old practice of hardware-software binding too early in the design process. Such models may also allow the inclusion of non-functional aspects of design (e.g. space, power, heat) in a simulatable information model dealing with the system's operation. This book addresses Model Generation and Application specifically in the following domains: Specification modeling (linking object/data modeling, behavior modeling, and activity modeling). Operational specification modeling (modeling the way the system is supposed to operate - from a user's viewpoint). Linking non-functional parameters with specification models. Hybrid modeling (linking performance and functional elements). Application of high-level modeling to hardware/software approaches. Mathematical analysis techniques related to the modeling approaches. Reliability modeling. Applications of High Level Modeling. Reducing High Level Modeling to Practice. High-Level System Modeling: Specification and Design Methodologies describes the latest research and practice in the modeling of electronic systems and as such is an important update for all researchers, design engineers and technical managers working in design automation and circuit design.