The Design Warrior S Guide To Fpgas

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are devices that provide a fast, low-cost way for embedded system designers to customize products and deliver new versions with upgraded features, because they can handle very complicated functions, and be reconfigured an infinite number of times. In addition to introducing the various architectural features available in the latest generation of FPGAs, The Design Warrior’s Guide to FPGAs also covers different design tools and flows. This book covers information ranging from schematic-driven entry, through traditional HDL/RTL-based simulation and logic synthesis, all the way up to the current state-of-the-art in pure C/C++ design capture and synthesis technology. Also discussed are specialist areas such as mixed hardward/software and DSP-based design flows, along with innovative new devices such as field programmable node arrays (FPNAs). Clive "Max" Maxfield is a bestselling author and engineer with a large following in the electronic design automation (EDA)and embedded systems industry. In this comprehensive book, he covers all the issues of interest to designers working with, or contemplating a move to, FPGAs in their product designs. While other books cover fragments of FPGA technology or applications this is the first to focus exclusively and comprehensively on FPGA use for embedded systems. First book to focus exclusively and comprehensively on FPGA use in embedded designs World-renowned best-selling author Will help engineers get familiar and succeed with this new technology by providing much-needed advice on choosing the right FPGA for any design project

Learn how to design digital circuits with FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays), the devices that reconfigure themselves to become the very hardware circuits you set out to program. With this practical guide, author Justin Rajewski shows you hands-on how to create FPGA projects, whether you’re a programmer, engineer, product designer, or maker. You’ll quickly go from the basics to designing your own processor. Designing digital circuits used to be a long and costly endeavor that only big companies could pursue. FPGAs make the process much easier, and now they’re affordable enough even for hobbyists. If you’re familiar with electricity and basic electrical components, this book starts simply and progresses through increasingly complex projects. Set up your environment by installing Xilinx ISE and the author’s Mojo IDE Learn how hardware designs are broken into modules, comparable to functions in a software program Create digital hardware designs and learn the basics on how they’ll be implemented by the FPGA Build your projects with Lucid, a beginner-friendly hardware description language, based on Verilog, with syntax similar to C/C++ and Java

Design Recipes for FPGAs: Using Verilog and VHDL provides a rich toolbox of design techniques and templates to solve practical, every-day problems using FPGAs. Using a modular structure, the book gives ‘easy-to-find’ design techniques and templates at all levels, together with functional code. Written in an informal and ‘easy-to-grasp’ style, it goes beyond the principles of FPGA s and hardware description languages to actually demonstrate how specific designs can be synthesized, simulated and downloaded onto an FPGA. This book's ‘easy-to-find’ structure begins with a design application to demonstrate the key building blocks of FPGA design and how to connect them, enabling the experienced FPGA designer to quickly select the right design for their application, while providing the less experienced a ‘road map’ to solving their specific design problem. The book also provides advanced techniques to create ‘real world’ designs that fit the device required and which are fast and reliable to implement. This text will appeal to FPGA designers of all levels of experience. It is also an ideal resource for embedded system development engineers, hardware and software engineers, and undergraduates and postgraduates studying an embedded system which focuses on FPGA design. A rich toolbox of practical FGPA design techniques at an engineer's finger tips Easy-to-find structure that allows the engineer to quickly locate the information to solve their FGPA design problem, and obtain the level of detail and understanding needed

All the design and development inspiration and direction a harware engineer needs in one blockbuster book! Clive "Max" Maxfield renowned author, columnist, and editor of PL DesignLine has selected the very best FPGA design material from the Newnes portfolio and has compiled it into this volume. The result is a book covering the gamut of FPGA design from design fundamentals to optimized layout techniques with a strong pragmatic emphasis. In addition to specific design techniques and practices, this book also discusses various approaches to solving FPGA design problems and how to successfully apply theory to actual design tasks. The material has been selected for its timelessness as well as for its relevance to contemporary FPGA design issues. Contents Chapter 1 Alternative FPGA Architectures Chapter 2 Design Techniques, Rules, and Guidelines Chapter 3 A VHDL Primer: The Essentials Chapter 4 Modeling Memories Chapter 5 Introduction to Synchronous State Machine Design and Analysis Chapter 6 Embedded Processors Chapter 7 Digital Signal Processing Chapter 8 Basics of Embedded Audio Processing Chapter 9 Basics of Embedded Video and Image Processing Chapter 10 Programming Streaming FPGA Applications Using Block Diagrams In Simulink Chapter 11 Ladder and functional block programming Chapter 12 Timers Hand-picked content selected by Clive "Max" Maxfield, character, luminary, columnist, and author Proven best design practices for FPGA development, verification, and low-power Case histories and design examples get you off and running on your current project

This book provides a rich toolbox of design techniques and templates to solve practical, every-day problems using FPGAs. Using a modular structure, it provides design techniques and templates at all levels, together with functional code, which you can easily match and apply to your application. Written in an informal and easy to grasp style, this invaluable resource goes beyond the principles of FPGAs and hardware description languages to demonstrate how specific designs can be synthesized, simulated and downloaded onto an FPGA. In addition, the book provides advanced techniques to create ‘real world’ designs that fit the device required and which are fast and reliable to implement. Examples are rewritten and tested in Verilog and VHDL Describes high-level applications as examples and provides the building blocks to implement them, enabling the student to start practical work straight away Singles out the most important parts of the language that are needed for design, giving the student the information needed to get up and running quickly

This book collects the best practices FPGA-based Prototyping of SoC and ASIC devices into one place for the first time, drawing upon not only the authors' own knowledge but also from leading practitioners worldwide in order to present a snapshot of best practices today and possibilities for the future. The book is organized into chapters which appear in the same order as the tasks and decisions which are performed during an FPGA-based prototyping project. We start by analyzing the challenges and benefits of FPGA-based Prototyping and how they compare to other prototyping methods. We present the current state of the available FPGA technology and tools and how to get started on a project. The FPMM also compares between home-made and outsourced FPGA platforms and how to analyze which will best meet the needs of a given project. The central chapters deal with implementing an SoC design in FPGA technology including clocking, conversion of memory, partitioning, multiplexing and handling IP amongst many other subjects. The important subject of bringing up the design on the FPGA boards is covered next, including the introduction of the real design into the board, running embedded software upon it in and debugging and iterating in a lab environment. Finally we explore how the FPGA-based Prototype can be linked into other verification methodologies, including RTL simulation and virtual models in SystemC. Along the way, the reader will discover that an adoption of FPGA-based Prototyping from the beginning of a project, and an approach we call Design-for-Prototyping, will greatly increase the success of the prototype and the whole SoC project, especially the embedded software portion. Design-for-Prototyping is introduced and explained and promoted as a manifesto for better SoC design. Readers can approach the subjects from a number of directions. Some will be experienced with many of the tasks involved in FPGA-based Prototyping but are looking for new insights and ideas; others will be relatively new to the subject but experienced in other verification methodologies; still others may be project leaders who need to understand if and how the benefits of FPGA-based prototyping apply to their next SoC project. We have tried to make each subject chapter relatively standalone, or where necessary, make numerous forward and backward references between subjects, and provide recaps of certain key subjects. We hope you like the book and we look forward to seeing you on the FPMM on-line community soon (go to www.synopsys.com/fpmm).