Looking for a really good book about FPGA design

[s2c97]

Real FPGA design?

I know that this question has been asked a mulititude of times by many users, but it seems that I did not see the answer I'm looking for. So here it is again:

I'm just starting in the world of FPGA design and I'm realising that there is a lot of literature on HDL language (Verilog, VHDL) and a lot of literature on tools to design FPGA (Xilinx tools, Altera tools, ...). But I can't quite seem to put my hands on some good reference (books, links,...) on FPGA design where it brings you right into the heart of it. How and were to start a good design, good clock distribution, etc. A lot of people think that FPGA is just a matter of learning the syntax of one language and you can start desinign FPGA. But I think that it is more than that, the syntax is not even 5% of the work.

I know that it's a pretty general question and there is probably not just one good answer or one good book that will answer this. But I just realise that the more I try to plunge myself in FPGA the more I realise there are different ways of doing it. And I'm trying to learn the good way of doing it as a beginner, but I just don't have any guidance to follow!

s2c97

 

[echo47]

Real FPGA design?

You are correct about learning HDL. It would be wrong to approach FPGA design like learning a new programming language. HDL is merely a convenient way to express digital hardware design.

First, you learn good digital hardware design - boolean logic, registers, counters, state machines, arithmetic, memory, clocking, stuff like that. Then study the insides of the FPGA to get a feeling for how it's arranged and how its logic elements get connected to build larger digital structures. Try writing some simple HDL, maybe a two-bit adder, or a small counter. Compile it and study the resulting FPGA layout to see what happened. Try to understand why the compiler did the things it did. Expand that to larger projects, keep experimenting, keep learning, and pretty soon other folks will be coming to you for answers. Sometimes with money in hand.

 

[luancao]

Re: Real FPGA design?

FPGA design is far more a language. A lot of knowdge and skills you should learn from books and practice.

As a beginner, you'd better start from schematic in. HDL is a description of your hardware or logic. So be aware of that, you have a design in your mind and then describe it. For a skilled worker, the language could promote his/her efficiency hundreds of times than schematic in. But for a beginner, you'd better know the basic cell first, the flip-flop, the logic gates, memory, IO.

One thing quite important is the timing diagram. Draw timing diagram carefully BEFORE any design. If you could draw the timing diagram, you could design.

After that, you'd better aquire some architecture knowledge, bus, memory managments, pipe-line etc. Design a simple CPU is very good excise.

At the time, system knowledge is of great help in your work. You will know how to connect your FPGA into the system and how to get it debuged.

Of course, be familiar with the FPGA device itself is also important. You should know that the resource in the device. But anyway, FPGA devices are more or less the same. If you are very familiar with it and design, you should estimate the right device which will help your company save time and money.

To summarize, before you know all the above HDL is the least important thing for design. After you are familiar with all of these topics, HDL is the most important since it will help you to design what you want.