Название: Mastering FPGA Chip Design: for Speed, Area, Power, and Reliability
Автор: Kevin Habbard
Издательство: Elektor International Media
Год: 2025
Страниц: 344
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf (true)
Размер: 19.4 MB

This book teaches the fundamentals of FPGA operation, covering basic CMOS transistor theory to designing digital FPGA chips using LUTs, flip-flops, and embedded memories. Ideal for electrical engineers aiming to design large digital chips using FPGA technology.

Learning to write Verilog or VHDL that simulates is not particularly difficult. Writing RTL that simulates is only a small part of the chip designer’s job. The real challenge lies in designing a complete chip that is reliable and meets timing, area, and power budgets. This requires a much deeper understanding of the entire digital logic design process, all the way down to the CMOS transistor level.

Although they are both programmable, FPGAs are not related to microcontrollers. FPGA “source code” isn’t a “program” that is “compiled” to run inside an FPGA. FPGA “source code” is a high-level description of flip-flops and random logic gates that all run in parallel with each other. FPGAs and microcontrollers share the same fundamental CMOS transistor building block, but that’s it. There is no CPU inside an FPGA executing Verilog (or VHDL). FPGAs are Field Programmable Gate Arrays. Gate Arrays are a giant sea of logic gates. Logic gates are flip-flops and random logic. Digital logic, not software.

Discover

The inner workings of FPGA architecture and functionality.
Hardware Description Languages (HDL) like Verilog and VHDL.
The EDA tool flow for converting HDL source into a functional FPGA chip design.
Insider tips for reliable, low power, and high performance FPGA designs.

Example designs include

Computer-to-FPGA UART serial communication.
An open-source Sump3 logic analyzer implementation.
A fully functional graphics controller.

What you need

Digilent BASYS3 or similar FPGA eval board with an AMD/Xilinx FPGA.
Vivado EDA tool suite (available for download from AMD website free of charge).
Project source files available from author’s GitHub site

This book is for Electrical Engineers wanting to learn those details and apply them towards designing large digital chips using modern FPGA technology.