Cem Unsalan - Digital System Design with FPGA: Implementation Using Verilog and VHDL

About the Authors

Cem nsalan, Ph.D., established the DSP Laboratory at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, Turkey, and is a microprocessor and digital signal processing professor there. He is the coauthor of Programmable Microcontrollers with Applications: MSP430 LaunchPad with CCS and Grace.

Bora Tar, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral researcher at The Ohio State University. His main research interests include analog and mixed-signal integrated-circuit design and energy harvesting and sensor networking applications.

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T he world around us has become digital. Personal devices we use, houses we live in, and cars we drive contain digital systems to simplify life for us. Moreover, all these systems have started communicating with each other. Since digital systems have become one of the most important tools of our daily lives, besides engineers hobbyists have also started learning and using them.

There are four ways to realize a digital system. The first one is using discrete logicgates. This approach has become obsolete due to implementation issues. The secon dway is using a microcontroller, which has very desirable properties such as ease of programming and price. However, a microcontroller is static in terms of its configuration. The third one is using an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). For mass production, using ASICs is the solution. However, producing and testing an ASIC chip needs time, which limits its modification after it is designed. The fourth way is using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). An FPGA can be configured easily such that it can be tailored for a specific application.

Managing an FPGA and getting the best out of it are slightly harder than for a microcontroller. However, if done appropriately the benefit will be enormous. Therefore, this book aims to guide the reader to mastering FPGAs through digital system design. While doing this, the main focus will be on implementation. Hence, the reader will grasp theoretical digital design concepts via implementing real-life applications. For this purpose, we pick two recent boards: Basys3 and Arty. Both boards have a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA on them. Baysy3 has most of the required peripherals onboard. Hence, it is an excellent candidate for being used in digital design education. Arty has Arduino-compatible pins. Since Arduino is widely accepted as a microcontroller platform by hobbyists, it has a wide range of peripheral devices as shields. Arty allows us to benefit from these. Moreover, the hobbyist can switch from Arduino to Arty when a custom-made digital design is required. Throughout the book, we will provide practical application examples mostly on the Basys3 board due to its available resources onboard. However, these applications can be modified to work on the Arty board as well. Besides, we will use simulation for almost all applications. Hence, buying Basy3 or Arty is not a must to follow the book.

There are two popular hardware description languages (HDLs) used to implement a digital system on an FPGA. These are Verilog and VHDL. Each HDL has its advantages and disadvantages. Throughout the book, we will cover both HDLs in parallel. This will allow readers to choose the HDL he or she likes. Note that this is not a book on advanced Verilog or VHDL. We will focus only on important and necessary topics. This way, we expect the beginner or hobbyist to benefit from the book.

Before diving into the fascinating world of digital systems, we would like to remind the reader of one or two things. We did not intend to write a standard textbook for a digital design course. Therefore, we did not cover theoretical concepts in depth. Instead, we tried to explain all these concepts using real-life applications. This way, we hope the reader will grasp digital design concepts better. Moreover, we do not believe digital design is just a mandatory engineering course to be attended. It is a talent every engineering student should gain for the job market. Besides, it is fun to play with, as done by most hobbyists. So, lets enjoy digital design with the FPGA while mastering it.