Designing with FPGAs and CPLDs

Rating:
Summary: Very Simple: 12 years too late
Review: Although well written, readable, and accurate in the information presented, the book is 12 years out of date. The preface implies that the book will help the reader choose the "right" FPGA or CPLD, but only deals with the most generic criteria.

A better title would be "Introduction to FPGAs and CPLDs for Managers".

Rating:
Summary: Very Simple: 12 years too late
Review: Although well written, readable, and accurate in the information presented, the book is 12 years out of date. The preface implies that the book will help the reader choose the "right" FPGA or CPLD, but only deals with the most generic criteria.

A better title would be "Introduction to FPGAs and CPLDs for Managers".

Rating:
Summary: Very Simple: 12 years too late
Review: Although well written, readable, and accurate in the information presented, the book is 12 years out of date. The preface implies that the book will help the reader choose the "right" FPGA or CPLD, but only deals with the most generic criteria.

A better title would be "Introduction to FPGAs and CPLDs for Managers".

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent, Informative Book
Review: Designing with FPGAs and CPLDs is an excellent introductory book, espcially for people just learning about programmable logic. It covers a wide range of topics in an interesting and informative manner. Also, the sidebars, of which there are many, have lots of great real-world experiential information. Every time I got to a page with a sidebar I'd immediately jump to it to see what was there. Often I'd come away with the thought, "So that's why they do it that way!". It's wonderful to see treatments of the kinds of bugs you'll encounter, good design practices that can be used to avoid these bugs, and most importantly the topic of designing for test. The latte, designing for testability, is so critical - especially as FPGAs explode in complexity.

My only suggestion for future editions is give pointers to "where to go next". Having whet my appetite for programmable logic, the next thing I want to do is apply it! Fortunately there are a number of FPGA starter kits from all the major suppliers - but a chapter that reviews these or points the reader to them would be a welcome addition.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent, Informative Book
Review: Designing with FPGAs and CPLDs is an excellent introductory book, espcially for people just learning about programmable logic. It covers a wide range of topics in an interesting and informative manner. Also, the sidebars, of which there are many, have lots of great real-world experiential information. Every time I got to a page with a sidebar I'd immediately jump to it to see what was there. Often I'd come away with the thought, "So that's why they do it that way!". It's wonderful to see treatments of the kinds of bugs you'll encounter, good design practices that can be used to avoid these bugs, and most importantly the topic of designing for test. The latte, designing for testability, is so critical - especially as FPGAs explode in complexity.

My only suggestion for future editions is give pointers to "where to go next". Having whet my appetite for programmable logic, the next thing I want to do is apply it! Fortunately there are a number of FPGA starter kits from all the major suppliers - but a chapter that reviews these or points the reader to them would be a welcome addition.

Rating:
Summary: Very well written. Exactly what I was looking for.
Review: I am an experienced embedded software engineer and part time digital design engineer. I was looking for a CPLD/FPGA book to help me with my first CPLD design. This was for a circuit that delivered highly accurate aircraft altitude to an autopilot system (very important stuff). I needed the following from a CPLD/FPGA book:
- An overview of CPLD/FPGA technology.
- How CPLDs and FPGAs have changed the way we must perform digital design (from the old days).
- Practical rules for creating proper synchronous design.

As the author (Bob Zeidman) points out, different sections of the book are intended for different audiences. For me, chapters 1 (history), 2 (CPLDS), and 5 (Design Techniques, Rules, and Guidelines) were the most important. I do not yet use FPGAs nor HDLs (though VHDL is in my near future). I never expect any book to answer all my questions; however, this one clearly answered the important questions I needed answered.

I used Altera's "MAX+PLUS II" tools to create, simulate (test) and program my circuit. Great tools, never crashed, excellent online help system and tutorials.

This book was critical in helping me design a reliable, testable, accurate circuit using synchronous design techniques. The circuit flies today in many business commuter aircraft.

By the way, there are some minor errors in the book (do you know of any books without errors?). I emailed Bob about it (the book gives you his URL and email address). Bob not only sent me errata information in like 2 hours, but provided an additional in depth explanation for an issue I was having with state machine design. Bob is also posting the errata info on his website - not THAT is customer service!

Rating:
Summary: Lightweight but good overview
Review: I bought this book to get started on FPGA design.

I found the book to be an mixture of high level concepts (how to test designs, design methodology) and low level (converting async. logic to sync.). With my little knowledge of Verilog this was fairly useful.

I can't help feeling that the book is aimed at engineering managers rather than engineers.

I liked the explanation of the internal structure of various PLDs. This gives a reasonable understanding of how these devices work, which is always a good thing. I also liked the design/test guidelines in Chapter 5. This gives a good overview of pitfalls and a basis for attacking a design, albeit quite briefly.

I didn't like the brevity and the 'overview' nature of much of the material. The book needs a big brother to actually get into the topics properly - I believe the Author has written a good book on Verilog so maybe that helps. I found the chapter on tools very dissappointing - it left me with a vague understanding of the various tools, but I would have liked a summary of available tools and information on costs and performance.

Taking out the questions and a few over-long code samples, the book has only around 150 pages of actual material, in fairly large print. It took 2-3 hours to read carefully.

Overall this book is a strange animal, but I found it fairly useful.

Rating:
Summary: A Well Written and Informative Book which is Easy to Read
Review: Programmable logic is making hardware design more like software design. Programmers need to understand these devices - how to write drivers, how to convert software algorithms into hardware, and how systems on a chip will change the relationship between hardware and software. This book is a great and complete description of the technologies, architectures, and uses of programmable devices. It describes existing devices as well as new devices that are being developed. The chapter on the Universal Design Methodology (UDM), a new system for designing hardware, is not only recommended for hardware designs, it can be adapted for software design as well.

I found this book well written, very informative and a complete source of information for anyone who is interested in designing with programmable logic devices. The book starts with the history of programmable logic and then explains CPLDs, FPGAs, as well as design techniques and rules, verification of the design, and electronic design tools. In short, this book covers all that a designer of programmable logic needs to know to start designing. In addition, the book provides a set of Verilog examples, in the Appendix, which is quite helpful for anyone who might not be familiar with this hardware design language.

Bob Zeidman has a wonderful writing style. He makes complex technical subjects interesting and very easy to follow. Furthermore, he motivates the reader to continue reading. I read the entire book, even though that I very rarely do so. Bob's extensive and unique experience, in hardware and software design, is clearly evident in this book. The reader can easily benefit from Bob's vast (almost two decades) of design experience, by simply reading this book. Bob also shares some of his personal experiences, in the sidebars, which I found very useful and interesting. The book also provides the means for the reader, to go through each subject with as much depth as he/she desires. I found this feature very helpful, as well as other effective methods utilized in this book. For example, at the beginning of each chapter there is a list of learning objectives for the chapter and at the end of each chapter there is a summary of the material that was just covered in the chapter.

In summary, I found this book very well written, informative, helpful, practically useful, motivating and inspiring. I recommend the book very strongly to anyone who is interested in designing with programmable logic. I also recommend the author very highly, from seeing some of his other writings, which covers other highly technical subjects, as well as novels. I believe that Bob Zeidman will soon be recognized as a very creative and unique author of our time, for writing technical subjects as well as novels.