Digital Design: HDL ----> Design

[stehenry]

Hi all,

I'm about to start a job as an applications engineer for a company specialising in reconfigurable ASICs. I reletively familiar with Verilog and VHDL, however, there is one thing that I've never really been able to get a hold on, that is: Digitial Design in general. By this I don't mean Karnaugh Maps or Boolean Optimisation, I mean how one gets a design from an initial specification, say, CPU, and then gets it to the RTL. I know there is obviously a lot of computer architecture involved, but I'm not really interested in that specifically. I'm more interested in being able to define the design architecturally before implementation, figuring out the interfaces between major components/blocks and also things like state machine design. In general: hardware design methodologies such as those found in Code Complete for software.

Are there any resources like books that concentrate on the architectural aspect of digital/hardware design; or is this something that is just picked up through experience?

Thanks,

Stephen.

 

[delay]

Your understanding is fairly correct. This is something you gotta learn on your own. Few books would teach about going and attacking the design problem. Typically an HDL tome would have a microprocessor or some large design in the end but would do a poor job on how to setup the interfaces and define the product at large.
In any engineering design this is the hardest part and people seem to struggle with it all the time, those who become crisp on the design functional blocks and interfaces indeed do become real engineers. Rest is just coding that a rookie can do provided the engineering design problem has been laid out nicely.

 

[amarnath]

try using hdl chip design by douglas smith.i find that this is the only book which deals with all aspects of designing ..with hdl's....

 

[kidman]

Yes, that is the experience, which can't get from books. It taks years to be an architect engineer.