An Introduction to VHDL 2008
Kausik Datta, Goutam Kumar Bhaumik, Rohit Goel · 2016
Summary form only given. Design and verification of digital circuits involves describing behavioral functionality using HDL (Hardware Description Language). Given the fact that modern day designs have grown significantly in terms of complexity and size, there is a very obvious requirement to have powerful languages which can offer constructs and methodologies which not only cater to these requirements, but can also facilitate development of highly reusable and error free code leading to reduced development cycles and more efficiency. VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) was first developed on requirements of U.S Department of Defense which was later adopted as an IEEE standard first in 1987. The primary goal of the language was to provide a suitable environment for designers to design development and verification side by side. Till date VHDL is perceived as a very powerful HDL which offers wide range of constructs specifically targeted to aid in development of highly reusable code. Since it is a strongly typed language it leaves minimal scope for errors in the designs. In order to keep in pace with design requirements VHDL has gone several revisions. VHDL 2008 was the most significant revision done to VHDL with last major revision being way back in 1993. This tutorial is designed to explain the new features of VHDL 2008 and its value to both the RTL designer and verification engineers. This tutorial program will discuss all the important enhancements to the language with proper examples along with an emphasis on the possibilities to reduce the VHDL code size with the recent language changes. This tutorial will also explain the usage with older version of VHDL and new VHDL side by side for better understanding. It will discuss major enhancements done in VHDL 2008 standard and some features which are introduced in VHDL 2008 to bridge the gap with respect to design methodologies offered by other standard hardware description languages.