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VLSI: What are good ways to learn to get better at

digital design?

5 Answers

SemiconductorCompanies(Startups)

VHDL

Digital Electronics

Verilog

Semiconductors

VLSI

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Ishan Saini

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Short answer is by applying what you learned..But I guess this is not what you

wanted to know when you p osted the qn. Try to participate in opencoresprojects..get anaccount in Page on Upverter , engage in public projects, build

your own electronic ckts...try it with arduino and then with raspberry pi or

better raspberry pi with arduino shield...In context of VLSI design, there are

tons of resources on google..now a days every univ has coursework on digital

design either at undergrad or at graduate level..I answered few qns on Quora

itself on the same topic...

But unless you know how to build and program simple ckts in practice ,

everything else is useless...

Written 26 Jul 2013 View Upvotes

Kiran Bulusu, Semiconductor expert & Technologist

3.1k Views Kiran has 20+ answers in VLSI.

18

Well, I guess I also want to do the same. Its a no easy task to do.

Digital design(RTL) is not an isolated activityand there are lots of side

areas that one might need to touch upon while doing so. These could be ability

to understand algorithms and write code (reference implementation),

familiarity (or ability to understand) of subjects such as signal processing,

communication, computer architecture, compilers, Networking, analog

electronics, cryptography, information theory etc. Most of these other subjects

are domain areas which require digital design implementations

Also there are lot of areas in digital d esign that many books simply donotspend time on. Those are the grey areas which are hard to learn and requires

R&D (or just ask on Quora/stackoverflow) and come with practice/experience

only. These are the skills which differentiates expert digital designers from

novice

Here are my suggestions and the way I am trying to do it.

Firstyou should commit yourself to read quality material and to practice on

regular basis. There are many resources( I will suggest some in the end)

available. But its important to start and stick to one HDL language initially and

master it.

Second, you should try to get hands-on on the tools of the trade. Buy a decent

FPGA board such as Xilinx Zynq SoC based board. Altera also has SoC based

FPGA boards (Cylone V). Most boards come up with a Modeslim simulator and

a vendor/device specific HDL(RTL) synthesis tools. I would also like to

mention SmartFusion2 SoC boards from Microsemi that comes with a free

Synplify pro license(quality tool for synthesis). When you work in a company,

you are a lso expected to be comfortable using tools such as oscilloscope, signal

Varun Nagpal Request Bio

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generators, logic analyzers, multimeters, etc. Most of these tools can be

bought(not very expensive except oscilloscope and signal generator). You can

always go for second hand equipments if things out of budget.

Third, you should build skills from bottom-up i.e. first build basic digital

circuits or building blocks, try to cover as many of them. This will make you

comfortable with basic stuff and give confidence to move up the ladder. Once

you have d one that, start building something of medium complexity such as

Peripheral (UART, I2C, SPI), Memory controllers, FIR filter, ALUs, 8-bit ISA

Microprocessor etc. From there on you can explore bigger designs such as

Audio/Video Codecs, Pipelined 32-bit mult-cycle processor, Cryptographyalgorithms, Micro-architecture circuits. Going step-by-step is the key.

Lastly, read less and DIY more and have fun while doing all this. Just dont

write RTL and simulate in Modelsim, please run/debug on the board in real-

time.

Hands-on hands-on..practice practice..fun fun...all that matters.

Pre-Basic Books

- Fundamentals of Logic Design by Charles Roth

Basic RTL Books (VHDL/Verilog)

- RTL hardware using VHDL - Pong Chu

- FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples - Pong Chu

- Circuit design and simulation with VHDL - Pedroni

- FPGA Prototyping by VERILOG Examples Pong Chu

- Advanced Digital Design with the Verilog HDL - Ciletti

General Books (Systemverilog/VHDL and for Higher level

understanding )

- Digital design and Computer Architecture - Harris & Harris

- Top-down VLSI design by Hubert Kaeslin which covers FPGA/ASIC front-

end flow

- A practical introduction to HW/SW codesign - Patrick Schaumont(2nd ed)

Topic specific books

- FSM in Hardware (VHDL/SystemVerilog) by Pedroni- Constraining designs for Synthesis and Timing Analysis

- Digital Design of Signal Processing Systems - Khan

- High level synthesis Blue book

Grey areas

- Simulation only HDL constructs vs Synthesis only HDL constructs

- Mixed Hdl coding

- Reading data-sheets, schematics

- Timed and Concurrent FSMs

- Applying Verification concepts to create good Testbenches

- In-circuit debugging (Chipscope on Xilinx and Signal tap on Altera )

- Clock domain crossing

- Deriving clocks(PLL)

- Handling asynchronous data/control signals

- Creating and Integrating IPs

- Creating SoC buses and attaching IPs to them

- Interaction between FPGA and firmware C code

- Interfacing FPGA with external components (ADC, DAC or uController

SDRAM etc)

- Constraining Designs (SDC) for Synthesis and Timing Closure

- Writing TCL scripts and Perl scripts for automating tool flow

- Understanding trade-offs (circuit speed vs area )

- Logic synthesis concepts and how different synthesis/simulation tool work

internally

- High Level Synthesis (Algorithm to RTL mapping) is a great to have skill

- TLM(Transaction level modeling)

- HW/SW Co-design: partitioning algorithm implementation effectivelybetween software(micro-controller or a pplication processor) a nd

hardware(fpga/asic)

PS: Seems like I wrote this answer more for myself then the guy who asked this

question.


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1 Answer Collapsed (Why?)

Upvote Downvote Comments 2+ Share

Updated 18 May View Upvotes

45

Upvote Downvote Comment Share 1

See Pasquale Ferrara's answer to I am not a beginner. How should I proceed in

digital VLSI design?and Pasquale Ferrara's answer to Embedded systems or

VLSI design?.

Do not take up Kiran Bulusu's suggestions.

If you wanna design embedded systems, use design methodologies like

application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIP) and contemporary

techniques for hardware/software co-design and co-verification. The stuff that

Kiran mentioned won't help you get high-end R&D jobs in digital design.

Updated 20 Jan View Upvotes

Pasquale Ferrara, Ph.D. student doing research in Electronic Design

Automation

2.3k Views Pasquale has 50+ answers in VLSI.

13

Upvote Downvote Comment 1 Share

I would recommend beginning with the following :1. Reading basic Digital Design Book like Morris Mano

2. Referring some online course material like MIT Opencourseware

3. Applying these into simple projects by using projects downloaded from

simple websites like vlsi-expert, asic world and testbench (Please google these

websites)

4. Use a open source simulator and synthesizer to implement.

Written 2 May 2014 View Upvotes

Shubham Agarwal, VHDL-coding = NOT (programming)

1.4k Views

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Upvote Downvote Comment Share

Doing projects that's a way... You get better and modern exposure compared to

reading books... For an example, you learn about basic gates, adder's, clocking,

data holding and a few more when you try out a simple project like a wallace

tree multiplier, A four-bit ALU of a microprocessor, etc. Projects shorten your

learning curve.

Updated 20 Jan View Upvotes

Arunkumar Mourougappane, Job Seeker.....Enthusiast.....Interested in

interesting stuff :P

1.2k Views

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