ABSTRACT
In electronics design world, the hardware description languages (HDLs) are specialized languages that describe the hardware of digital, analog, and mixed-signal systems in a syntactical and semantical form setting the basis for the structural and behavioral aspects of electronic circuits. Using HDLs leads in much faster debug cycle, as the alterations require only code changes instead of schematic rewiring. However, it takes longer time if designers lack decent knowledge of code-inferring hardware relationship while using HDLs. This chapter focuses on the basic understanding of digital design in perspective of HDLs and its structure, which will enlighten the orientation of its usage with the various scopes of HDL. Next queued up some advanced topics such as high-level synthesis, HDL tool suites, and HDL-based design flows. Depending upon the basic ideology of HDLs, the applications and various types of HDLs for analog circuits, digital logics, and printed circuit boards are elaborated. Furthermore, brief introduction to the fundamentals of widely used HDLs in modern designs such as VHDL, Verilog, System Verilog, and Verilog-AMS is included. Under this section, the basic lexical conventions, semantics, and syntax along with the programming structure with test benches for each language are explained in a much easier way with examples for quick understanding.
