Hardware Description Languages (HDL)

There is one main difference between hardware description languages and typical programming languages such as C, Java or others. In typical programming languages, all processes are modeled in sequential order. The order of instructions (processes) matters. Such sequential order algorithms are easy understandable, because they can be expressed as simple step-by-step process. HDL languages are created to work directly with hardware. They are able to describe connections between different hardware components, concurrent operations, propagation delay and timing. These features cannot be described by traditional programming languages.

HDL has several roles in the design process. It works as formal documentation tool, input to a simulator and input to a synthesizer. There are few fundamental characteristics of a digital circuits that are used in HDLs. Typical HDL is possible to model a real behavior of a real circuit. Four basic concepts can be modeled using HDL. Entity is a basic building block of a real circuit. The concept of connectivity models the connections among the circuit components. These connections are connection wires. Concurrency is responsible for modeling parallel operations. Parallel operations are carried out by interconnected components. The concept of timing process models the starting and ending of each operation. Also, the order of operations can be described.

There are 3 basic HDL languages: VHDL, Verilog and SystemC. The most popular are VHDL and Verilog. These two languages are both industry standards. They have completely different syntax, but their capabilities are the same. In many cases, I will speak about VHDL, because I am learning this language at the moment.

Hello world!

The title of this post sounds so boring. But I think it fits this blog. When learning a completely new programming language, the first program usually prints similar text on screen or LCD display, if a person is working with micro controllers.
Who am I? I am student of technological university in one very small but beautiful country. I study micro and nano electronics and have a bachelor degree in electronics. Sounds quite professional but my level of knowledge is quite low. I have many different interests in completely different fields, an none of them are perfect. I speak English as a second language, so forgive me my pour vocabulary and imperfect grammar. I hope, I will improve my skills while writing this blog.
Why I started this blog. I do not know. I have several other blogs about crafts, books and life challenges. But I write to rarely. I hope, that this one will become a good exception. I am going to write my master thesis on FPGA programming with VHDL. FPGA and VHDL programming language are completely new things to me. I am as green as the grass in this field. So, I will share my finding and experience on this blog. I hope, that you will find this useful.
I would be very glad if you could share your own experience and tips. Also, I am open to your suggestions on topics I should explore and cover in this blog. It would be excellent, if we could learn together.