Recommendations for FPGA books

[jgalak]

How about a book with a project?  You can build an ARM core (subset) using the code provided in "Digital Design and Computer Architecture - ARM Edition" by Harris and Harris.

I just finished reading this - teaches you two things at once - low level architecture design, and basics of ARM programming.  Working my way through the labs now, quite fun.  The labs are written for an Altera DE2 board.  The current version, DE2-15, is like $6-700, but you can get the older DE2s on Ebay for around $100.  I got one that was in great shape, even had all the CDs and accessories (neither are actually necessary).

It uses an older Cyclone II chip, so you'll need to download an older version of the Altera tool chain, but it works fine on Win10.

Another nice thing about this book is that it covers both SystemVerilog and VHDL, so you can choose either (or both) to learn.

[james_s]

The DE2 is a nice board, it has a spacious FPGA and comes well equipped with peripherals. I do find it annoying that there are multiple versions all called DE2 so watch for the suffix.

[Mattjd]

So these aren't books per say but I've found these to be incredibly useful in my journey through FPGA


Advanced Synthesis Cook Book

https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_US/pdfs/literature/manual/stx_cookbook.pdf

Recommended Coding Styles in Quartus

https://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/courses/ece5760/DE1_SOC/HDL_style_qts_qii51007.pdf

Quartus Design and Synthesis

https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_US/pdfs/literature/hb/qts/qts_qii5v1.pdf


Altera IP Core and Megafunction literature for your board/chip

https://www.altera.com/support/literature/lit-ip.html

The last one is super useful because why not use already designed solutions (unless you're in it for learning)

I once had to build a 64 bit processor on a FPGA for a course. I didn't know about these prior or during but soon found out after, wish I knew from the start!

[rhb]

Thank you.  I'll check those out.  I only write code when I run out of excuses for not doing it.  And as I plan to implement compressive sensing I'm sure I'll get a workout no matter what.

I bought both of Blaine Readler's " VHDL/Verilog By Example" books.  I clearly prefer Verilog.  They are great for evaluating your language preference as they show the same tasks in both languages.

At this point I'm still looking for a chip design and fabrication process level book on FPGAs if such a thing exists. The Xilinx documentation looks to be pretty thorough.  The ability to prototype on a CPU and move the compute intensive parts to the FPGA is hugely appealing.

 I got a second hand Avnet MicroZed for my initial foray before I move over to the Zybo Z7-20.  The Digilent board is nice, but they have a bit of an attitude problem about their out of box demo.  Avnet keeps their demos up to date with Xilinx.

At the moment my biggest problem seems to be not having things such as  the right height and screw size board spacers and having to order more stuff. My other project is a precision XY stage using linear rail and ballscrews.  That's a good bit more work than just mounting some dev boards in a box.

[james_s]

I wish I could say I preferred Verilog, as it's certainly far more useful in the professional world, at least in the USA. For some reason the languages I gravitate toward are amongst the least useful in the real world.