Books for Learning FPGA Design


From Jeri – Here are a few books that would be a starting point for someone interested in FPGA / CPLD / ASIC design… post your faves in the comments!


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



8 Comments

  1. Where are the book titles?

  2. “Digital Design and Computer Architecture” (http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Design-Computer-Architecture-Harris/dp/0123704979 ) has been helpful to me. It starts at the very basics, and uses Verilog and VHDL side by side. It’s also a computer architecture book, so you have to be into that.

  3. @john – watch the video, she says them 🙂

  4. Can we add these to a thread in the forums?

  5. @mark – please do.

  6. Just get the digilent board for 50$ and start coding.

  7. I’ve been working through “FPGA Prototyping By Verilog Examples”, because I’ve been wanting to learn Verilog, but wanted more of a practical book than one focused on just the language. The book bases its instruction around the digilent demo boards. There is an equivalent book with VHDL, rather than Verilog if that’s what you’re looking for (FPGA Prototyping By VHDL Examples).

    I’ve been enjoying the fact that the author has done a good job of explaining things, and that the Digilent boards can be had for ~$100. The book starts at the very basics of what an FPGA is and how it works, discuses how to interface various peripherals (UART, PS2 Keyboard, PS2 Mouse, SRAM, VGA, etc), and goes through the process of developing an FPGA-based microcontroller core. Overall, I’m having a lot of fun with this book. I already had one of the Xilinx Spartan-3 boards, and recently got a Spartan-3E board really cheap on ebay.

  8. oh, I see. I had flash disabled (it tends to suck cpu for no apparent reason on my system) and there was no indication that anything was missing. Thanks.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.