VLSI/FPGA Design P2-S4: Verilog for Design and Verification

Master Digital IC & FPGA Design: Verilog & Hardware Fundamentals

This comprehensive course provides a fast-track to mastering digital IC and FPGA design. In under 10 hours of video content, you'll gain the ability to seamlessly translate between circuit schematics, Verilog code, and waveforms. Understand the relationship between these three representations and confidently deduce one from the others.

This chapter (part of a larger, free series) covers essential topics including:

• Digital IP/IC Design Flow: Learn the complete process from concept to implementation.
• Digital Fundamentals Review: Reinforce your understanding of core digital logic principles.
• Verilator & GTKwave Setup: Get your development environment ready.
• Verilog Syntax: Master common Verilog syntax for efficient design and verification.
• Combinational Logic Design: Design fundamental building blocks like basic gates, MUXes, decoders, and one-hot decoders.
• Sequential Logic Design: Implement synchronous and asynchronous D flip-flops (DFFs).
• Useful Digital Blocks: Design practical components such as counters, edge detectors, shift registers, sequence checkers, and sync FIFOs.
• Finite State Machine (FSM) Design: Learn to create and implement finite state machines for complex control logic.
• Testbench Creation: Develop effective testbenches for thorough verification.
• Synthesis Best Practices: Avoid common synthesis mistakes like incomplete sensitive lists, latches, multi-driven nets, and combination logic loops.
• Hands-on Practice: Apply your knowledge with practical exercises, including designing and verifying a Z-scan and a complex sequence check (FSM).

This is Chapter 2, Section 4 of a complete Digital IC and FPGA design course. The course covers the fundamentals of digital IC and FPGA design, featuring over 12 coding exercises and 3 comprehensive projects.

Course Content Breakdown:

• Theory: From MOS transistors to logic cells, arithmetic data paths, Verilog language, and common hardware function blocks. Covers STA (Static Timing Analysis), on-chip buses (APB/AHB-Lite/AXI4), low-power design, DFT (Design for Testability), and SOC (System on a Chip) concepts (MCU level).
• Function Blocks & Architecture: Explore FSMs, pipelining, arbiters, CDC (Clock Domain Crossing), sync FIFOs, async FIFOs, ping-pong buffers, pipeline with control, slide window, pipeline hazards, and forward paths, systolic arrays.
• Projects: Gain practical experience with projects like implementing the SHA-256 algorithm with a simple interface, SHA-256 with APB/AXI interface, and a 2D DMA controller with APB/AXI interface.

Each hardware architecture explanation is followed by a coding exercise with reference code, progressing in difficulty from a few lines to over 200 lines, culminating in a final project exceeding 1000 lines.

This course equips you with the essential knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the field. We'll explain what, how, and why, encouraging you to excel.

Browse my Udemy homepage for detailed information on each chapter.