FPGAs: Instant Access

FPGAs are central to electronic design! The engineers designing these devices are in need of essential information at a moment's notice. The Instant Access Series provides all the critical content that a computer design engineer needs in his or her daily work.

This book provides an introduction to FPGAs as well as succinct overviews of fundamental concepts and basic programming. FPGAs are a customizable chip flexible enough to be deployed in a wide range of products and applications. There are several basic design flows detailed including ones based in C/C++, DSP, and HDL. This book is filled with images, figures, tables, and easy to find tips and tricks for the engineer that needs material fast to complete projects to deadline.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 The Fundamentals
CHAPTER 2 FPGA Architectures
CHAPTER 3 Programming (Configuring) an FPGA
CHAPTER 4 FPGA vs. ASIC Designs
CHAPTER 5 `Traditional` Design Flows
CHAPTER 6 Other Design Flows
CHAPTER 7 Using Design Tools
CHAPTER 8 Choosing the Right Device

*Tips and tricks feature that will help engineers get info fast and move on to the next issue
*Easily searchable content complete with tabs, chapter table of contents, bulleted lists, and boxed features
*Just the essentials, no need to page through material not needed for the current project


User review
Introduction and history in one little book.
FPGAs Instant Access provides a basic understanding of what FPGAs are, where they came from, and how to program and use them. It's also written in a straight-forward manner that is very understandable. You'll still need more details on a particular chip in order to fully create a working design, but this will get you off on the right foot if you have no experience. It's also a great book for someone who just wants to understand the technology but not necessarily do any actual design and programming. A great value for the price!

User review
A great overview!
This book was very relevant to my current situation as it has been ten years since I last did an FPGA design and I once again need to look at possibly incorporating an FPGA to enhance the performance of our product range. The issues I am weighing up are: do we use a higher performance DSP, or use a dual-core DSP, or keep the existing DSP but farm out some of the computationally intensive processes to an FPGA, or replace the DSP with an FPGA which contains an embedded processor or two?

To this end, I found the book a good overview of the existing state of the FPGA field. Due to the tremendous increase in FPGA size and complexity, it is no longer feasible to use schematic capture and waveform verification as a design philosophy. Incorporating HDL's helped as the designs got bigger (10K to 50K gates!) but now that embedded processors can be incorporated, the simulation environment becomes a lot more complex. Higher level languages and philosophies, like System-C, are needed. The book introduces these concepts but one would need to read further to gain a deeper understanding before choosing a specific direction.

I also enjoyed the historical perspective that is interwoven through the book as it helped me identify where the field was ten years ago, and what has happened since then. This made it easier for me to relate to the new philosophies. I did not learn any practical skills from the book but it did help cement my understanding of the FPGA field in broad terms.

If you are a new graduate who has to deliver your first FPGA design, I don't think this book would help you to get the job done. It would help you choose the most appropriate technology for your project, but then this is not usually a decision left to the new entrant. If you are already doing FPGA designs, you are most probably familiar with most of the content of this book. However, the historical perspectives and the summary of the differences between FPGA and ASIC design may be of interest to you.

To summarize, the book is a worthwhile read as a broad knowledge is always desirable, especially for management. The style is easy going and pleasant, and the layout is appealing. However, I think the title `FPGAS: An Overview` may be more applicable.


User review
A great place to start!
I've had very little success with `streamlined` or `Compact` guides and books in the past. They typically just expand on what you probably already know and don't get into the details that you got a book for in the first place.

This is certainly NOT the case for any of the Instant Access series. So if your pondering exploring the world of FPGAs or thinking, `Hey, I'd sure like to learn more about FPGAs!` This is a great place to start. If your up for more even more detail I'd even upgrade to Clive Maxfields The Design Warriors Guide to FPGAs. The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs: Devices, Tools and Flows (Edn Series for Design Engineers)

This book will help clear the haze that is FPGA design, vendors and their lingo. It gives invaluable insight to what FPGAs are and aren't. Most importantly it will help you to actually start DOING. I believe with just this guide alone one could better define how they can use FPGAs and get the right tools and hardware to do so. Using FPGA tools is a challenge to those unfamiliar. Fortunately, for us we have Clive to help us out!

Personally, I think that Design Warriors Guide to FPGAs paired with some VHDL books is a better value, more bang for the buck from a Engineers perspective. Managers and those just curious about FPGAs can certainly stick with this series.

I hope to see more of the Instant Access series as it help me decide what technologies I'd like to further learn about and how that technology can help me stay ahead of the design trends curve.


User review
Great to come up to speed
If you are a long time designer of FPGAs and are intimately familiar with them then you already know the contents of this book but it can still be of value to you. Keep it on your shelf and when someone comes to ask you what you would rate as a basic question from one clearly ignorant of the subject matter give them this book. Tell them to read it and if they still have a question when they are done, only then you will impart your wisdom upon them.

FPGAs Instant Access covers all aspects of FPGAs, their history, use and design flow but not in sufficient deal to help a designer. It is intended for those outside of our comfortable little world, to get them to understand what we do, our trials and tribulations, the things we need to think about and the tools we use. When they read this all encompassing Reader's Digest of FPGAs they will be able to converse with us without glossed over eyes caused by complete lack of comprehension. They will even learn the meaning of the many words we take for granted but are the passwords to our world.

This book is perfect for a software person that wants to learn what the hardware person is talking about when they are trying to interface to that black box monster with the four letter name. For the manager that is not intimate with FPGAs but must supervise or interface with those that design them it can be the bible they read at night to understand the meaning of hardware. It will help them take into account things that will help them with time and financial budgeting since they will now at least grasp all that should be of concern to them. I would even dare say it's appropriate for an analog engineer that wants to know what those FPGA designers are talking about. As an introduction to FPGAs for those in college it would also be a nice quick read that will expose you to more facets than colleges concern themselves with.

In summary, this book is a great overall introduction to all elements of FPGA design for a reader to come up to speed in the subject matter quickly while not boring them with the finer details of a design methodology book.


User review
FPGA book, condensed version
Clive Maxfield (Max) has created a book that is quite full of information about FPGA technology and development.

For an engineer, this is a condensed guide of what the boss needs to know about what you are doing. You may be hard pressed to find what you need in this condensed version of what is likely to be found in two or three books and in manufacturers data sheets, application notes, and by experience doing FPGA design. There is no chapter on FPGA language tutorials, so if you are looking for VHDL, Verilog, or other language tutorials, they are not here. You must get the full size tomes on the languages, and muddle through.

Managers, on the other hand, will gain an understanding very rapidly of what their engineering charges are up to. They also will be up to an understanding of why they are approving the multi 10's of thousands of dollars for FPGA development tools.

`Dear old dad` would be proud to have this volume, especially if he were a manager. If `dad` is an engineer, your needs will not be found here.