Outline

This book provides a reference library of fundamental digital logic design elements, along with standards for Verilog coding and system design. Think of it as a hardware analog to the C Standard Library ("libc") and its documentation.

The design elements are grouped into categories (e.g.: Boolean Logic, Synchronous Logic, Integer Arithmetic, etc...). Each category entry implements and explains a specific design element, starting with the most basic ones (including ones meant solely for beginner's education rather than serious use), and gradually increase in complexity up to complete interfaces and special-purpose engines built using a common design form which heavily re-use other design elements.

IMPORTANT: The module definitions are, by design, not usable as-is. Unless the design requires some minimum or constant value, all module parameters have a default value of 0 or an empty string. This is intentional, so when a user forgets to set a parameter when instantiating a module, synthesis will (almost always) fail, and linting also. Putting usable default values in the module definitions might not get noticed and cause bugs. This means the modules are not synthesizable as defined, but must be instantiated separately to set the parameters, which is what one normally does anyway.

Each entry web page is generated directly from the design element Verilog source, and you can find a link to the source at the top of each page. Comments form the text body, while the code is placed in bordered preformatted text blocks.

To obtain your own local copy of the book:

git clone
https://github.com/laforest/FPGADesignElements.git

then access ./index.html from your favourite browser. All Verilog sources and other files are in one directory, so you can use it as a library in your CAD tools by simply importing all Verilog files. See the license and disclaimer for the legal details, but overall, you are free to use this book as you please.

Although the design elements in this book are written in Verilog-2001 (for portability, better software support, and fine control of the synthesis), I expect there is very little code which could not be trivially translated into your Hardware Description Language of choice. I also expect the design elements themselves to be universal and language-agnostic.