Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!hoss!hoss.unl.edu!savel
From: savel@hoss.unl.edu (Bharat P. Savel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.vhdl
Subject: Re: VHDL and performance evaluation? (repost)
Message-ID: <1991Jan12.174847.1116@hoss.unl.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 91 17:48:47 GMT
References: <2924@laura.UUCP> <YIH.91Jan11142235@albion.utah.edu>
Sender: news@hoss.unl.edu (Network News Administer)
Organization: Computing Resource Center, University of Nebraska
Lines: 39

In article <YIH.91Jan11142235@albion.utah.edu> yih%albion.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Benny Yih) writes:
>
>	Two books that were suggested to me by someone are:
>The VHDL Handbook by David R Coelho (Vantage Analysis Systems, Inc)
>		     1989 ISBN 0-7923-9031-8, 415 pp, ~$65.
nice book; not for beginers; kind of a resource book; teaches better
programming skills etc; a bible for multi-valued-logic scenarios; talks
about registers ALU(??); 
>
>VHDL: Hardware Description and Design by Roger Lipsett, Carl F Schaeter & Cary
>		Ussery (intermetrics, Inc)
>		1989 ISBN 0-7923-9030-X, 320pp, ~$55.
true; is better than the VHDL tutorial by Intermetrics; the first 4-6
chapters are very in depth; after that the book gets vague; doesn't
discuss 'block' and 'configuration' properely/at all; still explains the
fundmentals of VHDL; maybe the second edition (if one is in works) will be
better;

there is a third book: 'chip level modelling with VHDL' by Armstrong; a
condensed version of Book 2; not as a good book like the #2, but gives a
detailed example of a chip with all components at a system level; this
example serves a better purpose teaching the intricasies of VHDL than the
book itself;

above all, all these books teach VHDL, none really show how to use VHDL in
a layman's language; worse still, simulation of an entity is explained
(kind of) only in #1; it is shown in #2; NONE of the books mention how to
compile a entity ( like vhdl [filename]; THEN mg [filename]; THEN ......)
they assume that the manuals take care of that, the manuals themselves are
not well documented ( i have had atleast 2 other persons admitting that)
even more the VHDL hotline ( 1-800 number) is not manned; 

so unless a good book comes out filling all the deficienciesof these 3
books, i would just recommend #1; it is a resource atleast;
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bharat P. Savel
EE Dept.                                       E-mail : savel@hoss.unl.edu
Univ of Nebraska-Lincoln                           Ph : (402) 477-9857