Digital Integrated Circuit Design Using Verilog and Systemverilog
For those with a basic understanding of digital design, this book teaches the essential skills to design digital integrated circuits using Verilog and the relevant extensions of SystemVerilog. In addition to covering the syntax of Verilog and SystemVerilog, the author provides an appreciation of design challenges and solutions for producing working circuits. The book covers not only the syntax and limitations of HDL coding, but deals extensively with design problems such as partitioning and synchronization, helping you to produce designs that are not only logically correct, but will actually work when turned into physical circuits. Throughout the book, many small examples are used to validate concepts and demonstrate how to apply design skills.
This book takes readers who have already learned the fundamentals of digital design to the point where they can produce working circuits using modern design methodologies. It clearly explains what is useful for circuit design and what parts of the languages are only software, providing a non-theoretical, practical guide to robust, reliable and optimized hardware design and development.
- Produce working hardware:
Why Read This Book
You should read this book if you want a hands-on, synthesis-aware treatment of Verilog and the useful SystemVerilog extensions so you can produce RTL that not only functions logically but can be implemented in silicon or on an FPGA. It emphasizes practical design decisions — partitioning, synchronization, and common pitfalls — using many small examples that you can apply directly to real designs.
Who Will Benefit
Engineers with basic digital-design and HDL experience (students, FPGA/ASIC engineers) who need to write synthesizable Verilog/SystemVerilog and understand implementation issues.
Level: Intermediate — Prerequisites: Basic digital logic and finite-state machines, and introductory familiarity with Verilog or another HDL.
Key Takeaways
- Write synthesizable Verilog and SystemVerilog that maps cleanly to gates and RTL.
- Apply partitioning strategies to break designs into implementable blocks and understand the trade-offs.
- Design and verify robust clock-domain crossings and synchronization between asynchronous domains.
- Identify and avoid common HDL coding pitfalls that cause synthesis or timing failures.
- Construct effective testbenches and use SystemVerilog features to simplify verification.
- Incorporate basic DFT and implementation-aware constraints to ease downstream synthesis/place-and-route.
Topics Covered
- 1. Introduction and design flow overview
- 2. Review of digital logic and RTL design principles
- 3. Verilog syntax and modeling styles for synthesis
- 4. SystemVerilog enhancements relevant to design
- 5. Combinational and sequential design patterns
- 6. Finite-state machine design and encoding
- 7. Clocking, timing, and timing constraints
- 8. Clock domain crossing and synchronization techniques
- 9. Partitioning, hierarchy, and module interfacing
- 10. Design-for-testability and scan basics
- 11. Testbenches, assertions, and verification approaches
- 12. Practical examples and small case studies
- 13. Implementation considerations and synthesis gotchas
- Appendices: coding style guidelines and reference summaries
Languages, Platforms & Tools
How It Compares
Covers similar ground to Samir Palnitkar's Verilog texts but offers more emphasis on SystemVerilog extensions and implementation challenges; compared to "SystemVerilog for Design" it is more applied toward producing synthesizable RTL and addressing partitioning/synchronization issues.
