FPGA Design Using VHDL

Course Description

CET 2118C FPGA Design Using VHDL is an introduction to designing digital logic for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) using VHDL, the VHSIC Hardware Description Language. Instead of wiring logic chips together, the student describes a circuit in code. The tools synthesise that description and configure an FPGA to behave as the circuit. The statewide description lists the topics: "combinational logic circuit design, graphical method for designing logic circuits, flip-flop designs, memory devices design, frequency division, encoders/decoders design, and counter design."

⚠ One institution in Florida teaches it: Valencia College, at 3 credits, with 2 lecture and 2 lab hours a week (about 60 contact hours over a term) and a $98 special fee. It sits in Valencia's electronics engineering technology program.

Why this course matters

FPGAs are used wherever logic must be fast, reconfigurable or produced in small volumes: defence electronics, aerospace, communications, test equipment, and the prototyping of custom chips. These are exactly the industries of Central Florida and the Space Coast. Hardware description languages are how modern digital hardware is designed, and this is a rare chance to learn one at a two-year college.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Explain what an FPGA is and how it differs from a microprocessor and from fixed-function logic.
• Write VHDL for combinational circuits using entities, architectures, signals and processes.
• Design logic circuits graphically (schematic capture) and in VHDL, and compare the two methods.
• Design flip-flops, registers and counters, and sequential circuits clocked from a system clock.
• Design encoders, decoders and multiplexers.
• Implement frequency division to derive slower clocks from a fast one.
• Design and use memory devices in an FPGA.
• Simulate, synthesise and download a design to an FPGA board, then verify it on hardware.

Optional Outcomes

• Design a finite-state machine.
• Write a testbench for simulation.
• Read Verilog, the other major hardware description language.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• FPGA architecture and the design flow
• VHDL language structure
• Combinational logic design
• Graphical (schematic) design methods
• Flip-flops and sequential design
• Memory devices
• Frequency division
• Encoders and decoders
• Counters
• Simulation, synthesis and hardware verification

Optional Topics

• Finite-state machines
• Testbenches
• Display and peripheral interfacing on the development board

Resources & Tools

• A vendor toolchain: AMD/Xilinx Vivado or Intel (Altera) Quartus Prime. Both have free editions that students can install at home.
• An FPGA development board (Basys, DE10-Lite or similar); the special fee covers lab use.
• A VHDL text such as Pedroni, Circuit Design with VHDL, or Chu, FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples.
• A simulator: the vendor's own, GHDL (free), or ModelSim/Questa.

Career Pathways

• Electrical and electronic engineering technologists and technicians (SOC 17-3023), especially in test, prototyping and defence electronics. See this site's Electronics Engineering Technician career path.
• A foundation for computer hardware engineering (SOC 17-2061) and electrical engineering (SOC 17-2071) for students who continue to a bachelor's degree, where FPGA and digital design courses reappear in more depth.
• Florida employers that design with FPGAs include the defence and aerospace contractors on the Space Coast and in Orlando's simulation industry.

Special Information

Offering Notes

The only carrier is Valencia. The guide records 60 contact hours, from Valencia's 4 weekly hours over a 15-week term.

Prerequisites

Valencia requires CET 2114C or CET 2113C, a digital-logic course. The statewide record lists CET 2113C "or department approval". ⚠ Do not attempt this course without digital logic: VHDL is a way of describing logic, and the course assumes you already understand the logic.

Transfer

No other Florida institution teaches this number. A university will normally treat it as elective credit. Universities teach FPGA design inside upper-division digital-systems courses (for example EEL 4712C Digital Design at UF), and this course is good preparation for them.