Introduction & Overview of Verilog HDL
Verilog HDL (Hardware Description Language) is a language used to design and describe digital systems. It is widely used in the electronics and semiconductor industry to create and verify hardware like processors, memory, and other digital circuits. If you have ever wondered how engineers design the tiny chips inside your computer, smartphone, or other devices, Verilog is one of the tools they use.
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Purpose:
Verilog is a language that lets engineers describe how a circuit behaves and how its components interact. Instead of drawing circuits on paper, they write code that represents the circuit.
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Applications:
Verilog is used to design simple circuits like adders to complex systems like microprocessors.
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Hardware Focused:
Unlike regular programming languages (like Python or Java), Verilog is specifically made for hardware design and simulation.
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Industry Standard:
Verilog is one of the most popular languages for hardware design.
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Simulation and Testing:
It helps in testing how a circuit will behave before building it.
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Versatile:
Verilog can model systems at different levels, from small blocks to entire chips.
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Career Growth:
Knowledge of Verilog opens doors to jobs in electronics, VLSI, and embedded systems industries.
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Writing the Design:
Engineers write Verilog code to describe the circuit.
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Simulation:
The code is run on a simulator to check how the circuit behaves.
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Synthesis:
The verified code is then used to create a physical design for chips.
Verilog HDL is a powerful tool to design and test digital circuits. It bridges the gap between an engineer's ideas and the physical circuits found in electronic devices. Learning Verilog is the first step for anyone interested in working in hardware design and understanding how the digital world operates at its core.
Simulators/Tools used in VLSI Industry
As we know, these commercial simulators are very expensive to buy as an individual. Therefore, only way to use them is through EDA Playground. It is a platform where all these EDA tools are available to use for free.
EDA Playground - Guide
EDA Playground is a web-based platform that allows you to experiment with various hardware description languages (HDLs) like Verilog and VHDL, particularly for learning and testing designs.
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Once registered, go to Login page and enter the credentials.
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Once logged In, You will get the playground ready to use as shown below.
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Here Right side of of playground is for Design code and Left side is for Testbench code as show below.
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Write your design code under design.v and write your code for testbench under testbench.v
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In order to run your code, go to slide bar under name “Tools and Simulators”.
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Select your desired simulator tool and press “run” (at the top), you will get output in window present under “log” tab.
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In case you want to check out for Waveform generated from your design, then tick “open EPWave after run”option.
