The System Designer's Guide to VHDL-AMS: Analog, Mixed-Signal, and Mixed-Technology Modeling

by Peter J. Ashenden, Gregory D. Peterson, Darrell A. Teegarden

Overview

The demand is exploding for complete, integrated systems that sense, process, manipulate, and control complex entities such as sound, images, text, motion, and environmental conditions. These systems, from hand-held devices to automotive sub-systems to aerospace vehicles, employ electronics to manage and adapt to a world that is, predominantly, neither digital nor electronic. To respond to this design challenge, the industry has developed and standardized VHDL-AMS, a unified design language for modeling digital, analog, mixed-signal, and mixed-technology systems. VHDL-AMS extends VHDL to bring the successful HDL modeling methodology of digital electronic systems design to these new design disciplines.Gregory Peterson and Darrell Teegarden join best-selling author Peter Ashenden in teaching designers how to use VHDL-AMS to model these complex systems. This comprehensive tutorial and reference provides detailed descriptions of both the syntax and semantics of the language and of successful modeling techniques. It assumes no previous knowledge of VHDL, but instead teaches VHDL and VHDL-AMS in an integrated fashion, just as it would be used by designers of these complex, integrated systems.

• Explores the design of an electric-powered, unmanned aerial vehicle system (UAV) in five separate case studies to illustrate mixed-signal, mixed-technology, power systems, communication systems, and full system modeling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780080518367
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	09/10/2002
Series:	ISSN
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	880
File size:	37 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Peter J. Ashenden received his B.Sc.(Hons) and Ph.D. from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He was previously a senior lecturer in computer science and is now a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide. His research interests are computer organization and electronic design automation. Dr. Ashenden is also an independent consultant specializing in electronic design automation (EDA). He is actively involved in IEEE working groups developing VHDL standards, is the author of The Designer's Guide to VHDL and The Student's Guide to VHDL and co-editor of the Morgan Kaufmann series, Systems on Silicon. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the ACM.

Gregory D. Peterson is an assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Tennessee. Previously, he was the chief technical officer at FTL Systems, a VHDL-AMS tool vendor, as well as a captain at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Dr. Peterson was the program manager for the VHDL-AMS language reference manual development contract, a participant in the VHDL-AMS standardization activities, and chair of the Accellera Users' Group targeting VHDL-AMS and related HDL technologies. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the ACM.

Darrell A. Teegarden has over fifteen years of experience in development of HDL-based models and software tools. His work includes contributions using the MAST(r) modeling language as well as development of VHDL-AMS models and simulation tools. He was principal investigator for a DARPA funded VHDL-AMS project (composite CAD program, focused at MEMS design and analysis). He currently manages VHDL-AMS related tool development for board and system analysis at Mentor Graphics Corporation in Wilsonville, Oregon. Darrell is an IEEE member and holds a B.S., Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University and an M.S., Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Table of Contents

1 Fundamental Concepts 2 Scalar Data Types, Natures and Operations 3 Sequential Statements 4 Composite Data Types and Operations 5 Digital Modeling Constructs 6 Analog Modeling Constructs 7 Design Processing 8 Case Study 1: Mixed-Signal Focus 9 Subprograms 10 Packages and Use Clauses 11 Aliases 12 Generic Constants 13 Frequency and Transfer Function Modeling 14 Case Study 2: Mixed-Technology Focus 15 Resolved Signals 16 Components and Configurations 17 Generate Statements 18 Case Study 3: DC-DC Power Converter 19 Guards and Blocks 21 Files and Input/Output 22 Attributes and Groups 23 Case Study 4: Communication System 24 Miscellaneous Topics 25 Integrated System Modeling 26 Case Study 5: RC Airplane System A Using SPICE Models in VHDL-AMS B The Predefined Package Standard C IEEE Standard Packages D Related Standards E VHDL-AMS Syntax F Answers to Exercises G CD-ROM Guide References Index

What People are Saying About This

Peter Wilson

This book is a thorough and detailed introduction to the standard language for mixed-signal design, VHDL-AMS. The tutorial nature of the book, with its step-by-step case studies, makes it an invaluable tool for both students and practicing engineers who need to make effective use of VHDL-AMS in their daily work.

Brett O. Drager

Practicing engineers who need to understand the language but don't want the pain of deciphering the language reference manual will find this book very useful and appealing. The book provides a set of strong exercises with which a professor may teach and test undergraduate students. My belief is that any credible school who is preparing their students to work in the world today will offer such courses.

H Alan Mantooth

I have used an early version of this book in a new course on modeling and simulation. I have found it to be an excellent reference for the students, and the case studies are extremely helpful in illustrating system level concepts.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
The power of programming languages! Or, specifically in this case: the power of the Very High-Speed Integrated Circuits (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language-Analog and Mixed-signal (VHDL-AMS) language, developed in the early '90s in response to the need for a hardware description language supporting analog and mixed-signal modeling. This language was further developed under the auspices of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and adopted in the form of the IEEE Standard 1076 -- Standard VHDL Language Reference Manual -- in 1987. But, to use a language such as VHDL-AMS, you have to know how to interpret it and you have to understand its idiosyncrasies. That's the purpose of this book by Peter J. Ashenden, Gregory D. Peterson, and Darrell A. Teegarden: to give the reader the comprehension and skills required to make the best use of this language in designing hardware and software systems.

The authors begin by introducing the idea of a hardware description language and outline the reasons for its use and the benefits that ensue. Chapter 2 explains the basic type system of the language and introduces the scalar data types. Chapter 3 describes the sequential control structures, and Chapter 4 covers composite data structures used to represent collections of data elements. Chapters 5 to 8 explain how the main facilities of VHDL-AMS are used for modeling digital hardware. The next group of chapters (9 to 14) extends the basic set of facilities with language features that make modeling of large systems more tractable, and the third group (15 to 18) covers advanced modeling features in VHDL-AMS. Then, Chapters 19 to 23 discuss language facilities generally used for system-level modeling. Drawing on the tour of VHDL-AMS, the authors conclude with Chapters 24 to 26, which cover the remaining language facilities and addressing system design issues. In addition, the exercises and case studies throughout the book provide complete coverage of the language for classroom use.

Nevertheless, the future still holds out hope that this technology will evolve to allow for fully complete, integrated systems consisting of analog, mixed-signal, and mixed-technology modeling. But for now, it's just a "mixed bag" of incompatible technologies. Hopefully, this book will help enhance your skills to allow you to use what's available in that "bag." John Vacca

John Vacca, the former computer security official (CSO) for NASA's space station program (Freedom), has written 38 books about advanced storage, computer security, and aerospace technology.

"I have used an early version of this book in a new course on modeling and simulation. I have found it to be an excellent reference for the students, and the case studies are extremely helpful in illustrating system level concepts." —Alan Mantooth, The University of Arkansas "Practicing engineers who need to understand the language but don't want the pain of deciphering the language reference manual will find this book very useful and appealing. The book provides a set of strong exercises with which a professor may teach and test undergraduate students. My belief is that any credible school who is preparing their students to work in the world today will offer such courses." —Steve Drager "This book is a thorough and detailed introduction to the standard language for mixed-signal design, VHDL-AMS. The tutorial nature of the book, with its step-by-step case studies, makes it an invaluable tool for both students and practicing engineers who need to make effective use of VHDL-AMS in their daily work." —Peter Wilson, University of Southampton, UK

From the Publisher