VHDL Programming Code Structure

VHDL stands for Very High speed integrated circuits Hardware Description Language. It was funded by the US Department of Defense in the 70’s and 80’s. It was established as IEEE standard IEEE 1076 in 1987. It was later updated on 1993, 2002 and 2008. Today VHDL is widely used across the industry for design description, simulation and synthesis purpose.

Here General Structure of VHDL Program is given below

·         Library Declaration

·         Package Declaration

·         User Defined Library Declaration*

·         User Defined Package Declaration*

·         Entity Declaration

o   Generic Declaration

o   Port Declaration

·         Architecture Declaration

·         Configuration Declaration

Setup Time and Hold Time

These two parameters are associated with Flip-Flop. Setup Time and Hold Time are two most important factors in Synchronous Design in VLSI Domain. If either of them is violated then Flip-Flop will not give proper output. 

Setup Time: - It’s a time interval before the Clock signal is triggered, where Data signal should be stable. So, that Data is easily sampled by the Flip-Flop.

Difference between Flip-Flop and Latch

Flip-Flop	Latch
Flip-Flop is Edge sensitive device.	Latch is Level sensitive device.
In Flip-Flop, output will change on rising or falling edge of clock signal.	In Latch, if Enable/Clock signal is high then output will change accordingly input.
So, we can say that Flip-Flop is a Synchronous version of Latch.	So, we can say that Latch is Asynchronous device.
Flip-Flop based design creates less timing problems.	Latch based design creates more timing problems.
In design Flip-Flop takes more area compared to Latch.	In design Latch takes less area compared to Flip-Flop.
In design Flip-Flop consumes more power compare to Latch.	In design Latch consumes less power compare to Flip-Flop.

Shift Operators in VHDL

Shift operators are playing very important role in VHDL language. It is very usefull to shift or rotate digits of binary numbers.

There are total six shifting operators in VHDL language.

•  sll

• It means Logical Shift Left.

• It shifts the elements in the array by n places to left and fill vacanted positions with "0".

• Ex

• "1000_1010" sll 3 will give "0101_0000".

• "1000_1010" sll -2 will give "0010_0010".

Implement XOR Gate using 2x1 Multiplexer

We have two inputs A, B. Connect one of Multiplexer's input to input 'B'. Connect input 'B' to input of NOT gate and output of this NOT gate connect to second input of Multiplexer. Then connect input 'A' to selection line of Multiplexer. So, this Multiplexer will XORing operation of input A, B.