Rating: 
Summary: A excellent desk reference
Review: Ashenden covers many of the finer points of the VHDL language including differences between '87 and '93 implementations. I have used suggestions from his book with Cadence, Synopsys, Altera, Xilinx, and Model Tech tools for several years without any problems(all source code for the book is available at his web site). In addition, this is one of the few books to handle text and file I/O adequately, a real necessity for test bench design. Along with Kevin Skahill's and Douglas Smith's(dual Verilog/VHDL coverage, real handy) books it's definitely in the top 3.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing comes close to this book.
Review: Before Ashenden there was Douglas Perry. Perry's book on VHDL (Second Edition) was pretty well written and handled HDL for synthesis quite well. After Perry, I was introduced to Ashenden's "The Designer's Guide to VHDL". This is by far the must have VHDL reference manual. Ask yourself, what is important in a good reference manual...the answer is well organized concepts, good examples and a thorough index! This book has it all. I have other VHDL books that just get dusty on my shelf, not this one! If I'm not using it, someone else usually wants to borrow it. If your looking for a great VHDL book...pick this one up or borrow it.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing comes close to this book.
Review: Before Ashenden there was Douglas Perry. Perry's book on VHDL (Second Edition) was pretty well written and handled HDL for synthesis quite well. After Perry, I was introduced to Ashenden's "The Designer's Guide to VHDL". This is by far the must have VHDL reference manual. Ask yourself, what is important in a good reference manual...the answer is well organized concepts, good examples and a thorough index! This book has it all. I have other VHDL books that just get dusty on my shelf, not this one! If I'm not using it, someone else usually wants to borrow it. If your looking for a great VHDL book...pick this one up or borrow it.
Rating: 
Summary: Cadence VHDL compiler + This book = Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Review: For those who use the Cadence Leapfrog CAD tool, DON'T buy this book! There are major incompatibilities with this book and Leapfrog of Cadence 4.4. Moral of the story: Cadence is considered an industry standard CAD tool for IC and digital designers, and you can figure out the rest.
Rating:
Summary: The only VHDL book you need.
Review: I have a couple of other VHDL books but I can't find them, for some reason I have two of copies of 'The Designer's Guide to VHDL'. When reading this book it is apparent that Ashenden thoroughly understands VHDL - excellent examples and I really like the VHDL-93 viewpoint with the VHDL-87 differences sprinkled throughout. If you really want to learn to design first-class test benches, you need this book. It has text IO coverage and in depth information on components, configurations and packages.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a very good book but......
Review: I have borrowed this book many times from the library but never was able to read it thouroughly. This is a very complete book and you can have it for a complete reference. However, this book is too much for somebody (like me) needing VHDL for IC design instead of a complete VHDL language reference (remember logic synthesis only use a subset of what VHDL is offering). Also this book seems to be too much for a beginner.In short, this is an excellent for VHDL languange reference, but if you are a beginner and/or need VHDL for logic synthesis without a complete VHDL language reference, you may not need this book.
Rating:
Summary: The review of "The Designer's Guide to VHDL"
Review: I have read a few books on VHDL and find this one exceptional. The author has addressed topics such as Functions, Procedures, Aliases, Access Types and Abstract Data Types which are usually either absent in most of the books or not explained adequately. The book is written in simple English and is, therefore, very easy to understand. I do, however, feel that there is one topic left out which must be included in order to make this a standard book on VHDL. The book must tell the reader what the synthesis tool will produce with various bits of VHDL. This explanation may or may not be limited to a specific tool.
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful
Review: I like the way everything is organized in this book and verywell explained by giving lots of examples.
Rating:
Summary: The feel good example book
Review: I like this book and Bhasker's VHDL Primer 3rd Ed. TDG2VHDL is written well and has many examples. If you learn best with examples this book will ease you into the world of VHDL. I teach VHDL for EsperanDOTcom and always recommend this book to the delegates in my class. As for testbenches, it is a little weak and this accounts for my 4 and not 5 star rating. I highly recommend Janick Bergeron's Writing Testbenches for this subject.
Rating:
Summary: The feel good example book
Review: I like this book and Bhasker's VHDL Primer 3rd Ed. TDG2VHDL is written well and has many examples. If you learn best with examples this book will ease you into the world of VHDL. I teach VHDL for EsperanDOTcom and always recommend this book to the delegates in my class. As for testbenches, it is a little weak and this accounts for my 4 and not 5 star rating. I highly recommend Janick Bergeron's Writing Testbenches for this subject.
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