The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs

Rating:
Summary: So, tell me again what I am supposed to do???
Review: All these nifty block diagrams and acronymes, but I still don't know how to work with an FPGA. I would have liked to see at least one concrete example of how to make an FPGA do something. This book is not for the beginner in FPGA's.

Rating:
Summary: Great general culture book, but lacking technical content.
Review: I gave this book 3 stars, but maybe it should get more, because on one hand this is a great book to read, and you learn a lot of what I call general culture from it. But I missed mostly of what I wanted from it so I got frustrated during the reading.

Let me explain. I'm an electrical engineer with quite some experience, mainly in the analogue/physics/microwave etc... area, but I completely 'missed the FPGA train'. Soon I'll have to plunge into FPGA design, and I thought that this book (together with a VHDL textbook) would get me started. I read through the book from cover to cover (it is an easy and fun read!), and I have the feeling that I can now go and chat with just any experienced FPGA designer, I'll be able to keep up appearances over the coffee, I'm aware of what happens on the market, what were former habits, what's trendy right now etc...
But if that same designer takes me to his office to really discuss technical issues I'll flunk. All the content in the book is on the superficial coffee corner discussion level (which doesn't mean it isn't interesting to know this). Reading the book replaces discussions over coffee during the last five years with FPGA design engineers. But a book that is supposed to be a design guide, should, to me, include concrete, realistic, worked-out case studies: put the blah-blah to work. And that's what's terribly missing in this book: no worked-out examples, exercises, problems, and that's what I thought the book was going to offer me, to get me started. And that's what disappointed me, hence 3 stars.

On the positive side, it is true that - if somehow you manage to learn to really work with FPGAs somewhere else - the general culture provided in this book is formidable. In fact, I think this book is perfect for non-technical managers who have to take high-level decisions and have to learn to talk to their technically minded collaborators. But it is not enough for the technical manager who has to take architectural decisions and it is utterly frustrating for the engineer in the trenches if he doesn't get his working knowledge elsewhere.

Also the fun style of the book, which has almost no prerequisites concerning electronics, is a great plus. So if this book were titled 'Boost up your general culture about FPGAs' I'd have given it easily 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Much More than a Cookbook
Review: I would guess that Clive "Max" Maxfield has been an electronics
enthusiast for a very long time. He seems to enjoy the history
of the industry as much as the current state of the art. His
latest book, "The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs" describes not
only everything you need to know to get started designing state
of the art FPGAs, but also how the art came to be in its current
state.

This book does not cover the constantly changing details of how
to run any particular FPGA design tool. That information comes with the tools. Instead, it talks about all the available tools and design methodologies - which will help you decide which tools to look at.

I must admit that when I first saw the book, I imagined reading
it would be something of a slog through the swamp as so many
technical books are. Upon first opening the book, I was delighted to discover that Maxfield's writing style actually makes reading the book more of a romp in the park. There are portions of the book that I intended to just scan but found myself sucked into reading in full. I found chapters such as the origins of FPGAs and ASICs to be interestingly informative and nostalgic at the same time. Subject headings such as "We were all so much younger then" and "Choosing the best logic simulator in the world" were too irresistible to skim over.

In short, "The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs" will be great
source of knowledge to the FPGA newcommer. It will also provide
new insights and broaden the veteran designer's knowledge of the
field. But most of all, it is a fun and engaging read for anyone
for whom electronics design is more than a 9 to 5 job.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent !
Review: If you are expecting a book heavy on syntax and theory, hard to read,
and full of tricky code, convoluted equations, and esoteric terms,
then you are going to be disappointed. You will probably need to read
books of that type at some time in the future, but they will not give
you the global view that is mandatory to understand where you are,
where you need to go, and how to get there.

By comparison, "The Design Warrior's Guide to FPGAs" is more a matter
of culture, of looking at the "big picture", and of understanding the
"state of the art"...

This book is a "page turner" that is easy to read, even for non-native
readers. (the author - "Max" - even tells us how to pronounce
industry-standard acronyms and how not to be embarrassed by saying words
like "Linux" or "Fifo" the wrong way :-)

But don't be fooled by this "easy" look : this book contains an incredible
amount of clear and accurate information. It will provide you with a LOT of
practical and useful knowledge.
It clearly explains, for example, what today's tools can do and how; such
as what happens when you click on the "enable retiming" option in your
favorite synthesis or P&R tool, or what "clock de-skewing" is all about.
The "Signal Integrity 101" appendix is another proof that complex things
can be explained with (few) simple words.

In just a few hours, this book will give you a culture and establish notions
that would otherwise require many years of actual experience in the field.
It will help you understand the tools you are going to use, the technology
behind the components, and what to expect.

This book is definitely a must-read for "young" engineers (anyone with less
than 5 years of intensive experience in FPGA or Asic design).
Having said this, the topics are so varied that even experienced hands will
also benefit from this book. Our industry is moving so fast that one cannot
pretend to know everything about everything... this book really covers a lot
of ground and I found it interesting from cover to cover.

The included CD-Rom has a computer-readable version of the book, which is
a nice "plus".

Last, but not least, the price is fair.

I love this book and really wish that every engineer to whom I teach HDLs
would read it.

Bert Cuzeau - Asic & FPGA Design Expert