---
title: VLSI & FPGA
description: This field covers the design and fabrication of integrated circuits and programmable hardware. Learners will understand hardware description languages like VHDL or Verilog, physical layout design, and how to implement digital systems on FPGA chips.
category: engineering
subcategory: electrical-and-computer-engineering
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/vlsi-and-fpga
---

# VLSI & FPGA

This field covers the design and fabrication of integrated circuits and programmable hardware. Learners will understand hardware description languages like VHDL or Verilog, physical layout design, and how to implement digital systems on FPGA chips.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 2 Courses • 5 Websites

## Websites

### 1. FPGA4Fun

A long-running collection of hands-on FPGA projects with full source: VGA output, Pong, PWM audio, and interfaces for RS-232, I2C, SPI, SD card, and HDMI. Includes Verilog and VHDL primers alongside each build.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.fpga4fun.com/

**Tags:** fpga, verilog, vhdl, hardware-projects, digital-design

### 2. Nandland

Russell Merrick's FPGA tutorial site, pairing written lessons with videos across FPGA-101 fundamentals, VHDL, and Verilog. Examples target the low-cost Go Board, so beginners can run each design on real hardware rather than simulation alone.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://nandland.com/

**Tags:** fpga, vhdl, verilog, digital-design, hardware-projects

### 3. opencores.org

OpenCores.org is a community-driven repository of open-source hardware IP cores for FPGA and ASIC design. It hosts Verilog/VHDL cores—such as CPUs, memory controllers, and peripherals—along with documentation and licensing details.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://opencores.org

**Tags:** websites, engineering-manufacturing, electrical-engineering

### 4. zipcpu.com

ZipCPU.com is a resource hub for open-source CPU cores and FPGA design, providing Verilog/VHDL source code, design notes, and tutorials. It covers building, simulating, and integrating CPU cores and peripherals in FPGA projects.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://zipcpu.com

**Tags:** websites, engineering-manufacturing, electrical-engineering

### 5. yosyshq.net

Official home of Yosys, the open-source Verilog RTL synthesis framework, offering documentation, tutorials, and examples to help FPGA/ASIC designers build and optimize circuits with Yosys and related tools.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://yosyshq.net

**Tags:** websites, engineering-manufacturing, electrical-engineering

## Courses

### 1. VLSI CAD Part I: Logic

Rob Rutenbar's Coursera course on the algorithms inside chip design tools, covering computational Boolean algebra, BDDs, satisfiability-based verification, and two-level and multi-level logic synthesis. You finish able to explain how a synthesis tool actually transforms logic.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-logic

**Tags:** vlsi, logic-synthesis, eda, boolean-algebra, formal-verification

### 2. Digital Systems: From Logic Gates to Processors

A UAB course building digital design from combinational logic and finite state machines up to a simple processor, using VHDL and educational CAD tools. Ends with a working understanding of instruction sets, microprograms, and machine-level operation.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-systems

**Tags:** digital-design, vhdl, logic-gates, computer-architecture, finite-state-machines

## Books

### 1. CMOS VLSI Design

**Author:** Neil H. E. Weste, David Money Harris

The standard graduate text on CMOS circuit and system design, covering MOS device behavior, static and dynamic logic families, interconnect, timing, power, memory arrays, and testing. Works as both a course book and a practicing designer's reference.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321269772?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, engineering-manufacturing, electrical-engineering

### 2. Digital Integrated Circuits

**Author:** Jan M. Rabaey, Anantha Chandrakasan, Borivoje Nikolic

Rabaey's design-perspective text derives digital circuit behavior from device physics, then builds through inverters, combinational and sequential logic, arithmetic units, memory, and interconnect. Emphasizes the delay, power, and reliability trade-offs that govern real nanometer designs.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/8120312449?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, engineering-manufacturing, electrical-engineering

---

*This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge*

*Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).*

View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/vlsi-and-fpga