FPGA Course: Learn the Fundamentals of VHDL and FPGA

This article introduces one of the most popular FPGA courses on Udemy. The FPGA course, which taught students how to start with VHDL and FPGA programming, got 3934 students with 4.4 rating.

The instructor agreed to provide FPGA4student readers with the opportunity to get the course with 91% OFF. The coupon link to the course is HERE.

The course details are described below. 

How will you learn?

You will learn by doing the real programming. All the code and examples are explained in tutoring videos. After you adjust the existing code or you create your own, you will run simulations to verify it. If you are interested to run your code on a real hardware (not required, but much more fun), we recommend Altera or Xilinx boards. 

What will you learn?

Learn the Essentials of VHDL and FPGA Development is course that will teach you the fundamentals and basics of VHDL design. In this course you will be working through various projects that will require you to go through the entire FPGA development process. You will be guided through the coding of the actual VHDL to the synthesis using either Xilinx’s development tool, Vivado or Altera development tool Quartus. There are 8 projects in this course:

• Buttons & LEDs
  A project that is designed to teach students the very basics of VHDL as well as how to make specific pins on an FPGA inputs (buttons) and outputs (LEDs).

• Blinky LEDs
  Students will learn how to create a counter in VHDL in order to simultaneously turn multiple LEDs on and off in unison.

• LED Brightness
  This project will have students create 3 VHDL designs, a PWM design to control the brightness of the LEDs, a counter to vary the duty cycle, and a top level design to pull everything together.

• UART Demonstration
  Students will be introduced to softcore processors and use them to display a “Hello World” message on a serial port terminal.

• UART I/O
  In the project students will build upon the ability to transmit messages using the softcore processor to read messages. Students will learn how to interpret messages coming from the computer to the FPGA in order to read the status of various peripherals on the board.

• AD Processing
  This project will have students perform an analog to digital conversion. As an example, they sense the temperature.

• SPI Interface (Arty A7 Only)
  In this project students will learn how to work with SPI interface. They will load existing designs onto the external flash memory chip to have the FPGA configure itself through the SPI interface.

• I2C Interface (DE10 Nano Only)
  In this project students will learn how to work with I2C. They will load an embedded Linux operating system onto the DE10 Nano development board. They will then run a program that interfaces with the onboard accelerometer to display the g forces the sensor reads.

All of the required background and knowledge to complete each project will be explained prior to completing the project. There are demonstration videos and walk-throughs for each project so that you can have a deep understanding of how the project works.

About the instructor

Jordan Christman graduated from the University of Dayton with his Bachelor's degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering Technology. He also graduated from UD with his Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. He has strong knowledge in FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) development, Digital Electronics, Circuit Board design, and VHDL design and modeling of hardware systems. Jordan's focus of study in school was embedded systems which involve circuit design, firmware development, implementation of computer hardware, and the interfacing of computer operating systems. Jordan's hobbies include mobile application development, layout, and assembly of PCB's (Printed Circuit Boards), computer application programming, and anything related to electrical engineering.

Recommended FPGA projects for students:

1. What is FPGA? How does FPGA work?

2. Basys 3 FPGA OV7670 Camera

3. How to load text file or image into FPGA

4. Image processing on FPGA using Verilog

5. License Plate Recognition on FPGA

6. Alarm Clock on FPGA using Verilog

7. Digital Clock on FPGA using VHDL

8. Simple Verilog code for debouncing buttons on FPGA

9. Traffic Light Controller on FPGA

10. Car Parking System on FPGA in Verilog

11. VHDL code for comparator on FPGA

12. Verilog code for Multiplier on FPGA

13. N-bit Ring Counter in VHDL on FPGA

14. Verilog implementation of Microcontroller on FPGA

15. Verilog Carry Look Ahead Multiplier on FPGA

16. VHDL Matrix Multiplication on FPGA Xilinx

17. Fixed Point Matrix Multiplication on FPGA using Verilog

18. Verilog Divider on FPGA

19. VHDL code for Microcontroller on FPGA

20. VHDL code for FIR Filter on FPGA

21. Verilog code for Digital logic components on FPGA

22. Delay Timer Implementation on FPGA using Verilog

23. Single-Cycle MIPS processor on FPGA using Verilog

24. FIFO Verilog Implementation on FPGA

25. FIFO VHDL Implementation on FPGA

26. Verilog D Flip Flop on FPGA

27. Comparator Design on FPGA using Verilog

28. D Flip Flop on FPGA using VHDL

29. Full Adder Design on FPGA using Verilog

30. Full Adder Design on FPGA using VHDL

31. Counters on FPGA with Verilog Testbench

32. RISC Processor Design on FPGA using Verilog

33. Verilog test bench for inout ports on FPGA

34. PWM Generator on FPGA using VHDL

35. Tic Tac Toe Game on FPGA using Verilog

36. VHDL code for ALU on FPGA

37. Verilog code for ALU on FPGA

38. Counter design on FPGA with VHDL test bench

39. Pipelined MIPS Processor on FPGA in Verilog (Part-1)

40. Pipelined MIPS Processor on FPGA in Verilog (Part-2)

41. Pipelined MIPS Processor on FPGA in Verilog (Part-3)

42. Verilog Decoder on FPGA

43. Verilog Multiplexers on FPGA

44. N-bit Adder Design on FPGA in Verilog

45. VHDL ALU on FPGA using N-bit Verilog Adder

46. VHDL Shifter on FPGA

47. Lookup Table VHDL example code on FPGA

48. Coprocessor VHDL Implementation on FPGA

49. Affordable Xilinx FPGA boards for beginners
50. Affordable Altera FPGA boards for beginners