digital Lab report

Write a lab report (due in one week) describing what you did, what you learned about FPGAs and VHDL development. In your report, make sure to answer the following questions:

· Describe FPGAs as you would to the management of a company you work for, if you had been asked to evaluate them for possible use. What kinds of projects could make use of FPGAs? (Your manager is an executive, not an engineer.)

o Would you recommend FPGAs for prototyping? Why or why not?

o Would you recommend them for small-scale production runs?

Why or why not? What factors would influence this decision?

o Your company is bidding on a contract to make ten million mp3 players, but they each need to be as inexpensive as possible.

§ Would you recommend developing the code in VHDL?

Why or why not?

§ If so, would you recommend using an FPGA in the design?

Why or why not?

· Describe the circuit that you programmed for this lab.
o What does it do? Does it seem to work correctly?
o How many digital inputs and outputs does it have?
o Could it be made more efficient? If so, how?

· Look at the Boolean equations in the VHDL code.
o How many gate equivalents does it use (AND, OR, and NOT)?

o If this were implemented on a small FPGA (of 100,000 gates),

what percentage of its capacity would be used?

(Show your calculations.)

· What is code reuse? How did we use it in Exercise 2?
o How much faster did you complete Exercise 2 than Exercise 1?

This is largely a result of not having to "re-invent the wheel."
o Assume that your time costs your employer $50 per hour, and that you work forty