Whether you are teaching a workshop or course using this book or learning to design digital hardware on your own, we would like to point out that the following resources are available to accompany the book:

1. You can download the source code for all 76 VHDL examples in this book by going to the URL given in the book.

2. There are 112 short video modules available on YouTube™ that range from 3 – 15 minutes each, with an average length of approximately 7 minutes, to provide visual and audio instruction on the topics and examples contained in this book. These serve as excellent tutorials or follow-up materials for students to review concepts taught in a lecture course.

You can search LBE Books on YouTube™ or go directly to our video playlist at:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7kkolCtIBKLukrBsEDwKRTE64JvaJDhM

3. Instructors at academic institutions can request PowerPoint Lecture slides for the entire book by emailing admin@lbebooks.com

Topic Order and Lecture Support for Instructors

This book was designed to be modular. It can be used to present digital design in the traditional format starting with combinational logic followed by sequential logic and design. Alternatively, it can be used to teach a digital design course using problem-based learning, described below. The following tips are from instructors who have had notable success using this book:

1. Assign one or more videos (a total of 15-25 minutes) for students to watch before coming to the lecture. These may be videos containing review material so that you do not have to spend time reviewing in class or videos that explain new topics that you are going to cover in class so that students come prepared. You may also wish to give a short pre-lecture quiz at the beginning of class or assign a short homework assignment that the student can easily complete while watching the videos to turn in on the day of the lecture to ensure that students are prepared.

2. Instead of using the book in order which presents concepts in a traditional order, follow a problem-based approach in which students are taught to design components based on problem statements and circuits designed in class. This means that components are taught as-needed, therefore, combinational and sequential components are taught concurrently. This way, students can get to meaningful design earlier in the course.

An example of this that has been employed in a Junior-level course is starting with presenting the problem of creating a circuit to compute the GCD for two integers using Euclid’s GCD. The topics for lecture would follow the book order from the beginning including examples 1 through 10 for introductory concepts, VHDL syntax including port maps, and multiplexers. Following Example 10 would be comparators including Example 21, adders and subtractors including Examples 27 through 31, and latches and registers including Examples 37 through 44. This completes the knowledge and components to design a digital circuit for Euclid’s GCD. Then, other problems could be presented such as computing the integer square root, a mouse driver, a keyboard driver, a VGA controller, and more, eventually covering all topics in the course objectives.