This chapter presents tools and environments that are based on Verilog and are available to a hardware designer for automating his or her design process, and hence improving the final product’s time to market. We discuss steps involved in taking a hierarchical, high-level design from a Verilog description of the design to its implementation in hardware. Processes and terminologies are illustrated here. We discuss available electronic design automation (EDA) tools that are based on Verilog, and talk about their role in an automated design environment. The last section of this chapter discusses some of the properties of Verilog that make this language a good choice for designers and modelers of hardware.

Reproduced from the book Verilog Digital System Design. Copyright © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies. Reproduced by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies. Written permission from The McGraw-Hill Companies is required for all other uses.