newbie looking for Xilinx help

[whitehat09]

Hi everyone,
Im a masters student at the University of New Hampshire. For my thesis I
working with a software defined radio (WARP from rice university) whic
uses a Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA. Previous to becoming a MS student I hav
mostly used matlab for coding, had 1 course on C 4+ years ago, and
experience with VHDL. So its safe to say Im having a difficult tim
understanding how Xilinx EDK/ISE works or even simple c header files. Wha
Im looking for is any material that would give a better understanding o
what the files are doing and how to better appreciate FPGAs. I was hopin
for web links, books, etc. specific to xilinx but I expect anything anyon
here suggests would be a great help.

Thanks



---------------------------------------
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com

 

[Emanuele83]

On Jan 25, 1:44 pm, "whitehat09" <whitehat09@n_o_s_p_a_m.gmail.com>
wrote:

Hi everyone,
Im a masters student at the University of New Hampshire. For my thesis Im
working with a software defined radio (WARP from rice university) which
uses a Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA. Previous to becoming a MS student I have
mostly used matlab for coding, had 1 course on C 4+ years ago, and 0
experience with VHDL. So its safe to say Im having a difficult time
understanding how Xilinx EDK/ISE works or even simple c header files. What
Im looking for is any material that would give a better understanding of
what the files are doing and how to better appreciate FPGAs. I was hoping
for web links, books, etc. specific to xilinx but I expect anything anyone
here suggests would be a great help.

Thanks

---------------------------------------        
Posted throughhttp://www.FPGARelated.com

this is a VHDL primer

http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~ese201/vhdl/vhdl_primer.html

it is useful to understand how VHDL works. Please note that VHDL can
be used not only for FPGA, but also for other applications.
It might be useful if you have an idea of what is logic synthesis, how
digital electronics works from the HW point of view, and the internal
structure of an FPGA. Xilinx's white papers should be useful.

here a book that can be a beginning, a learn by example path to
follow:
http://www.amazon.com/FPGA-Prototyping-VHDL-Examples-Spartan-3/dp/0470185317

you can find a preview on google books. Please buy it (is not so
expensive and if you are a student it can be purchased by your
University) and do not download it from some weird locations like
rapidshare or emule or torrent or something else. The contents are not
guaranteed in that case!

http://books.google.com/books?id=mwUV7ZK9l9gC&printsec=frontcover&dq=FPGA+Prototyping+by+VHDL+Examples:+Xilinx+Spartan-3+Version&hl=en&src=bmrr&ei=89s-TajSHcrj4gbExbHCCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

regards
Emanuele