Introduction to Digital Systems: Modeling, Synthesis, and Simulation Using VHDL

4.12 SUBCIRCUIT DESIGN

VHDL provides many high-level features that help a designer manage complex designs. In fact, design management is one of VHDL's key strengths compared to alternative design entry languages and methods. Like modularity features (functions and procedures), design partitioning is another important aspect of design management. Design partitioning goes beyond simpler design modularity methods to provide comprehensive design management across multiple projects and to allow alternative structural implementations to be tried out with minimal effort. Design partitioning is particularly useful for those designs being developed in a team environment, as it promotes cooperative design efforts and well-defined system interfaces.